Museum Visit: Dark Fantasy

She comes to visit the museum most days that it's open. That's a little strange, but not so terribly unusual for a free public museum as large as ours. Like the library, it's a place where the public feels free to go when they have nowhere else to go. No work, no home? Go to the museum. They sit and stare at the paintings in one room for a while, and then move on to the next. Usually they don't cause any trouble, and they know that they're not allowed to sleep in there. She--is not like them. To begin with, she wears labels that I vaguely recognize from the fashion glossies I try not to indulge in while I'm waiting in the supermarket checkout. To continue with, the burns that ripple across half her face and down to her hand are quite distinctive. And to end with, she only ever goes to one exhibit: the exhibit of Russian artifacts. She goes and she stands in front of the glass case of one of them and strokes the glass with her melted hand. And she whispers to it. Once I got close enough to hear (being human and curious, I guess) and what I overheard gave me the creeps. She called the thing by name, and she talked about the executioner being worth it, and--just generally enough stuff to give me the heebie-jeebies. In Russian, too, and an old-fashioned kind of Russian that I wouldn't have known if I hadn't heard my grandmother talking in it as I grew up.


Inspiration: "Pyotr" -> http://www.maxilyrics.com/bad-books-pyotr-lyrics-faa7.html
Story potential: Low.
Notes: Eh.