The Museum of Mannequins

The Museum of Mannequins an old place, located somewhere in the barren plains of Illinois. The Museum is deserted, and there are DANGER signs in everywhich direction.

Possibilities

1 The Museum of Mannequins held old store mannequins rescued from garbage cans. One day a little girl’s body was mysteriously found in the back room. The owner of the place was arrested, and nobody came within even a mile’s radius of the place.

2 The museum was burgled a few years back. The people that lived closest to the museum moved away, fearful of being burgled themselves. With no customers, the owner went broke and closed the museum.

3 The museum existed in ancient times - although its theme changed from time to time. In its early days, a lady who had mastered voodoo, was a frequent customer. Once, she was charged with an outrageous member’s bill but the Museum’s owner would not listen. In anger the lady cursed the museum. When the towns folk heard about the curse they moved away. Nobody knows what became of the Museum’s owner.

© Sakuni Egodawatte

Deeper than Skin

Tokyo Museum of History reports a theft of a three-hundred-year-old collection of tattooed human skins from their vaults. Among these is a full-body piece known as the “Hinzo Pattern”.

The Hinzo Pattern is unique in that, though it is obviously of Japanese style and design, the images are not uniquely Japanese. Photographs of the skin show that among its images were divine beings from Muslim, Buddhist, even Aztec mythologies.

The photographic record is incomplete, however, and key photos are missing. The museum claims that the record was complete but has no idea where the photographs may have gone.

Possibilities

1 The skin collection has been stolen by art thieves who plan to make a small fortune selling such rare and illegal pieces on the world’s black market.

2 Images hidden in the Hinzo Pattern are actually formulae for elder incantations, capable of opening up doorways to other places should they be deciphered.

3 The Hinzo Pattern is to be worn by a cult leader during the performing of an ancient ritual. The skin itself works to focus the energies of the wearer in ways unimaginable.

© Eli Arndt

The Wayang Theatre

A new exhibition is planned in the ethnologic faculty of the local university. It is about the history of Java and Malaysia, especially the Islamic time which started about 600 years ago. There are also exhibits from earlier ages, the Hindu-culture coming from the Chinese-Indian trading routes and times before, when the local religion was kind of animism.

Between the craftworks is an odd set of wayang-puppets, made during the eighth-hundred A.D., the figures resembling humans with disturbing deformities. They were found some decades ago with Sanskrit-written palm tree leaves, yet not translated.

Soon after opening of the exhibition the puppets and the written leaves are stolen. The thief is easily found, he is a burglar, well-known to police, who is specialized in stealing from museums.

Possibilities

1 Shortly after the thief is identified, he is stabbed to death by his accomplice who wants all the profits from the crime for himself. He sells it on the international black-market shortly afterwards.

2 The burglar is found dead, apparently from a heart attack. The thief stole to order - and was then poisoned by his client.

(Before 1942 the client is a native-Indonesian group working against the foreign government. In modern times the client is an Islamic terror-group.)

The client wants the puppets for two purposes. They were once a holy set of puppets in the client’s home region and they can be used in the conjuration of Shuggoran and his childer. They want the puppets back to let these demons loose on their enemies.

3 The thief is acting on behalf of a rich collector. He pays the burglar well and is now translating the texts so that actors can perform the original wayang. He will take the main role and perform the act in front of his art-loving friend.

Unfortunately, this is the play of shadows and the songs will render the veil between dimensions. The collector is sacrificing himself to become a spectral hunter, to haunt the place of his self-sacrifice.

© Jochen Koltermann