Maddie's Tattoo by Katie Kacvinsky Read Free Book Online

~ HATCH ~
     
    My mom and I invented a game we like to play called Switch. It’s where we look at old photo albums and she tells me what the world was like when she was a teenager. I close my eyes while she talks and imagine I’m walking in her world, inside the clothing boutiques that use to exist before 3-D online dressing rooms were designed, and all the real clothing stores closed down. I imagine I’m pressing my hands over stacks of wool sweaters. I’m trying on the soft scarves and hats. I can smell the leather boots and shoes. In my mind, I’m there. But then I open my eyes and I’m here. That’s becoming a problem lately. The more we play Switch, the more I want to be there.
    The last time we played, my mom told me when she was fourteen years old, her favorite thing to do was visit art museums. All I knew of art museums was they were drafty, ostentatious buildings people visited before tours went virtual.
    “ If they were so amazing, why did they all close down?” I asked my mom. Just like real clothing stores, music stores, book stores, movie theaters, and bakeries. Gone.
    “ Our idea of amazing has changed,” she told me.
    But my mom claims art has energy. She says it has texture and life. She says when you look at art, it forces you to look inward, and that a painting is a lot like a mirror. She is so good at seeing life, at the way things breath and move and how it can change depending on your mood.
    I wanted to do more than hear my mom’s stories; I wanted to experience them for myself. So, I started to search for online tours.
    I never knew that taking one class would change my life. The most insignificant decisions can have the most significant impacts. That is the scary thing about choice. Choice is a methodical genius hidden behind the face of a child. We think it’s all fun and innocent until we realize the force of our decisions. Choice is our life compass. It guides our every direction.
     
    ***
     
    I signed up for an Art History class made up of twenty-five Digital School students from Oregon. It was the only online art tour I could find, and you were only permitted access to the museum one time.
    The morning of the tour, I signed in on my bedroom computer. I was still wearing my pink and gray stripped pajamas, and Baley, my chocolate lab, curled up next to my feet. I pressed my toes underneath her warm fur, like a heated pillow. I was ready to tour a museum.
    When I clicked, ENTER, m y bedroom walls transformed into the front entrance of the Art Institute of Chicago, a historical art museum that closed down after M28. Two bronze lion statues flanked each side of the entrance steps, like royal guards. I gazed up at the building and felt movement. The high, arched windows, and open verandas gave the building a sense of flight, as if it was hovering over the ground. Just as I was admiring the architecture, the sound of rain pelted around me and the wind blew in gusts. An online guide rushed me through the front doors.
    Inside I virtually stumbled into a dozen other students, all cartoon animations, waiting in the lobby. Chat forums immediately cascaded over my wallscreens like a matrix code. I used my finger to move my icon next to the mass of pixilated images. Once we began walking our cartoon bodies dropped off to the bottom of the screen, where they became blinking icons we could message.
    I looked over my shoulder as we passed a virtual international café. All of the entrees on the menu screen were written in languages that I couldn’t understand. It was strange that a virtual café was even part of the museum.
    Our guide escorted us into the first exhibit on the tour, featuring paintings by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marcel Duchamp, and Salvador Dalí.
    When the paintings filled my bedroom screens, I stood up to get a closer look. I stopped in front of Picasso’s painting, titled Girl Before Mirror . The picture showed a young woman, with blond hair, looking in a mirror only to see