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starry-teacup · 9 months

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An entirely indulgent statement I wrote for fun. Me and my friend have a little self insert into the tma world that takes place at the Usher Foundation, and is therefore technically canon compliant. This is one of the statements I wrote for it. It’s below the cut if you want to read it.

TRIGGER WARNING// Insanity, character death, suicide, mental illness, I guess you could call a bit of it gaslighting???

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CHARLIE (ARCHIVAL ASSISTANT)

Statement #0190411, given by one Zoë McKendrick, concerning a trip to the museum with her cousin. Recorded by Charlotte Renhan, archival assistant to Daniel Rodrey, the head archivist. Originally given at the Magnus Institute, London, and currently on loan by its sister organization, the Usher Foundation. Statement begins.

{Statement}

Alright, first of all, I swear to God this isn’t a hazing. I know, I know how it looks. A teenager dressed in scene walks into a well established academic place that takes the statement of any random person off the street. It’s obviously a prank. Except that’s not what’s happening. I promise. I need you guys to believe me. God, I just need someone to believe me, anyone! I’m not crazy. I know I’m not. No matter what people say, no matter what those damned tapes show, I am not a liar, I am not just a kid with a hyperactive imagination, and I am not insane. I refuse to believe I am. That’s how it gets you. That’s how it got Amanda. And I refuse to be next. I won’t be next, do you hear me? I am not just a thing for them to take.

God, I’m rambling. I’m sorry, I’m not in the best state of mind right now. Even though a couple weeks have passed, this feeling still won’t go away. I can’t stop seeing the colors- they fill the space behind my eyes whenever I close them, and if I go too long without blinking to avoid it, they bleed into my vision like ink stains on a carpet. I wasn’t built to see those colors. No one was. But I saw them, and now they won’t leave me alone, and they make me feel like I’m going in-

No. I can’t say that. I won’t.

[sighs]

This is probably making zero sense to you. I need to back up. I live in Bournemouth. It’s mostly a resort and vacation town, but there are a couple of normal neighborhoods if you squint really hard and ignore all of the rich tourists. I live in Springbourne. A lot of families live there, because there are a lot of schools nearby.

The schools are all fine, I guess, but they’re a bit lacking in the field trip department. All of the interesting places in the area are either casinos, resorts, or ridiculously overcharged shops because of all of the senators vacationing there. There’s one exception, though. In the middle of all of those fancy hotels is an old Victorian mansion that somebody turned into a museum. It’s pretty much the only educational location within a two hour radius.

Because of this, pretty much every field trip from year 1 to year 13 goes to that weird mansion. It’s called the Russell Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, and it was interesting enough the first two or three visits, but it got old fast. It mostly houses old portraits and statues with muted hues and sensible poses. It never gets new art, and it never renovates. I have seen every exhibit what feels like hundreds of times, and I know that place like the back of my hand.

This summer, my cousin Amanda was coming to stay with us. She’s from the States, so she has the summer off, and my parents said it was okay if she lived with us for a couple weeks even though I still had school. She’s about my age, maybe a year or two older, so my mum and dad assumed we’d instantly bond and start painting each other’s nails or braiding each other’s hair or something. I think my parents might’ve hoped she’d be a good influence on me, maybe get me to wear a little less black. And it’s not like we hated each other or anything, we just …didn’t really talk. We’d never been close, and neither of us particularly felt like building that relationship now.

My mum blamed it on me. Said I was being antisocial or something. She suggested that I show Amanda around Bournemouth, as some sort of bonding activity. I figured I might as well show her the old museum. There was nothing much else to show, not anything that I could afford. My dad agreed to take us, and we were awkwardly silent most of the way there. Amanda had her headphones in, and I decided I didn’t have the energy to try and pretend we were friends, so I took out my phone and scrolled on my Tumblr feed.

When we arrived, something felt…different. There was something off about the place that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. If anyone who hadn’t been raised on this museum had seen it, they would have had no idea what I was talking about. But I had seen this place a thousand times, and there was something about it that just felt wrong. Like the saturation had been turned up zero point four notches, and all the angles had been made one degree sharper. It was unsettling- I could’ve sworn it wasn’t like this last time I was here. But a little voice was whispering in the back of my head that I was remembering it wrong, it had always been like this, and why would I even think it had changed?

