We went up the stairs at the South Block, and soon found ourselves in front of the Art Preparation Room on the fourth floor. Koumura-sensei, who had one free hand, unlocked the door, causing the smell of paint to waft out of the small, dimly-lit room.
The first thing to hit my eyes was a tall rack lined with figures made of plaster. They were modeled from distinct people, but I couldn’t recognize any of them. In front of them stood another rack that was about waist-high and contained dozens of peculiarly shallow drawers. Koumura-sensei pointed at that rack.
“Let’s put it on top of the art supply rack. Hold on for a moment.”
The rack’s surface was littered with pencil shavings, brushes and spray bottles. Koumura-sensei propped the piece of driftwood up against the rack before starting to tidy it up. We continued holding onto the objet during that time, causing my hands to go numb. When he was done, Koumura-sensei instructed us.
“First, put down the platform.”
We placed the platform onto the rack as we were told. Shimai-san’s hands must have been tired, for her fingers trembled for a while. After that, Sawami-san and Aotagawa-kun placed the sphere into the depression on the platform. Koumura-sensei was about to put down the driftwood as the final step, but a problem arose.
He muttered.
“Erm, which way was it supposed to be placed again?”
It certainly wasn’t difficult to imagine that the creator would be particular about the driftwood’s position and direction.
With an unexpectedly gleeful expression on her face, Sawami-san pointed at the sharp end of the driftwood.
“That was towards the back, I think.”
“Was it?”
Shimai-san also spoke up.
“It was placed quite far away from the sphere, I think.”
“I suppose…”
“Was a photo of the completed objet sent over?”
“No, there wasn’t one. So, it should be around here?”
Koumura-sensei tried to put down the driftwood, but the lack of space in the Art Preparation Room and the sphere taking up much of that space posed a hindrance to him testing out different positions.
“Aotagawa, could you remove the sphere for a while?”
Aotagawa-kun complied and picked the sphere up. Koumura-sensei folded his arms.
“It was arranged nicely, I believe…”
As this point, I didn’t want to butt in, if possible. I couldn’t help but enjoy being the first to solve difficult problems that others struggle with, then proudly saying, “How’s that?” Such bad attitude should be corrected. That aside, I didn’t want to be involved in the question of where the piece of driftwood was initially located, anyway.
After all, the very question of “how was the driftwood placed when we first saw it?” was clearly missing the point.
Koumura-sensei, Shimai-san and Sawami-san surrounded Shimataiga’s objet, debating about the position of the driftwood and shifting it here and there. I watched them while standing a short distance away. A hollow sound caused me to whirl around, and it turned out that Aotagawa-kun, also apparently holding no interest in the objet’s correct arrangement, was listlessly stroking and tapping the white sphere. Perhaps I can secretly leave without being caught… as I had that thought, I heard something alarming from the discussion.
“By the way, this is the one, right? The work of Shimataiga mentioned by the threatening letter, that would be destroyed if the speech goes on?”
That voice belonged to Shimai-san. Koumura-sensei frowned.
“What did you say? How did you know that?”
“There was a rumor. Everyone knows that a threatening letter was delivered.”
The part about canceling the speech was the same as the rumor I’d heard, but the part about destroying one of Shimataiga’s artworks was new to me. It seemed that there were quite a few different versions of the rumor.
Sawami-san excitedly joined in on the conversation.
“Sensei, I have also heard about this! This rumor sure is famous!”
Koumura-sensei’s face turned sour.
“Don’t believe such nonsense. It’s already your second year here, you all really need to get your act together.”
The discussion was starting to go off course. The threatening letter sure was intriguing, but at this rate, I wouldn’t know when I would get to go home. Aotagawa-kun’s tapping was also gradually getting quicker. I made up my mind.
“Umm…”
The three people standing around the piece of driftwood turned to look at me. Now, I had to say it.
“Even if we remember how the driftwood was originally placed at the office, it is meaningless, in my opinion.”
A wry smile spread on Koumura-sensei’s face.
“Oh? Why do you think that?”
“Because Shimataiga lives in America and did not bring over the objet himself. It was likely couriers who delivered it, and the ones to unpack it were administrative clerks from our school. If there were instructions for how to position the driftwood, the administratives clerks would know, and if not, the driftwood was simply placed arbitrarily, I think.”
The atmosphere in the Art Preparation Room turned cold… I knew this would happen. It usually does whenever I open my mouth unnecessarily.
Koumura-sensei muttered, “Right,” seemingly just as a formality, before putting the driftwood down at a random position on the platform. Perhaps thinking that I’d gotten the better of him, he deliberately ignored me and gave an order to Aotagawa-kun.
“Aotagawa, put down the sphere.”
Seemingly flustered by the sudden turn of events, Aotagawa-kun’s voice wavered.
“Ah, alright.”
He was still holding thet sphere on his own. Just in case, I called out to him.
“Need any help?”
“Nah, just get out of the way.”
Well, if you say so… Thus, we watched Aotagawa-kun set the sphere back on the platform.
Looking at the white sphere and white driftwood on top of the white platform, Sawami-san mused.
“Seriously, what is this supposed to be?”
Paying no heed to Sawami-san’s thoughts, Shimai-san asked a question.
“Erm, students should be able to freely view this objet, right? Is it really fine to put it in a small room like this?”
“Yes, because it’d be bad if we put it in a place where everyone can see it, and something goes wrong. So, we’ll leave it here and lock the room.”
So the objet would be open to students at all times, but the room would be locked. It seemed like a satirical bit, or a joke. The teacher continued.
“If any students want to view the objet, they have to come to me in the staff room, and I’ll open the door. That should be made known to everyone tomorrow during homeroom.”
“So you’ll be viewing the objet with the students?”
“I’ll need to keep my eye on them, after all.”
I was impressed. Shimataiga said that he wanted his juniors to freely see his objet. The philosophical question of what the word “freely” meant flashed through my mind.
Time to go.
“Um, is that all?”
“Oh, right. Thanks for your hard work. We’ll need to move this to the gymnasium on the day of the speech, so please gather at that time.”
Upon hearing Koumura-sensei’s offhand remark, a completely ticked-off look momentarily crossed Shimai-san’s visage. If I asked about her state of mind, she would probably reply with, “This sucks.”
Once again, I looked at Shimataiga’s objet, “Gaze and Shell, or Green Ball”. I had no interest in the artistic meaning behind it, but things had taken an interesting turn regarding this artwork, and by extension, the speech.
Earlier, in response to the topic of the threatening letter, Koumura-sensei had said, “How did you know that?”
Meaning, a threatening letter had in fact been delivered to the school.
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Editors (Tier 2): Dedavond, Pearl H Nettle
Assistants (Tier 1) : Rolando Sanchez, Lilliam, Yousef
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