The Museum of Natural Sights

(Trigger Warning: Substance Abuse, Discussion of Suicide, and Violence)

Walking down the street, I notice a peculiar yet seemingly familiar figure making their way into the Museum of Natural Sights. They wear a dark-blue hoodie which covers most of their face, so I cannot quite identify the person, but the light-blue and fearful eyes I caught remind me of a friend I promised to bring on a date here a long time ago. Then again, it is much like me to see the faces of people I have once known when they aren’t here anymore. I just shake my head to forget the face and take the crosswalk toward the museum. I have an appointment with a client there, and we are to meet at the cafe just inside the museum. She wants an appraisal for an artifact she believes to be from ancient Egypt, some kind of decorative pot. She is interested in selling the item to the museum for our “Ancient Egypt” section, but I first have to actually determine if the pot is legitimate and what condition it is in.

I head up the stairs to the main entrance of the museum and make my way inside. The reception area is about the size of half a football field and almost as tall as a skyscraper. I am greeted by the solar system swirling around on the dome screen built into the ceiling. The lighting is always slightly dark, with the only lighting coming from the screen on top and a few lanterns hanging on the walls. I make my way through the metal detectors and then take a right toward the brightly lit cafe. Before the cafe is a dimly lit green neon sign that reads “Cafe”, as though we can’t tell by the bright lights and sounds inside.

The inside of the cafe is packed tighter than a can of sardines. That is no issue though, as there is a dedicated section for small appraisals. While it may not seem smart to appraise ancient artifacts inside a restaurant, we ask for all owners to bring their relics in a protective glass case, whether we meet in the office or in the cafe. I only schedule appointments in the cafe if I’m hungry and want something to eat before we start the meeting, which should not be until another fifteen minutes. A bit casual, I know, but I can’t let my hunger cloud my thoughts.

I order a hot dog with fries and a soda at the cash register. After waiting a few minutes, I grab my plate of food with one hand and my briefcase in the other before making my way to the roped off section of the restaurant. The briefcase contains forms that must be filled out whenever an acquisition or donation is made, as well as a small package of disposable gloves for handling any items. I step around the rope barrier and take a seat at one of the booths, placing my food on the table and my briefcase next to me. And right as I am about to enjoy my scintillating, juicy hot dog, a hooded figure snatches it out of my hand. My hands hang in the air for a moment until my brain processes that the hot dog is gone. Then, I scornfully stare down the figure next to me.

“Do we have a problem here?” I ask the person, unsure if whether they are a man or a woman.

“No,” the person says in a womanly voice whilst looking away from me. Then, she scarfs down the hot dog in almost one go. “The only problem I had was I was hungry.”

“So you just steal peoples’ food right in front of them? I should report you to security.”

“I guess you could, but they won’t do anything except laugh that your dog was sent home packing.” She laughs to herself, though I don’t find her joke amusing.

“What are you talking about? Is there something wrong with you?”

“Maybe there is, but I think you would know.”

The woman then turns to me, her ghastly face smirking at me as if I am to know her. She looks much like the person I saw heading inside the museum, but her face reminds me of someone much more than just a stranger.

“Well, I wouldn’t know because I don’t know who you are. At least, I only know you as a petty thief. Are you going to pay me for my hot dog or what?” My stomach growls in anticipation of the food that was stolen from me.

“You still haven’t paid me back for the hot dog you took from me all those years ago. I was just taking back what was mine.” She then sits down across from me with an impish grin.

“What are you on about? I’ve never even seen you before.” I take my black wallet from my pants pocket and pull out a twenty-dollar bill. “If I give you this, will you go away?”

“Not until you remember who I am.” Her face turns more serious as she looks into my eyes. I can’t recall who she is, but she seems very adamant that I must know her in some manner. I’ve had a few friends who were pale and had blue eyes, but I can’t think of anyone like her. She has low, masculine cheekbones and a slightly defined jawline, but I can’t think of anyone I know currently who has those features as a woman.

I shrug.