I shook off my unease and figured I must have misremembered. When we went into the museum, the place was almost deserted. There was barely anyone there outside of the security guards. That wasn’t wholly unusual, though. Most people who came to Bournemouth didn’t come for the museums. I let Amanda take the lead. She seemed to enjoy wandering around, and I had seen everything this place had to offer.

Almost everything that this place had to offer. But as we went down a familiar hallway, it branched suddenly to the left where it should have opened into the Greco-Roman exhibit. I felt the knowledge that that turn should not have been there like a stone in the pit of my stomach- it was impossible. It didn’t make sense. The blank wall in front of me seemed to mock me for my denial. I couldn’t help but think that if that wall had a mouth, it would be laughing at me for trying to deny the existence of what was so clearly in front of my face.

I guess I might be wrong. I might be filling spaces of memory with what I know now, coloring it in with my current dread. But no, I don’t think that’s it. I saw Amanda hesitate uneasily before she continued on, and I saw undiguised fear in her eyes as she decided to walk forward. That’s how wrong that wall was- Amanda had never been here before, and yet she could still tell- this wasn’t supposed to be here. But she walked onward anyways, and I wasn’t about to tell her that I was scared of a turn in a hallway, so I followed nervously behind.

At the end of this new hallway was a room. It was small and dimly lit, and there weren’t any windows. If this building used to be a mansion, then this had definitely been a closet. On the wall opposite us was a sketch on a canvas. The lines were so sharp that I marveled that the canvas wasn’t cut by them. I tried to figure out what it was a sketch of. It seemed like I was missing something obvious- like it was a word on the tip of my tongue, like I almost had it. I stared at the framed drawing, trying to see what it was depicting- all the lines twisted and bent and seemed to make a picture, but every time I thought I made out what it was a drawing of, I realized that the lines kept going on ever so slightly past where I thought they had ended. It was hypnotic- I couldn’t tear my eyes away, couldn’t stop trying to see what the art was showing, even though it made my eyes ring and my ears hear stars. In retrospect, I think those lines went on forever. I think I could have stared and stared and stared, and I never would have figured out what it meant. It didn’t have a meaning- but it beckoned people to try and spend their life finding it anyway.

I don’t know how long I stared at it- it felt like decades, a lifetime, trying to interpret something that didn’t make sense- that couldn’t make sense. But I know my reverie was broken when Amanda began to walk towards the canvas. She had seen something I had been too absorbed in the colors and lines to notice- the painting was hung up wrong. The whole thing was tilted 45 degrees to the left. Amanda lifted her arms up slowly and shakily, and gently placed them on the edges of the frame. For a moment, time was frozen, Amanda’s hands trembling on the edges of the painting while I stared.

In one swift and steady motion, Amanda righted the sketch.

Immediately I was released from the spell. I turned to run out the door- but it was gone. There was simply another wall there taunting me where the exit used to be.

Wait, what do I mean, used to be? No, there was never an exit there. It had always been a wall. I turned back to Amanda and the painting. The lines of graphite had finally cut clean through the canvas, shredding it. Nothing changed about the sketch. No colors appeared, strange and acidic and not meant for human eyes. I didn’t scream as my eyes began to bleed at the sight of the hues that weren’t there and never had been. Nothing was anything here. Not anymore. Had anything ever been? I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t remember. My brain was throbbing and aching. I couldn’t think. I could barely see with the blood sliding down my cheeks like tears. I tried desperately to understand what was happening, but trying to comprehend it only made it hurt worse.

Amanda stood by the sketch, frozen. The colors that weren’t spilled out of the ravaged canvas like blood out of a wound and did not begin to pool and spread on the floor. I knew, I knew, that no matter what happened, we shouldn’t touch the growing pool that wasn’t. I seized Amanda’s arm and yanked her away as hard as I could. She went stumbling backwards and fell onto the concrete floor. Hadn’t it used to be wooden? No, I was remembering wrong, it had always been concrete. It must have been.

