Backstory cont: Arrows taped on the museum floor marked the intended flow of traffic and led Billy to a new balcony where opened locks lined plexiglass windows. She found herself in line to touch the skeleton; a backside bone rib that almost filled the balcony opening. Billy started to leave as a docent presented a clipboard to the woman standing behind her. (Oh...huh. It's that kid.) A slight pleasure kept Billy in line so as not to give up her spot to that dumb looking kid.
"It's just a thing...if you or anyone you know were near the area back then..." recites the docent, looking from the woman to the kid and back.
The mother waves him away with squinted eyes. On the clipboard, a federal government logo depicting the regulatory body that deals with all giant skeleton matters flashed toward Billy; the same logo that appears every month on her government checks, her bi-annual medical and psychological tests, as well as government surveillance waivers. Now in front of the rib, a permissive draft bloomed into the balcony opening.
"Maam, I want a turn already," the dumb kid spits past his crusty mouth while his maam gestures Billy toward the rib.
The crackled, porous material blended into smooth bone under Billy's hand but in place of rib was skull. Her hand between two caverns that extended beyond her vision. A kaleidoscope of cosmic scale; galactic nurseries, collapsing stars, sandy shoals from unknown places now projected from where the skeletons' eyes would be and through Billy's mind. At once, but still outside of time, everything in the expanding universe was known and seen by her and then was gone. Primordial elements and swirling symbols in constant conflict receded. Visions of her family cast across spacetime began to fade.
Encased in shadow, Billy pulled up her phone light to see a concave wall on one side and an opening on the other. She stepped up to the moonlit bone and, looking first down the skull and then the length of the standing skeleton, studied farmland, far away from the city. From the eye socket, she lifted her hand to the glistening cosmos as the skeleton mimicked the motion. Lightening darted around the bony hand and Billy became familiar with the nature of the skeleton; pulling her into a war of elements while she struggled to remember the visions of her lost family. While the air stalled, a visceral stretching anchored Billie and aimed her in a direction; a map. They were gone.
