A story by Journey Hart.
There was a little art museum in a small little town, almost directly beside the harshest sea in all of Scotland. Inside this gray little town and inside the colorful little art museum, a single, enormous painting hung on the wall. The villagers called it the “Blessed Art”, as the picture was so beautiful and detailed, watching it closely would transport your mind to a different world, one of great waterfalls and vibrant flowers. It was a rumor among the townspeople that if you caught the painting moving, great fortune would come to you. This, of course, brought tourists. And this, of course, brought museum guards.
There were only two who needed to be on duty at a time in this tiny little museum. They stood on each side of the painting, watching the usual round of overexcited foreigners walk through, taking pictures and chattering about how majestic it looked. They never moved, they never smiled, never waved or said hello. They were statues. That is, until someone stepped too close to that towering painting. It was strange, the tourists would often think, how quickly that person would be escorted out of the museum. But it did its purpose and kept people away from the single painting in the middle of that tiny museum.
One day, one of the guards went to the bathroom on duty.
On that day, a little girl went missing.
It was a tragic story. The parents told it quite emphatically, perhaps with some theatrics in it. They insisted that their little girl was taken by that museum guard that had left the painting’s side. Nothing had ever happened like this before, until the museum guard left his post. Therefore, it must have been he who had committed this crime, and he who must be punished.
The town did punish the guard, but nothing was done about the little girl. No one tried to search for her except those terrified parents who cried to anyone who would listen about their child, how desperately they needed to get her back. The villagers would nod with sympathy, sadness swelling in their eyes. But they would walk away with that burden on themselves and do nothing more.
Eventually, the parents left that town, that little town that now had tragedy hanging over it.
And no one cared.
Now I, for one, do care. Or at least I did.
Years after the event happened, the girl’s parents came to me, asking if I would be able to work on the case and find their little girl. Fortunately, I had no other cases and decided that I could investigate the child’s disappearance. I didn’t believe for one second that the museum guard had done anything to the girl, so I went to the village and asked about the event, what had happened and what people thought about it. No one would answer me, so I went to the museum itself to search for information that I apparently had to gain on my own. The museum guards would say nothing to me, so I searched around that tiny museum to no avail. There were no clues, no witnesses, no alibis, no suspect, no criminal at all. It was as if no crime had ever happened there. That is, until I considered the painting that hung on the wall. That huge, hypnotizing beauty of an artwork. However, anytime I tried to get close, I would be pushed away by the guards.
Well, I pushed them back. And I got close enough to realize my mistake. The good news is I found the girl. The bad news is I can’t give her back to the parents. I have fallen into that beautiful painting. It really is a majestic place, and it really is quite lovely when you are in it. I even have a child now. But, if anyone comes down here and reads this note, I have only two things to say to you. One, come find me. Or the child, if I’m dead. Two, Get used to living in paradise. You’re not going back.