The Big Book has only notions, ideas, and sometimes even truths. The Big Book offers the curatorial staff nothing outside the confines of these innumerable walls.
VIII.
The glass ceiling was replaced by another glass ceiling with clear glass rather than tinted because Curator 387’s overzealous cleaning efforts. The unfortunate truth is that Curator 387 was instructed by Curator 4113 to make the ceiling his ‘sole responsibility,’ not that Curator 4113 had any authority whatsoever.
No, the Museum of Oddities and Eccentricities has a strictly egalitarian mission and policy. But no one bothers to follow the mission or even read policy guidelines for that matter. Nor is there enough light in the Museum even for those who would want to read anything at all, much less a policy guideline manual. But all of this is besides the point as it is illegal to read on the premises.
Curator 4113, however, loves to read. In fact, he is often caught illegally reading, but because there is no system of justice or punishment here, nothing happens to him when he is caught. But the tinted glass ceiling makes the entire Museum quite dark, and given the truth that all energy and power is derived solely from static electricity, the Museum does not offer adequate reading light.
As such, Curator 4113 made it his ‘sole mission’ to remove as much dust, dirt, and grime from the ceiling to prevent shadows, which make it even more impossible for him to read. The problem, however, was that Curator 4113 had a horrible — and we mean desperately horrible — fear of glass. So Curator 4113 pleaded to Curator 387 to ‘please please please clean the ceiling,’ which he had agreed to do with the fullest honor and privilege he could muster.
IX.
Maggie’s donation of her ears, nose, other hand and foot changed that pile of stones into a dollhouse.
VIII.
Curator 387 has a very strong arm and an impeccable eye. He was once a pitcher for a minor league baseball team, but one day he was put on the DL and then he simply disappeared altogether. Somehow, he re-emerged here, at the Museum. He had no idea who he was or where he had come from, but he was given a number placard and began working as though this was where he had always belonged. Here. Doing exactly this.
Curator 387 is the perfect man to clean the ceiling. His limbs are extremely flexible and expand long beyond what is considered normal. And the Curator’s eyesight is sharp too. He can see bits of dust from three hundred feet away. So Curator 387 stands on his ladder and reaches and, as reported by Curator 4113, ‘reaches and reaches and reaches’ until he finds the few specks and catches them in his little bottle of dust.
Unfortunately, one of the little boys from inside of the Museum saw a snake sliver over the glass roof, and being at least moderately frightened and immoderately heroic, he aimed his slingshot and hurled three distinct shots, which destroyed the roof and broke poor Curator 387’s arm in three distinct places.
X.
No one blames the little boy because if he were permitted to read the guidelines and rules, and if there had only been adequate light, he would have known: (1) slingshots are absolutely acceptable as long as your vision makes the rules you are reading illegible; (2) slingshots are not weapons. They are simply machines. Therefore, anything you put into a machine that turns it into a weapon is absolutely illegal. Substances such as pebbles and marbles and zircon-encrusted rings (likewise other removable items like indiscreet piercings, tattoos, teeth, finger- and toenails are not permitted) are not, under any circumstances whatsoever, allowed into the Museum; and (3) the ceiling was going to be cleaned ‘professionally’ for the next year so one needed to beware of unfamiliar shadows or abnormal shifting shapes above one’s head.
This ‘accident’ convinced the Museum’s Board of Directors — and mostly importantly Gretchen — that the tinted glass should be replaced with clear class with self-cleaning option included.
XI.
The Museum of Oddities and Eccentricities has many employees, hundreds of thousands of curators, perhaps as many docents, billions of custodians and security guards, and this does not yet include the immense number of executives who hand out executions throughout the day, although certainly, all employees can execute without being executives or executioners, per se. Considering the vast array of employees the Museum requires simply to sustain itself, the Museum is surprisingly compact. And yet, all these persons manage to navigate a space suitable for no more than five hundred persons, or at least that is what the First Responders recommend. But every day, all these employees file into the Museum, each one a little ant, wandering around intent on something, with some directive, but without a real mission or design, a tiny cog, spinning and spinning, but without purpose or significance.
This is how the Museum operates: constant fluttering to remain static. After all, is not the Museum’s mission to act as a bridge between the common nonsense of distant lovers meeting clandestinely (as transmogrified in its collections), and between the zigzagging emotions of each visitor? Does not it encourage and develop the study of dead starts and false ends? Does it not inhale ex nihilo’s whorls and exhale insurrectionist breaths? Does not it collect, preserve, study, exhibit, and stimulate appreciation for the rhetoric of horror, fairy tales, romance, and science fiction?
XII.
Curator 21588 wears knee socks without any shoes. That way, he can move in utter silence.
Curator 9374865 composes an algebra of the unreal.
Curator 258 is a fraud. Management believes he suffers from sciophobia when it is the loss of his shadow that he fears. Thus he walks the halls, a lamp attached to his fannie pack like an intravenous drip, his shadow always trailing behind him.
Curator 1311 keeps the Deus Ex Machina’s mainsprings and clickwheel in working order.
Curator 8204 is the resident entropist. All questions regarding multiplicity, disorder, and time’s arrow should be left in his inbox. Most responses are received the day before yesterday.
Curator 258 spends all day meditating on the yawning chasm between the nest and the cage.
Curator 3000 wears a powder puff tutu with bodice made of white lace and tulle to staff meetings.
Curator 9 has a head of wax and the heart of a sick child.
XIII.
The ceiling — in its original ceiling form — was not straight, and wanting to maintain some sense of continuity with the original Museum’s overall aesthetic, the curators and executives joined together to declare that the new — now the old — glass ceiling should have unique topography as well, but of course, this new topography had to be a mere nod to the old topography rather than an imitation, as one particularly short-sighted Docent had suggested.
When the new-old glass ceiling was broken by the little boy with the slingshot and a newnew glass ceiling was needed, the employees banded together and asked Gretchen that their new ceiling be slightly changed. They asked her: (1) for the glass to be clear rather than kaleidoscopically tinted; (2) for the ceiling to have fewer sharp curves, as they became increasingly difficult to clean (the glass itself grew in its tireless effort to reach more sunlight); and (3) that there be ultraviolet ray protection in the glass, as none of the employees wanted skin or eye damage due to their lengthy hours in the Museum.
Gretchen, being the magnanimous donor that she is, gave them a new-new ceiling, a rollercoaster of smooth blown glass, a radiant spectrum in the sun, providing only the sneakiest of shadows, depending on the time of day, and not only ultra-violet protection but also glare-proof glass.