They
PHOTO PROMPT © CEAyr
called it a moment in time frozen in amber.
The historians diligently reconstructed the corner to give visitors a small taste of life 100 years ago.
Keith frowned.
But they had sucked all of the real life and flavor out.
Where was the noise? Where were the variety of smells over that ever-present background stench?
And people, where were they?
A city street is not things, it is people.
Keith cried out in despair.
*
“…they say if you listen closely, that you can still hear the driver moan as he did when dying. Now, the storefront over here was…”
***
Word count = 100
Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week’s prompt is here and uses a photo ©CEAyr. Read more or join in by following the InLinkz “linky“.
Trent's World (the Blog) 
Imaginative.
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Thanks :)
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Sounds like a type of purgatory. Museums can only do so much, and the ones who get the most out of it are those who have a keen interest and can fill in the gaps on what it must really have been like.
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Being stuck in a museum exhibit would be a type of purgatory. There are some museums that do a pretty good job of recreating the scenes, along with interpreters to explain everything, but even at their best, it is almost impossible to really breath life into the past and they often seem more like caricatures than recreations.
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Museums are nice but you’re an observer rather than a participant in them. Better than nothing, I guess…
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The reenactments do try to make people participants instead of just observers, but it doesn’t always work – there is still that layer of separation between artifact and daily reality. But, as you say, better than nothing.
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I’m seeing this through the eyes of a girl who lived in Minneapolis many years ago, and loved the city. Then she moved to Portland, Oregon and again enjoyed that beautiful, rose-filled city.
Now they are silent except at night when the “peaceful protesters” set their fires, paint their obscenities, and shoot their guns.
In the daytime, all you see is desertion and desecration. Silent, except for the glass underfoot and the fires still eating away at deserted buildings.
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A city street IS people – let’s hope our own cities get their people back soon.
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I hope they do get them back soon…
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What a horrible place for a soul to be stuck!
Well done, Trent!
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I agree! It might have all of the trappings of “home”, but sure wouldn’t feel like it!
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It’s not 100 years ago if someone doesn’t dump their chamber pot out of a window onto your head…
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You have a point, though that danger was much less in 1920 than in 1820…
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Well done, Trent.
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Thanks.
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Poor Keith, to be trapped in that imitation of his world! What did he do to deserve that end and could it have something to do with that dying driver?
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He was the driver of the truck, and so somehow his spirit got stuck with that truck. Now he is stuck, at least for a while, in that artificial world….
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Dear Trent,
Love this story! Very TZ. Rod Serling would be impressed.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Thanks! Yes, a touch of TZ. “Let me take you to a place where past and present collide…”
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love this. I often get this shivery feeling when I walk down reconstructed lanes and into old shops. There is one such street somewhere in England where they’ve taken actual shops and store fronts and real antique items and used them to recreate the street. There are microphones playing the sounds of how the streets would have sounded back in Victorian times and there is a strong smell from each store and even the smell of manure in the streets – don’t know how they recreated that and don’t really want to know haha! But it’s so eerie and lonely and I like what you’ve done here. This could be a great novel idea too, if fleshed out!
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lol, I have not been to one where they actually did recreate the smells! The sounds a couple of times. As you said, it was creepy, because there was sounds of life without the life being there. Are there ghosts out there using the cash box and talking? I do like a good recreation, and many have actors playing the parts, but, yeah, sometimes you get that eerie feeling… I might do make a longer form short story from this, but I’m no sure yet.
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The actors playing the parts do NOT work for me lol. However there was once this dungeon we went to in Warwick castle and in a dark cavern underneath, surrounded by musty old rocks, sitting on rickety old benches, a fat judge banged his gavel and sentenced a timid little boy to months of rotting in jail for stealing apples, and I looked up at the judge and believed he was real. I felt transported. But I think that was because it was dark and cramped and the lights were flickering like old torches. In daylight I would probably have seen the makeup on his face lol.
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Usually I would rather just see the recreation, but occasionally the actors do add to it. Sometimes in a dramatic way,,as you described, but often it is just that they have researched all of the little things about life, so if someone is cooking, for instance, they can tell you what spices they are using, where they got them, how much it cost, etc., all of these little things about life that history books ignore.
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Oh yes definitely! You’re so right, I didnt think of that :)
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Death by sterility. That does sound painful.
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It might be painful, but afterlife in a cardboard cutout of reality in a museum is even more painful ;)
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