July 2022
In the distant and glamorous city of Three Bridges, there came seven days of relentless heat and seven windless nights. The people, blinded and wearied by the blazing sun, acted as if possessed by a feverish unrest, and a strange tension crept up every street. Over the scorched rooftops and deserted courtyards, a thin layer of unease settled like dust.
Perhaps the weather had something to do with what happened one tragic evening. Clara was an art student who worked part-time in a private museum. The owner, her employer, came from one of the wealthiest families in the land and was spoken of as a patron of the arts. He would sometimes glide self-assuredly through the whitewashed halls, alone or accompanied, whispering with guests and rarely addressing the staff. He was quiet with those who, by fate, had not inherited fortunes or built empires of their own.
Clara didn’t take offense; she had grown used to it. When he did speak to his employees, it was without greeting or kindness. He gave orders directly, never bothering with the little flourishes of conversation or the politeness of small talk.
In Clara’s world, people without generational wealth were treated, regardless of background, with benevolent condescension—but never with sincere respect. Even in a progressive society that proclaimed itself fair and kind, behind heavy security doors and rich brocade curtains, a bitter whiff of past discrimination lingered. In the richly but minimally adorned rooms, the old ways persisted—hidden in plain sight, and very much alive.
On one of those unbearably hot afternoons, Clara was called at the last minute to cover a shift. That very evening there was to be a public event, and her job promised to be tiring. The task itself was not difficult—standing around and asking people not to get too close—but some of the artworks were incredibly precious. Some pieces were so small, so delicate, or so finely balanced that even a breath could set them on the path to destruction.
There was a fragile bronze sculpture, painted in an unbelievable range of colours, yet arranged so precisely that the piece was very pleasing to the eye. And a great suspended cube made of chipboard panels, hanging by a rope just inches above the floor—held in place by another, smaller cube suspended in kind, like some magical contraption. Letters and numbers were printed across the panels, the curious leftovers of the ancient world’s factories.
These evening gatherings were exhausting, mostly because of how some guests treated the staff—especially those whose fortunes nearly matched that of the museum’s owner. The high, windowless walls had a way of making even the bold feel small. That night, the air inside was too thick to breathe, yet the outer doors remained sealed to keep out pollen and dust. The reason was to protect those enchanting raven-black paintings, with surfaces sticky as tar, lined up along the wall in front of the main entrance. A single drifting fibre would have ruined them forever.
The crowd came from the cultural elite: creators, curators, collectors and gallerists. Some were known across the region; a few, further still. Clara had watched the same little social rituals repeat themselves, day after day, month after month. Over time, she began to see a cyclical pattern: the artists trying to get the curators’ attention, the curators trying to get the gallerists’, the gallerists the collectors’, and the collectors trying to appear cool to the artists. In this curious ecosystem, the artists were like plants in a food chain—the so-called producers—and people like the museum’s owner lived far above, up in the sky like eagles—or the so-called apex predators. Or, in even fancier terms, tertiary consumers.
One might argue, of course, that humans themselves have long ruled the top of the food chain—not with teeth or claws, but with cunning and invention, to the point of almost self-annihilation. All other living things have been tamed, and much blood has been shed.
And, as in any ecosystem, some predators are necessary to keep things in balance. Unfortunately, some humans often abuse their power. One such man had come to the event that night—Philip, a young man so self-indulgent, so frivolous, that he didn’t even pretend to hide it, and who happened to be the museum director’s son. He didn’t care about disgrace or scandal. He delighted in clever cruelty and psychological terror. He lived his life without a care in the world, and certainly without caring about other people’s well-being—certainly not those poorer than himself. Clara and her colleagues had complained many times about his behaviour. He ignored them, laughed at them. He knew exactly how high he stood—and how low they did. The board was unable to act because Philip was part of the family. This led to endless complaints and staff quitting. But as the museum owner once said: They were all replaceable anyway.
No one knows for sure what really happened that night and why, but some whispers escaped the heavy doors and let the gossip wander the streets of Three Bridges. Some say there was a bright flash, and among the confusion, a terrible transformation happened. There was no time to run, no chance to cry out or escape. The staff were suddenly turned into something else. There were reptiles—geckos, lizards in all shapes and sizes and colours—running along the polished floors, their path blocked by artworks and confused bystanders. Soft plush toys, small, coiled cylinders, like puppet springs or clockwork curiosities, rolled and tossed around. It must have been a dramatic sight. Frightened in their new forms, they struggled to move, to breathe, to find balance. Arms too soft, legs too short, their senses altered. And while they still reeled from the change, they were swept up in makeshift cages in a brutal and efficient way. As it happens in that Art World, no one dared name names or confess as witnesses, too afraid to lose their hard-won positions.
I imagine the poor things hadn’t even had time to grasp that life, as they knew it, was gone for good. The reptiles and the other beings were hurried away and smuggled like exotic beasts, passed off like strange and precious contraband. And freedom? Freedom became only a distant memory, a dim recollection of itself. Surely, after that night, they changed hands many times. They were gifted, resold, adopted by collectors of cold-blooded animals or lonely souls in search of silent companionship. And perhaps—just perhaps—some of those new owners, the ones who lie awake at night, have noticed something strange. When the dark settles in, and everything goes quiet, the small creatures begin to sing old forgotten songs, tunes beyond the grasp of human ears—melodies pitched just beyond 20,000 hertz, where only the unseen can hear.