I backed against the wall opposite the bleeding canvas, and Amanda stumbled to her feet beside me. Her shoe had fallen off when she fell over. The pool of colors didn’t reach the shoe and lap at its edges hungrily. The shoe didn’t begin to warp and twist and invert until it was something that was barely recognizable. It didn’t begin screaming with an impossible mouth that wasn’t there, and the sound didn’t give me a headache that still hasn’t completely left. The shoe wasn’t. And it looked painful.

I started banging at the wall, screaming and crying for help. I don’t know what I hoped to achieve. Even if someone had heard me, they couldn’t very well have broken through solid concrete- wait, plaster now- and I doubt anyone could hear me. I hit the wall and no sound was made. My screams turned to bubbles the moment they left my mouth, and floated away until they landed on those nonexistent colors and burst with horrendous chromatic vibrancy.

Even though I hadn’t touched it yet, I could feel everything that wasn’t there seeping into the room and saturating it, like a tea bag steeping. The dim light, the air, Amanda, me- everything was being instilled with a horrible, inescapable wrongness. I choked down a sob as I thought about it: I would be locked in this room forever, slowly becoming warped and twisted until I was nothing I ever was or should have been able to be. I felt like I was going crazy- nothing here was possible. Nothing here was anything. All of my senses must have been lying to me- malfunctioning, showing me things that weren’t there. Everything here was soaked in that vague, hazy wrongness, like a dream gone wrong, except my brain would never have been able to create anything like this on its own.

Amanda seemed to think that too.

“It’s…it’s like a dream. It’s all like a dream.” Her voice was gleaming and dewy. When she looked at me, something in her eyes scared me almost more than that impossible room. Something black and tenuous, like thin ice, already starting to crack. “Maybe…maybe if we apply dream logic, we can escape?” She seemed as though she was talking more to herself than to me. I didn’t think that was a good idea. This place seemed to me the antithesis of all logic or pattern. Trying to make sense of it in any way would only make things much, much worse. I told her so.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have done that. I’m now certain that her dream logic solution wouldn’t have worked, but my words seemed to be the last straw. The thin, fragile thing in her eyes seemed to break, and a nervous, unhinged chuckle left her lips. It echoed and danced unnaturally around us, like the room was gloating over a victory.

“So that’s it, then?” She asked me, her voice dangerous and hazy in the dark light. “I’m just crazy?”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. What was I supposed to have done? Told her everything was going to be okay? Told her that no, she wasn’t crazy, there was a logical explanation to this obvious impossibility? I think a lot about what I could’ve said. I don’t think there was anything that could’ve saved her. It was too late for that.

At my silence, Amanda started laughing again, a horrid thing that morphed into a sob, then a scream, then back again. I just stood there, frozen. Amanda finally calmed herself down, but what she did next scared me more than screaming. She smiled pleasantly at me, like there was nothing at all wrong in the world. She briskly brushed off her clothes, which had been made messy by the dirt wall we had been fruitlessly pounding on.

Finally, she sighed contentedly, then looked at me and said, “Well, there’s no use delaying it, then.” Amanda turned on her heel and walked directly into the pool of not-colors. She dissolved into-

CHARLIE {Pauses the statement}

I, uh- I can’t read this. It…looks like words? Maybe? But…uh…this handwriting isn’t readable. Not like it’s sorta messy, it’s…wow. I can’t even tell if this is the English lettering system.

[Avery pauses] Actually, I think it isn’t. And did she bring colored pens in? This ink definitely isn’t black.

…wait, is it?

[Avery pauses again to examine] …I think it is. It looks colorful but it isn’t. I can tell it’s written in black ink. That’s…huh. I’ll take it up with Daniel later. Maybe he’ll be able to read it. It resumes two pages later.

CHARLIE {continues statement}

After that, the room was gone. No, that’s not right, it couldn’t have been gone. In order for something to be gone, it has to have been there in the first place. I was standing in the Greco-Roman exhibit, the place that hallway should’ve led me to. The place I must have been the entire time. Without hesitation, I turned and left.

