As I enter the hall of 19th-century paintings inside the Met, I have one goal, one task to complete: let an Impressionist painting lull me into a trance. I run around frantically, my head whipping back and forth, looking for a work of art that will validate my life, when finally, I see it. “Manet!” I scream, as I run towards the painting of my favorite artist, a work titled, “The Monet Family in their Garden at Argenteuil.” I approach it rapidly, eyes closed, arms wide open. I’m ready to embrace the masterpiece. But before I can, something strange happens: instead of my face slamming up blindly against the hard canvas, I find myself falling for a few seconds, eyes still closed, until my descent is stopped by a faceplant into the ground. I place my hands onto the soft earth, push myself off the ground, and begin to remove the soil from my eyes and nose, waiting for my classmates’ laughter, bracing myself for the inevitable chants of “loser” to erupt at any moment. “Wait a second,” I say to myself. “Soft earth? Dirt on my face? What the hell?” And when I finally open my eyes, I realize, I’m not in the Met anymore. Rather, I’m in a verdant garden, standing in front of a bewildered family.
“Mommy,” a little, frightened child implores, “who is that strange, ugly man with the weird clothes?” “Don’t worry, Claude,” the woman replies, “I think he’s just a dirty American.”
She then turns to me and demands my name, age, and other basic information, but when she asks why or how I got to the private garden, I have no adequate words. “I was just … in the museum and I…I started running to a painting and then BOOM and now here I am.” She scowls at me. “Jean, “ she signals to her husband, “would you please escort this drug addict away from my family?” “No!” I scream. “Don’t! I’m not on drugs, I’m just Steve. Here, let me prove it to you.”
I make my way over to the little boy, whose frantic eyes and trembling face tell me he’s afraid I might eat him. “Hey there little bro, what’s your name?” He hesitates. “C-C-Claude.”
“What a pretty name. And your last?” He hides his face behind his hands for a few seconds, but after some coaxing by his mother, he tells me, “Monet.”
“CLAUDE MONET?!” I scream incredulously. “The renowned Impressionist painter?! The most influential artist of the 19th century?! That Claude Monet?!” The child explodes into tears, wailing at the top of his lungs for his parents to do something about the bearded monster before him. Luckily, his father runs over, settles him down, and leads me over to a cherry tree, where he tells me to sit and relax and eat cherries while everyone calms down.
After a few minutes and a bajillion cherries, Claude’s mother turns to me and asks, “Did you say something about my son being a ‘renowned painter’?” For the next hour, I tell them all about my world – I tell them all about the future. I let them know about little Claude’s eventual paintings and fame. I educate them on the internet and tell them all about the proliferation of rap music. At one point they ask if I’m Jesus, to which I respond, “Basically.”
Eventually they go back inside their house and invite me to stay the night, but I opt to remain outside. The weather is perfect, and I just want to soak in this ideal world and eat all the cherries. And legend has it, if you visit this exact spot today, I’m still there. The end.
