How do you like your tea

‘How do you like your tea?’
A voice to my right wrung hollow within the otherwise solemn emptiness of the museum corridor.
Neutral white walls washed into a wooden floor of dull grey, interlinking itself within jigsaw pattern and shifting focus to the abstract of colour and artistry adorning the art wing’s vaulted walls. Each neat rectangle of canvas and considered brush stroke so dappled in meaning that hours could be lost within the immersing contemplation of their beauty.

‘Thick,’ I replied hoping that my request would confuse the curator for long enough that he’d think me mad and avoid a pointless conversation. Curators always seemed to revel in points.

‘Very good sir,’ he proclaimed with a toffish sneer, ‘in the manner of the Dutch, a fine brew indeed,’ spinning on the spot the grey wisp of a man performed a militaristic little pirouette and made for the cafe in the way that only the educated type of human could choose to move: a direct, angular kind of shuffle that was as many parts perpendicular as it was preformed without knees or elbows.
In the distance I could hear the click of a kettle and the assembling of several brewing devices that clattered above the sounds of distant footfall.
I closed my eyes and hoped that this vacuum of white noise would settle my thoughts, ones that raced in drumming beat and gave unbound energy to the bounce of my leg. I, paranoid and feeling trapped within dream, reached my hand outward to touch the sheet of wrapped cloth upon the bench beside me, the corner of a frame just identifiable underneath its blanket swaddle.

‘Morning sir,’ the guard had said as I entered the museum that morning, holding a rectangle of cloth under my arm and guilt upon my face. He regarded me with the practiced way of many security guard before him, attempting to size up exactly how he would kick my legs from under my step if I outstrode the norm, ‘what’s that you’re bringing in today sir,’ his inflection a harbinger of impending violence veiled behind polite countenance.

‘A picture,’ I stuttered, ‘something I’ve just bought, I thought I’d take a stroll through the museum on my way home.’

The guard eyelessly blinked, holding the concentration of a viper, ‘No problem, just as long as it’s not anything like food or drink mind,’ he spoke, removing an invisible barricade into the museum and lazily reclining back into his swivel chair, ‘strict policies we have here sir.’

The moment was now.

A space upon the wall complete with hook, a square of absence that beckoned to be covered. I glanced along the corridor and saw no one, I strained my ears and heard only the rolling boil of a kettle, I coughed a breath of calm energy and felt my pulse racing with panic. With a flick I removed the frame from it’s cover and drew myself from the bench.
Standing in gliding motion I stepped toward the wall and tuned out the world around me. Each footfall seemingly hammering upon an anvil of active misdeed, but I was focused, only myself and the wall existed in this moment. Step after step budding bravery bloomed into radiance as I approached the wall vaulted toward the precipice.
With frame in my hand, the moment fell silent.

I lowered it onto the hook.

‘SIR! Unhand that painting this instant,’ the curator had returned with a mug in his hands and a shriek in his lungs.
Broiling with visible rage he approached me and loomed as close as his ingrained politeness would allow.

‘Ah… Sorry,’ I stuttered as I drew my hands back, unprepared for being caught in the act. ‘It was crooked; I only wanted to help.’ I let gravity take hold of my impostorus painting and took a slight step back from the raging coil of tailored clothes and considered grooming that glowered before me. The painting was hung, I’d gotten that far…

‘You will do no such thing!’ the curator barked. ‘There are no crooked pictures in this gallery sir,’ he spat with bile, unable to contain his anger, ‘I personally see to each piece’s orientation, and I’d like to remind you that this is a place for looking, sir, for looking. Do you know that that word means hmm? Looking?’ his inflection screamed murder and the echo of the corridor seemed to double it so.

Raising my hands in placation I stepped back and made for the exit: a green figure sprinting through a rectangle, safety illuminated.

‘Good, good,’ I tried to sound friendly as I kept moving backward, catching parting glances of my first artwork hung upon a museum wall: and one that I may never get to see again. ‘I really meant no harm. I’ll leave, I’m leaving, no need to be angry.’
Retreating the slow race of a small man angrily shuffling with a cup of tea, I bumbled out into the light of the afternoon and almost stepped on top of the security guard who had taken perch upon the steps to smoke a cigarette.

‘Oi oi, careful sir,’ he exhaled, showing no signs of surprise or desire to move. ‘You’re likely to trip over a fella if you don’t look where you’re going.’

Mumbling a brief apology I darted off into the bustle of the CBD once more, feeling accomplished in my act of reverse thievery.
An artist, I was finally an artist!