Museum night

British Museum

The blazing braziers flank the museum’s wide open doors and light up the nighttime gala at the British Museum.  Walking up those steps and between the massive entrance columns, our girl is dwarfed by the literal weight of centuries, the legacy that overshadows the tiny individual climbing the stairs.  Inside, the hall is cool and dark and dramatically lit with purple and orange spotlights highlighting the Great Court, rising up majestic and all white stone in the center.  Waiters whisk past with tall champagne flutes, colourful herby cocktails, and hors d'oeuvres - a choreographed dance of food and drink.  Her heels click as she winds her way through the mass of people, tiptoeing carefully around the crowd to find a familiar face.  They’re French, so bisous all around and our girl is slightly uncomfortable and out of her element, awkwardly offering her hand first like a cash register drawer shooting out of its slot with a brrrriinnggg.

Her mobile buzzes again, just once, but her heart is already smiling before she even pops open the message.  Then everything stops in its tracks.  Suddenly the room is too hot, the people are mists, and the magical environment of the evening lifts her up like the champagne bubbles she’s sipping.  She finds a bench on the periphery of the crowd to sit down on and reread.  And then she can’t stop smiling and laughing.  Or covering her mouth with her hand, a face that turns wry and then almost looks like it will burst into tears.  The crowds are forgotten, the food is forgotten, and even the French men are forgotten.  The only thing that exists is the girl on the bench with her phone and someone, a very someone someone, tethered to the other end.

How people could continue to mill about as though nothing has happened puzzles her.  Don’t they see her now, walking on air at least five inches off the ground?  She doesn’t feel the chill from doors of the grand hall, left open.  She’s forgotten her objective for the night - meeting someone in the hall somewhere to talk about something.  It’s all so vague.  The only thing she feels is the tug from her hand to her mobile to the someone, someone far away.


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