Mom says there’s never been an Allison in our family. She says her sister never had kids, that I don’t have any cousins, especially not in America. When I mention her, my mom and dad exchange these worried glances. They’re scared, I can see it. At first, when I got home and started yelling about a nonexistent cousin, they thought I was messing with them. When I started hyperventilating, though, they began to see it was something more. They took me back to the museum, asked me to show them which hallway it was. When I saw it, I started shaking. I don’t remember much after that, but apparently I had a breakdown in the middle of the museum and started screaming about the colors. They sent me to a shrink after that. I don’t tell her the truth. I can hear what my parents say when they think I’m not paying attention, but they’re wrong. I’m not schizophrenic. I’m not crazy. But I take it that telling her about colors that aren’t there and Amanda’s voice in my ear whenever I’m alone, telling me that she made the right decision, isn’t going to help my case.

I still see them, you know. More and more often, they seep into my vision and the cracks of my mind and refuse to leave. Even now, I can see them. Can’t you? A blotch of them hovers over the paper, angrily lapping at the ink. It’s difficult to see what I’m writing when they cover everything. It’s difficult to think, too. Amanda tells me that I should’ve listened to her. She says the only thing better than seeing the colors is being them.

She’s wrong. She whispers to me that I can’t really know unless I join her. I don’t know how I would even go about doing that, but I have no intention of doing so. I’m not like her, I am perfectly sane. My parents and the shrink can go screw themselves, because however much doubt they put in my mind, I still know. I-I’m sane. I’m not crazy. I have to be, right?

AVERY

Statement ends.

Follow up on this one is difficult, because it would appear that, no matter what our young statement giver claimed, this was, indeed, a prank. According to our records, and the records of everyone I have checked with, there has never been a Zoë McKendrick. While there is a couple in the area Zoë mentioned with the same last name who happen to have family in America, they do not, nor have ever had, a daughter.

Zoë mentioned at the beginning of her statement that the museum she visited has video tapes that went against her claim. Merideth went to that check out and found that she was correct, and there was no evidence corroborating a left turn in any hallway where there should not have been.

She did find, though, that a few weeks before this statement was given, there were tapes of two unidentified teenage girls entering the museum. After a few minutes of looking around, they went down a hallway, and entered the Greco-Roman exhibit. They stood there motionless, and for around two hours, the tapes continued on with no visible change. For one moment, though, the tapes broadcasted an unfamiliar room with a single work of art hung on the wall. Then the feed cut back to what was broadcasted before, except only one girl remained. She turned and left, and didn’t return until a few hours later, when she brought in two adults and visibly had a breakdown before leaving again. That is all the evidence supporting this statement.

When confronted with this, the McKendricks firmly stated that they had no memory of either person, or the visit to the museum.

To be honest, this statement can be one of two things. A teenager may have seen a malfunction in the tapes, and thought it would be funny to tell this to the Magnus Institute as a prank. That is the more likely scenario.

On the other hand…perhaps, Zoë was unable to believe in her sanity as firmly as she needed to.

End recording.

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#Tma #magnus archives #the magnus archives #the usher foundation #Usher foundation #Fan statement #Statement #the spiral #I you daw any typos- no you didn’t

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amphtaminedreams · 9 months

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June 2021->June 2023: Photo Dump No.22

DATE SAVED, L-R BY ROW:

1. 15th March 2023, 18th March 2023 [graphic source: instagram account @howtobehumanpod, background: Barbican, City of London, 17th November 2022], 9th February 2023, 2nd March 2023, 26th September 2022, 9th March 2023, 16th March 2023 [Fair Game, Canary Wharf], 21st September 2023, 18th October 2021 [Bella Hadid in Paris, September 2018, source: instagram account @crystalmethangel2]

