QAG, Black Sculpture

The sculpture called Offshoot is right next to you. Its bends draw the eye, you feel like you could be looking at some dark, ultra-flexible Gumby.

The flags flutter beneath the suspended art nearby.

“There’s a lot of energy on this side of the river,” Lissa says. “Creative energy. The buses flowing into and out of the city. Wherever there is so much motion and thought, there are thinnings, portals to the land of the Dead. Can you feel it?”

You nod. The air crackles with it.

“Not good. Not good,” Lissa says.

Both sculptures are still, and yet full of motion. Life and Death, two states – just like Lissa.

“Look back at the City,” Lissa says. “It’s still hard to believe that a battle for all life on the planet was fought there. We won. But I lost something, someone dear to me. We all did.” She grabs your warm hand in her cold one. “Are you ready for that sort of sacrifice?”

“I don’t know,” you say.

Lissa smiles. “Good answer,” she says. “You won’t know until it happens.”

The sculpture stirs, it starts to rumble. Lissa shakes her head.

“I’ve not heard of this before,” she says. “Usually it’s inklings that come to life, but in this new thinning world, it seems that-” The sculpture’s knocked her away, a good three metres to your right. She’s already starting to get up. Just how strong is this woman? But she won’t be fast enough to save you.

You tug free the silver knife from your belt. It’s a puny weapon but it’s all you have. And then you remember, a Pomp’s strength is in their blood. You slide the knife across your palm. Blood flows. You run screaming towards the statue. It swings at you, and you duck, slapping your bloody hand against its belly.

The sculpture shudders, and is still.

There’s a flash of movement in the corner of your eye, the suspended sculpture is suspended no more, and it is swooping towards you. It hisses and wraps its metallic wings around you, and that’s when it makes its mistake. Its body is open to you. You touch its cold belly with your palm. The art becomes a tangle of wires that you free yourself from at once.

“Good work,” says Lissa, looking for all the world like nothing had even touched her. “Your blood will always get you out of trouble.”

She gives the sculpture a bit of a kick. “This isn’t good,” she says, again. “Not good at all. Damn thinnings.”

She looks at your hand, and sighs, then touches your fingers gently. There is a soft, cool sensation that runs from fingertip to palm, and the wound heals, only the scar remains and it isn’t neat. “Problem is, sometimes there isn’t enough blood in all the world. Now,” Lissa says. “Here we can go down to the River, or towards GoMA and the Bohdi Tree. I feel things happening in both places, trouble no doubt at both, but I think the source of the thinning is near the Bodhi Tree. My, for a first day, you’re spoilt for choice.”

Do you:

Highway Sign GOMA: Go to the Bodhi Tree And the High Motel Sign outside of GoMA, in search of trouble and more thinning? If so walk to the edge of the River-facing side of GoMA then turn right and head towards the High Café Sign.

Or

Footpath River: The River is always beautiful this time of year, and possibly safer. Make your way along the River to the start of the Clem Jones Promenade just past Victoria Bridge on the Southbank side, on the edge of the footpath near the light pole.