Imaginary Museums by Nicolette Polek (2020)
Imaginary Museums by Nicolette Polek (2020)
American Interiors
The Dance
It is as though the lexis of their feelings is a separate creature within the house. Like a fat cat that holds all their secrets and stolen glances. Howling, obese, and grumpy, the keeper of their true feelings, bursting with things that want to be said (24).
Esme wonders if, eventually, while appearing to be gracious to each other, they will end up spending weeks, or months, or maybe even many years, inside their house, in separate rooms, looking out from separate windows and desiring a thing, a person, or a place that is very far away (24).
Imaginary Museums
To Annie, this museum and the city was “the perfect fix” that could help her move on. She also knew that she briefly thrived on illusory successes. She enjoyed that feeling of being propelled forward, whether or not it was real. She’d always loved even the shimmer of an out, a trapdoor from her heart (32).
Library of Lost Things
Field Notes
Do you see beavers building their dams nearby? It is a little-known fact that beavers dislike the sound of rushing water. It drives them to do anything to block it out, to make dams (58).
Erica currently has seven open tabs on her browser:
1. A Google Flights price graph for a trip she’ll probably never take.
2. A YouTube playlist of “stimulating classical music.”
3. A spreadsheet of due dates for jobs located in places she’s never been to, like Connecticut and the Netherlands.
4. A Google search of “How many wonders are in the modern world now?”
5. A Google search of her name.
6. A Google search of her nemesis’s name.
7. A Google search of the local librarian’s name, who has a level of serenity that she wishes she could have (59-60).
Once, Erica bought a gray skirt from a secondhand store. It was the perfect length and made her feel like the schoolgirl with levity she’d once been. Before she put it in the wash, she noticed some markings-the times table, the Fibonacci sequence, a Civil War time line, and two phone numbers, labeled Kevin and Hookup, in permanent marker under the front flap. Erica tried wearing the skirt three separate times after washing, but felt weighed down by the leftover noise it carried (60).
Erica reaches a bluff, reminiscent of the rocks that lure people to die in Picnic at Hanging Rock. Erica remembers the part where Miranda, in her white dress, takes off her stockings and starts to climb, defying the grasps of the teachers and girls who call her to come back to the world. But Miranda wants timelessness, because that means to want shapelessness, so she disappears into the rocks to get rid of the body and its restrictions on knowledge.
The internet makes it easy to be seen and vanish completely at the same time. “An ethereal corset that traps everyone in the same unnatural shape” (60-1).
American Interiors
The Dance
It is as though the lexis of their feelings is a separate creature within the house. Like a fat cat that holds all their secrets and stolen glances. Howling, obese, and grumpy, the keeper of their true feelings, bursting with things that want to be said (24).
Esme wonders if, eventually, while appearing to be gracious to each other, they will end up spending weeks, or months, or maybe even many years, inside their house, in separate rooms, looking out from separate windows and desiring a thing, a person, or a place that is very far away (24).
Imaginary Museums
To Annie, this museum and the city was “the perfect fix” that could help her move on. She also knew that she briefly thrived on illusory successes. She enjoyed that feeling of being propelled forward, whether or not it was real. She’d always loved even the shimmer of an out, a trapdoor from her heart (32).
Library of Lost Things
Field Notes
Do you see beavers building their dams nearby? It is a little-known fact that beavers dislike the sound of rushing water. It drives them to do anything to block it out, to make dams (58).
Erica currently has seven open tabs on her browser:
1. A Google Flights price graph for a trip she’ll probably never take.
2. A YouTube playlist of “stimulating classical music.”
3. A spreadsheet of due dates for jobs located in places she’s never been to, like Connecticut and the Netherlands.
4. A Google search of “How many wonders are in the modern world now?”
5. A Google search of her name.
6. A Google search of her nemesis’s name.
7. A Google search of the local librarian’s name, who has a level of serenity that she wishes she could have (59-60).
Once, Erica bought a gray skirt from a secondhand store. It was the perfect length and made her feel like the schoolgirl with levity she’d once been. Before she put it in the wash, she noticed some markings-the times table, the Fibonacci sequence, a Civil War time line, and two phone numbers, labeled Kevin and Hookup, in permanent marker under the front flap. Erica tried wearing the skirt three separate times after washing, but felt weighed down by the leftover noise it carried (60).
Erica reaches a bluff, reminiscent of the rocks that lure people to die in Picnic at Hanging Rock. Erica remembers the part where Miranda, in her white dress, takes off her stockings and starts to climb, defying the grasps of the teachers and girls who call her to come back to the world. But Miranda wants timelessness, because that means to want shapelessness, so she disappears into the rocks to get rid of the body and its restrictions on knowledge.
The internet makes it easy to be seen and vanish completely at the same time. “An ethereal corset that traps everyone in the same unnatural shape” (60-1).