“I don’t know what to tell you, there’s no one who I know who looks like you. There is someone who I used to know many years ago, but she died from a drug overdose fifteen years ago.” She looks on in curiosity, as though she wants me to finish whatever story she thinks I have. Though, the more I look at her, the more she resembles Caitlyn. “Her parents called me from her cell phone and told me what happened. She had taken a bunch of pain pills with a liter of vodka. Her parents took her to the hospital, but she still died.”

Recounting the short story saddens me, but it embarrasses me to share it with a random stranger.

“That was it?”

I look in her eyes and say, “Yeah, her parents told me she died, and then I threw my phone at the wall as hard as I could. It put a hole in the wall and my phone was destroyed. There wasn’t any sort of happy ending you were expecting, were you?”

She then starts cackling like a madwoman out of nowhere. It sounds like she is trying to talk, but her laughter chokes her up before any words come out.

“Is there something funny about someone dying to you?” I ask, angry and confused.

“Yes! Because she is not actually dead!” She exclaims through laughter, much to my confusion.

“What? Are you saying you are her? Are you some kind of deranged person that takes pleasure in fucking with people?” I can’t help but let my emotions get the better of me, but it does seem to slow down her laughing.

“Only when those people are people I know personally.” She calms down and tries to hide her smirk. “But on a serious note, you are a lot more uptight than you used to be.”

“Well, when the person who you loved died by her own hands while visiting her parents, it tends to make you a bit upset. And you were the one wanting to hear about her for whatever reason. Just leave before I get security to get you off the property, I have an appointment with a client very soon, and I don’t want your bullshit ruining the meeting.”

She looks to her right at the tile flooring. Then, she gives another shit eating grin.

“Did she want you to look at a decorative pot?”

Dumbfounded, I say, “Yeah, don’t tell me…”

She then unzips her hoodie, revealing a plain gray tank-top. Then, she pulls out something I didn’t expect to see today. She holds up a blunt wrapped in some weird bright colors and patterns. I just look on in awe for a moment before cackling uncontrollably, something I haven’t done in over fifteen years. I try to motion for her to put the blunt away before someone catches what she is holding up. After laughing for almost an eternity, I think I finally understand what is going on here.

“We should go outside. I don’t want us to get in trouble.” I quickly grab my briefcase and stand up before leading her out of the museum. It is a good thing the museum can’t detect drugs. As we race through the building, I can feel tears running down my eyes that I try to wipe away with the palm of my hand.

Outside at the bottom of the steps, I give Caitlyn a big hug, one that I hadn’t given her in such a long time. After sharing a tight embrace for who knows how long, we part and I can’t help but smile.

“So, that was the decorative pot from Egypt you got?” I chuckle at the stupid joke. “My favorite color too, but I haven’t smoked in a very long time.”

“Well, at least you remember what you liked.” she laughs as she puts her hands into her hoodie. Her red face and runny nose tells me that she was crying from joy as well, probably when we were leaving the building.

“So. You’re alive. What actually happened?” I ask before motioning her to take a seat with me on the steel bench nearby.

“Well, the doctors believed I had complete organ failure and died. What actually happened was that I flat-lined for a few minutes, and one of the nurses told my parents that I was dead. However, the doctors kept attempting to revive me, and I eventually came back in a comatose state. My parents said they were trying to call you for so many days and even tried going to your apartment, but you just vanished out of nowhere.”

We sit next to each other on the bench and look out to the traffic whizzing past us. I feel like such a fool. She was alive this whole time, and I was living like she had died for fifteen years. So much has happened since then.

“What happened after you left the hospital? I imagine that it was very hard for you still, right?” I ask in a guilt, afraid that I only made her life worse by vanishing.

“Well, the doctors recommended I stay with my parents whilst attending therapy and rehab for my alcohol problems. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to be with you. But with you gone, I had to stay with them, which I thought was better than some in-patient clinic. I managed to get through rehab for twelve weeks, but it only took a few weeks after for me to start drinking again.”

She looks down at her feet with a scowl, her face turning more red than when she was crying.

“I never attended therapy, and I never could stop drinking for more than a few hours. Eventually, my parents couldn’t deal with me anymore and kicked me out. I was homeless and angry at them, but I at least had a car and a job. I slept in my car and would get my check from my parents’ house once a week, but I actually never saw them again since the day they kicked me out. They would just leave my mail under the doormat and anytime I knocked on the door to talk to them, they would just tell me to go away, like I was some dirty animal.”

