Work Text:
Somewhere in the distant future, far away, a planet hangs suspended in the void. There is water, there is air, there are animals and trees. People live there too, in cities, in houses filled with children.
In a small red house—just at the edge of a village—lives a girl named Jessica. She lives with her mother, her little brother Bobby, and Gruppel. Jessica adores her Gruppel, with his long ears and sweet little snout. Bobby is pretty alright for a brother and—like boys do here—spends all his time playing with dolls.
Jessica and Bobby go to school in the big city. There, children learn words and how to live healthy lives. On weekends, Jessica loves going to the zoo and to the museum. Most of all, she loves the museum of strange signs. That isn’t its real name, but it’s what Jessica calls it in her head. Whenever she says it out loud, her brother, her mother, or her teacher quickly corrects her.
“No, Jessica, it’s not called ‘the museum of strange signs.’
It’s called ‘Museum Universalis Extra Totalis.’”
Jessica nods politely and thinks: Exactly—the museum of strange signs.
Jessica has already learned many words at school. Every morning, the class obediently repeats the words their teacher recites. These are words meant for giving instructions. As robots only function properly when you tell them the right words and in the right order. In the afternoons, the children make videos. And if there’s any time left, they can do something of their own—like playing with a ball. Jessica likes playing with Xixi.
Outside the classroom, in the hallway beside the coat racks, stands a cabinet filled with balls and books. There are big balls and small ones. Thick books and thin ones. Books that smell strange and books with loose pages. Every book is filled with drawings.
“Stupid,” says Xixi. “A video moves and has sound. It’s way more fun than a boring drawing.”
That’s true—and still, Jessica loves looking at the books.
A book feels special; its pages are slightly rough, or sometimes very smooth. Jessica traces the lines of the drawings with her eyes. Each time, she sees something new. She has tried to make such drawings herself, but what she imagines in her head never quite matches what appears on the tablet. Recently, she learned she can ask a robot to draw for her. But even then, what she says and what the robot creates never fully align. No one knows who made the drawings in the books—not even the teacher.
Every Saturday evening, either Jessica or Bobby gets to decide what they will do the next day. Last week, they went to the doll shop. This week, it’s Jessica’s turn.
“The zoo! Lets go to he zoo!” Bobby shouts.
But Jessica wants to choose for herself. “The strange signs mu—”
Her mother gives her a stern look.
“I mean… the Uni Vertellis museum.”
A sigh follows. Her mother nods, Bobby squeals, and once everyone has calmed down and put on their coats, they set off toward the big city.
Jessica’s mother sits down on a bench in front of the museum to watch some videos. Jessica and Bobby are allowed to go in on their own. Hand in hand, they walk through the large doors—which do not open automatically—past the desk where a real man sits, and through a gate that beeps for visitors, though it rarely does.
The museum is filled with strange signs. Signs on objects that fell from the sky, or were unearthed where houses once stood before they were burned down. The strange signs begin at the gate itself. Jessica thinks the sign looks like a square with a house—only a very narrow one. According to the real man, it means: “a place where people enter.”
But Bobby insists it means “food found here.” Jessica is quite sure he’s wrong, though she doesn’t say so.
Bobby also has a favorite sign. Jessica walks over to the display case where it is kept. It looks like a drawing: two yellow arches joined together. The real man once explained that it used to mean “restaurant.” There is another drawing that looks like Gruppel, wearing a little bow—Jessica thinks it’s adorable. And there is a sign of a smiling woman with long hair and a crown. What it means, no one knows—not even the real man.
What Jessica loves most in the museum are the books. So many books—far more than in the cabinet at school. These books don’t always contain drawings, but they are filled with countless signs. Signs that seem to resemble nothing at all. But when Jessica narrows her eyes and looks through her lashes, it almost seems as though they do mean something. One cluster becomes a horse pulling a cart. Another looks like a table with a cake.
The real man once said that, long ago, people understood all the signs in books—and even made books themselves. It sounds like a fairy tale. There were robots that could do it too; “reading and writing,” he called it. At some point, people stopped learning how. And later, the robots that still could simply broke down.
Jessica thought that was rather sad.
Bobby suddenly needs the bathroom—and so does Jessica. They walk to the toilets. There is a sign on the wall, and Jessica has figured out for herself that it must mean “toilet,” even though there is no picture of a person peeing. The sign consists of two parts: the first is a sharp wave, the second looks like a bucket lying on its side. Bobby is in too much of a hurry to listen to her explanation.
After the break, they walk past the tall windows and look outside. Their mother is still sitting on the bench, staring at the cars passing by.
“Mum!” Bobby calls.
The real man tells them to be quiet. Jessica and Bobby have seen enough. They run past the gate, past the real man, push open the heavy doors, and step outside.
Their mother stands up, and they bounce around her excitedly.
“Oh look!” Bobby shouts, pointing at a sign on the bench.
“There are bottoms on the bench!”
Jessica sees it too. She presses her thumbs together, pointing downward, her index fingers curving toward each other.
“I know this sign,” she says. “It means love.”
Bobby tries to copy it with his short fingers.
Their mother laughs.