Still Life

Still Life

I was glad to be in the air-conditioned museum.  Even at nearly sixty degrees North latitude, warm temperatures and medium to high humidity were facts of life during August in Oslo.  I wandered the halls and rooms trying to temporarily forget the rigors that are a geologist's lot in life, even as I searched for the painting any geologist worthy of the name could appreciate.

As I studied the paintings, my cellphone beeped to announce the arrival of a text message.  Removing the phone from my hip, I flipped it open and thumbed the button to display the message.  It was a ScienText Alert, telling me a Coronal Mass Ejection caused by solar flare activity was expected to impact the Earth's magnetosphere within the hour.  I wondered if any temporary changes in the Earth's magnetic field would affect my instruments back at the lab.  I made a mental note to check them after the effects had dissipated.

My wandering gaze suddenly caught sight of a splash of orange-red against one of the walls, and I strode across the intervening space, stopping only when the velvet rope stretched between the brass stanchions prevented me from approaching any closer.  I stood directly in front of the painting and took in the details: the water, the road, and the sky.  This was it!

Suddenly, the images on the canvas appeared to flex and become slightly transparent, and I felt a bit woozy.  I then noticed a trickle of water apparently running down the wall from the frame and across the floor.  I bent down and touched the water with my fingertip.  Instantly, my vision narrowed to a pinpoint, and I felt myself somehow pulled toward the canvas.  There was a roaring in my ears that quickly reached a painful crescendo and--

When I again became aware of my surroundings, I immediately noticed that the paintings, the people, and the building were all gone.  I was standing by the side of a road near the crest of a hill, which loomed behind me.  In front of me, the road stretched toward a town set around a harbor; indeed, it appeared to run alongside the harbor for some of its length.  With a start, I realized - even as my mind rejected the idea as impossible - I had somehow been transported into the painting.  As a geologist, I knew we were just beginning to learn how we might control the Earth's powerful geophysical forces; we had scarcely any understanding of temporal forces, just complex, theoretical, mathematical models to try and describe what little we were able to observe.  Heaven only knew what other forces might exist.

I stood and listened, breathed the fresh air, and looked about.  Birdsong rose from the grass on either side of the road.  In the distance, I could see a couple beginning the trek up the road toward the hill, and there was a man sitting on a stool a little ways above me on the road.  He had a canvas on an easel, and was looking at me as if hadn't noticed me before, and was wondering how I'd gotten into his landscape.  I didn't know how it had happened, and it was definitely eerie, but all the elements were arranged almost exactly as in the painting.

My watch beeped the half hour, and I began to think.  The painting's legend suggested that the artist had, in part, been influenced by the visual effects caused by the eruption of 1883, and my extraordinary experience had started just after my watch had signaled the top of the hour.  I recalled the eruption's details and did some quick math in my head.  My journey through time MUST have been caused by the third explosion, which meant the final one, according to my watch, was only minutes away.  Perhaps, in some inexplicable manner, the titanic forces unleashed by Krakatoa's eruption had become linked with the energies released by the solar flares.  If this was true, the last explosion would sever the temporal connection, and I would be trapped here.  But how could I take advantage of this energy?

My eyes fell on the water below, and I remembered the trickle that had run across the museum's floor to me.  The water!  Somehow, a few drops from the water here had passed through the temporal rift.  Would it work for me?  Did I dare make the attempt?  Did I have any choice?

Moments later, I again felt woozy and the roaring sound returned, but with a redoubled intensity.  My teeth began to vibrate in time with the gathering forces, and I clapped my hands to my head as the pressure became almost unbearable.  It was now or never.  I ran to the edge of the road and leapt into the water--

When I came to myself, I was surrounded by museum security, who wanted to know what I had tried to do to the painting, even as they pinned me to the floor to prevent me doing anything.  I laughed hysterically.  I was home!  I was home!  I tried to explain what had happened, but only managed to change their expressions from outrage to something like pity.  I was taken to a hospital for observation, and the psychiatrist who examined me eventually came to have that same expression on his face.  I couldn't fault them for not believing me, I guess, but I could only tell what I knew.  Eventually, I came to know something else: I wouldn't be leaving the hospital for a long, long time.

"A very intelligent man, but quite mad," the doctor said to his colleagues, sadness in his tone.  "He really believes he's the central figure in Edvard Munch's The Scream."


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