ANTHROPOMORPHISM

I am currently wedged in a ventilation duct that is precisely the width of my own optimism—which is to say, significantly narrower than it looked from the floor—arguing with a 17th-century oil painting. A merchant named Cornelius stares at me from across the room with judgmental intensity, while my target, a 1683 Dutch landscape, is suffering from what I can only describe as a four-decade-long case of clinical resignation. I have exactly ninety seconds before the night guard finishes his salt-and-vinegar chips to perform what I call an “unlicensed art therapy intervention” involving a grappling hook and a very expensive scarf. The cow in the painting hasn’t said a word, but we both know the truth. This fluorescent lighting in here is a moral travesty, and I’m the only one crazy enough to stage a rescue.