Caitlyn starts crying again, but this time in sadness rather than joy.

“Sorry,” she says while wiping her tears. “I just can’t believe what I’ve done to myself for so long.”

I feel awful for her, but I don’t know what to say. Her parents tried to help her as much as they could before they just couldn’t anymore. However, she’s still alive and managed to find me in another city, so something good must have gone her way.

“How’d you find me? After fifteen years of being apart with no communication, how’d you know where I was?” I ask.

She looks afraid and guilty, but stifles her tears and begins to speak.

“You used to talk about how you always wanted to arrange a date for us to eat at the cafe here, fawning about wanting to work as a curator and appraiser. This was the first place I looked for you at.”

I’m trying to remember what I would have been doing after she “died”. I would have been working here as a janitor I think, just starting off so I could train to be a curator at the museum. But if she knew I was here, then why did she wait so long to talk to me?

“When did you first find me?”

“2009.”

“One year after you… died?”

She gives an exasperated sigh, something she would only do when she was very uncomfortable.

“If I am being honest, I was very angry with you at the time. I felt that you abandoned and betrayed me. I just saw that stupid smile you would have entering and leaving the museum every day you worked and it made me even more angry with each passing day. I would watch from a distance just to see if you would be mad just for one day, but I couldn’t even get that.” She sounds angry still, but maybe not as much as she once was. “It was like you forgot I even existed within the year.”

We sit here in silence for a few minutes, just staring at the ground. My nerves may be getting the best of me, as I can’t think of anything to say. Something seems to be wrong with her still.

“You were watching me for so long, but you never approached me at all? I would have been so happy to see you alive! I just don’t understand why you waited so long.” I say.

She then looks into my eyes with a dark coldness in them before saying, “I wanted to kill you because you left me.”

My eyes widen and my blood runs cold.

“I managed to save up enough money to get a cheap apartment in the ratty side of this city. Then, I was able to steal a gun from one of my former neighbors in the complex. I thought that I would eventually get the courage to just run up to you and shoot you in the head.” She looks away to the ground for a moment before standing up. “But I never could do it. Every day I was just waiting for the right moment and courage to do it, but I just couldn’t do it.”

I shift uneasily in my seat before saying, “Cait, you’re scaring me. Surely you must be joking.”

She then stares daggers into me with her cold blue eyes, as though she could kill me with just her looks.

“You really think I would joke about this? No! You left me and I felt like getting revenge. And if I still felt that way, I would have already done it. No. I threw the gun out and tried to forget about you, like you did about me. I could never forget about you though. I stopped drinking and tried to better myself through the years just so I could be with you again. And here we are now!”

She gives me a deranged smile and forcefully places her hands on my shoulders. What is wrong with her eyes? She was just furious with me a few seconds ago, but now she looks like she’s about to explode in joy. I don’t think I can stay here much longer.

“Please! Take me with you! I can’t stand being without you any longer!” she yells before forcefully kissing my lips. I push her off and start to feel my heart racing faster than a professional race car driver.

“What is wrong with you! You are so different than what you were before!” I shout before standing up to leave. “Look, I’m married now with two kids, and as much as I loved you before, you are not the Caitlyn I once knew.”

“But this is how I always was!” She shrieks before seizing my body, holding me so tight like she would die if she let go. “Leave those stupid kids and that wife of yours! You said you wanted to be with me and only me!”

“That was before I thought you died and before I found out what you are doing now!” I struggle to get out of her hold but eventually pull myself out of her grasp.

She then looks at me in shock, as though she doesn’t know what is wrong with her.

“Wow! You really are going to make me do this?” She asks in a threatening manner.

“Do what?” I nervously ask, afraid she might shoot me after all this time.

She stands there for a minute before looking to the traffic just feet away. Then, before I can even move, she runs and jumps in front of a red pickup truck barreling down the road. The loud thump of her body smacking against the truck sets off a bomb in my nervous system, causing me to fall to the ground. The truck tries to stop, but it is far too late. I start to pass out before hearing the muffled yelling of a man asking if I am okay. But it is too late, as I black out into darkness.