2. 27th January 2023, 17th January 2023 [Vinegar Yard, London Bridge], 31st January 2023 [Russell Cotes Museum & Art Gallery, Bournemouth], 9th June 2021 [Lana Del Rey performing live @ Coachella, April 2014, source: instagram account @tulsa_lana_freak], 13th July 2022, 25th January 2022, 27th September 2021 [DSquared2 RTW F/W21], 14th November 2022 [Soulland RTW F/W22], 21st October 2022 [source: instagram accounts @fleurrrrrrrrr & @natalieenamaste]

3. 30th December 2021 [source: instagram account @posterjournal], 3rd April 2023 [Exhibition Road, South Kensington], 4th July 2022 [details @ Iris Van Herpen Haute Couture FW22], 11th January 2023, 22nd March 2023, 13th August 2021 [Lana Del Rey for Numero Tokyo magazine, March 2013 issue], 22nd March 2023, 20th March 2023 [St.Martin's Theatre, Seven Dials]

4. 19th September 2021 [Van Gagh Alive @ Kensington Gardens, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea], 1st February 2023 [source: instagram account @themayfairgroup], 17th May 2023 [Courtfield, Chelsea], 7th December 2022 [Liberty's of London, Soho], 19th December 2022, 23rd September 2021 [Miley Cyrus performing at the Midtown Music Festival, September 2021], 26th May 2023 [Bournemouth, Dorset], 1st December 2021 [Alexander McQueen RTW S/S19], 8th May 2023

5. 15th November 2022, 9th February 2022, 10th October 2022 [source: instagram account @kiracyan.design], 1st October 2021 [Zuhair Murad, Haute Couture S/S17], 6th July 2021 [Britney Spears photographed by David LaChapelle, 2000], 15th February 2022 [Frameless @ Marble Arch, Marylebone], 16th February 2022, 28th November 2022, 17th February 2022

6. 7th June 2023 [Queenhithe, City of London], 14th January 2022 [Versace RTW F/W19], 8th December 2022 [Twisted Museum, Oxford Street], 11th July 2021 [Britney Spears photographed in L.A, August 2009], ]5th December 2022 [CND for the Blonds S/S15], 22nd March 2023, 28th November 2021 [Saatchi Gallery, Chelsea], 5th June 2023, 29th December 2021 [Giant gallery, Bournemouth]

7. 7th December 2022 [Holborn, West End], 1st December 2021 [Versace RTW F/W19], 4th October 2022 [Bermondsey Street, Southwark], 1st June 2023 [Earl's Court, Kensington], 14th July 2021 [Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn in The Suicide Squad, released July 2021, dir. James Gunn], 21st August 2021 [source unknown], 2nd May 2023, 21st March 2023 [Beyond the Streets Exhibition @ the Saatchi Gallery, Chelsea], 30th March 2023 [Christchurch, Dorset]

8. 18th June 2023 [Southbourne, Bournemouth], 21st June 2023, 19th June 2023 [Christchurch, Dorset], 11th November 2021 [Miley Cyrus via Instagram, wearing Gucci x Balenciaga for the November 2021 LACMA gala], 14th May 2023, 21st July 2021 [Marina Diamandis BTS on the set of the "Primadonna" music video, released March 2012], 8th April 2022 [graphic: @oshthoughts on lnstagram], 14th July 2021 [Bimini Bon Boulash via Instagram, July 2021], 21st March 2023

9. 13th June 2023 [Belem, Lisbon], 16th September 2022 [Et Ochs RTW S/S23], 12th June 2023 [Villa Berta, Lisbon], 15th November 2022], 9th April 2023, 10th July 2021 [source unknown], 30th September 2022 [source: Etsy store ConceptsDigital], 15th February 2023 [Frameless, Marylebone], 11th June 2023 [Jardim das Amoreiras, Lisbon]

10. 17th April 2023 [Bournemouth Town Centre, Dorset], 2nd May 2023, 4th May 2022 [Earl's Court, Kensington], 9th April 2023, 15th September 2021 [Miu Miu Resort 2021], 8th September 2021 [Dilara Fındıkoğlu, Resort 2022], 12th November 2022, 6th May 2023 [source: instagram account @howtobehumanpod], 17th October 2021 [Monse Resort 2022]

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