It is irreverent to the Gods to give you this demonstration, 
but for your sakes it shall be done 

– Iamblichus Chalcidensis

‘When the museum first made contact with the objective reality of the city three decades ago Karim theorised that it was a philosophical ambiguity.  By way of paraphrasing de Beauvoir, Karim suggested that “since we cannot see the museum, let us instead look it in the face.”    

‘Karim believed that the museum subsequently acquired subjective reality twelve years ago, during the weekend of the first annual regatta.   Since then however, and despite the museum’s inexorable growth, I doubt that many (including myself) have actually observed it. 

‘In Kendrick’s view, this is not because the museum cannot be seen; on the contrary, I have read that it can hardly be missed by virtue of its immense size (spreading across thirty city blocks when Karim carried out his final measurements).  And yet, it is undeniably strange that successive civic polls indicate that, as time passes, fewer and fewer are aware of its apparent existence. 

‘According to Kendrick, what the museum lacks is the slightest degree of noticeability, which he states is an entirely different concept to that of visibility.  Kendrick believes that the museum has grown into such a monumentally nondescript building that it simply blends in with the adjoining architecture.   

‘Since Karim’s early writings, numerous other books have been published regarding the supposed origins of the museum and its mythology.   Most are clearly works of fiction, and make no attempt to pretend otherwise.  A few are scholarly in nature, claiming to understand, like Karim, what the museum was, is, or will become.

‘Karim recalls that, according to Kenyon, the museum subsequently reappeared in the environs of a remote mountain hamlet, north-east of Brno, although once again, it was not recognised for what it was until much later, by which time it was preparing to leave.  In reading Kenyon’s incomplete report, smuggled out of the country after his disappearance, it can be seen that he was a very disturbed individual, as can be ascertained by this excerpt from his report:

“I am finally inside the museum.  I think I have always been inside it.  In practical terms, its interior dimensions are unmeasurable.  It feels infinitely vast yet noxiously claustrophobic. There is something rather unearthly about its construction… the noise I can hear is getting louder and (illegible).”

‘Later, Kenyon writes that “there seems to be no artwork in the gallery, which is terribly odd.”  And then “the increasingly poor light has deceived me.  The gallery is in fact stuffed to the gills with art, but the art is hiding in plain sight, its uniformly grey colour camouflaged by grey walls… every piece of art hanging on every wall is made of stone!  Not just the preponderance of statues and abstract installations that obstruct my passage, but the actual paintings hanging on the walls – everything appears to be made of stone…the frames, the ‘paint’ on the canvas.   Touch them and one feels cold hard stone!”

‘Just before the report prematurely ends, Kenyon refers to feeling an overpowering sense of dread as he wanders the endless gallery, which is compounded when he claims to see a stone lizard moving silently in the shadows.

‘Meanwhile, in Kasper’s somewhat lurid work of fiction, his protagonist Kavan travels to the obscure city state of Pretania, and believes herself to have attained eternal sanctity in the ruins of a museum.   In the crumbling gallery, Kavan happens across an enormous painting, unlike anything she has seen before.  In the modern style, it depicts an immense black sun, high in an oily grey sky that blankets a flat landscape of derelict buildings and stunted trees.

‘Already unstable, Kavan develops an existential psychosis in response to the painting. She babbles incoherently, the museum guide watching her with a mixture of fear and disgust.

“You are perhaps wondering where all the inhabitants of the city are,” said the voice in Kavan’s head.  “They have not lived here for some time.”

‘In her psychosis, Kavan cannot know whether the voice is referring to the scene of foreboding desolation in the painting or the ruined world beyond the museum.

‘Kemper’s book, meanwhile, sold poorly.   This is generally ascribed to its overtly metaphysical plot and Kemper’s characteristically clinical prose, although I enjoyed this book most of all, its parsimonious paragraphs punching softly at the reader:

‘In the museum, a basilisk made of stone waits patiently.

‘The city turns to stone as dust descends.

‘And through a dissolving fog that glitters in the dim light of the moon, we can see the entire landscape is being reimagined.

‘The basilisk waits patiently.  In the gloom, its eyes glitter with an inhuman transcendence.

‘In the gallery, artwork hanging on the walls is turning to stone.   Previously alive landscapes are becoming frozen in geologic time, inert and lifeless.

‘The basilisk waits patiently.  Its belief systems and neural networks are a mystery.

‘Nothing is happening here in this city of emerging stone.

“In the darkening sky, the stars are pebbles.  Emitting no light themselves, they simply reflect the dissolving photons that vector outwards from the city.

‘Across the chaotic immensity of time and space exist an infinite number of museums; in the centre of each museum is a gallery, and in the centre of each gallery is a basilisk, waiting patiently.

    ______________________

Approaching Kálfafell, the intense heat sucks at the air conditioned chill of the car.   

Looming ahead is the mirrored glass facade of the Museum of Eternal Sanctity, its entrance avenue lined with gigantic Albizias, light pouring from their outstretched leaves. 

The car crunches to a halt at the avenue terminus, the Albizias towering far overhead.  At my approach, the entrance doors swing silently open in greeting.  Inside the museum are cool white walls, polished chromium and weirdly displaced photons; refracted, kaleidoscopically distorted, as if the light is tying to penetrate an atmosphere made of broken glass. 

I am alone, and all is quiet.   So quiet in fact, that I realise sound inside the museum does not exist, cannot even exist.  I call out in a futile fashion, but no sound escapes my mouth.   

“In the centre of the museum is the gallery, and in the centre of the gallery is a basilisk that waits patiently in the gloom, eyes glittering with an inhuman transcendence as it surveys the endless traverse of time and space.”

With no sense of time having passed or of distance travelled, I find myself in the gallery.   Every piece of artwork is made of stone, except for an immense painting ahead of me.   In the modern style, it depicts an enormous black sun, high in an oily grey sky that blankets a flat landscape of derelict buildings and stunted trees.

“The painting is a feature of this space, but it is also an ancient memento of the museum’s truth.”

Standing before a vast and infinite mirror and stifling a silent scream, I observe the basilisk watching me, as I watch myself turn slowly to stone.    

This is the last thing I remember.

…

Dan McNeil is a UK based writer and artist, whose work has appeared in numerous places, including Alienist Manifesto, Antipodean SF, Bewildering Stories, Fugitives & Futurists, Full House Literary, Hyper-Annotation #001, Interzone Digital, Misery Tourism, Plutonics Journal (vol. XV) and Sein und Werden. 

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/DanMcNeil

Website: https://www.dan-mcneil.com/

1. As related to and transcribed by K****. 
2.  It was only later that the museum acquired its formal nomenclature
3.  This is strongly disputed by K****      at the city ordnance office
4.  A Philosophical Interpretation of Time, Space and Extinction, by K****.        – Pantheon, New York, 1962
5.  The museum was disguised as a rural church