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 Standing guard in a State Museum is not the worst duty a young soldier can draw. You didn't have to dig deep holes in the ground, or march all night in the cold rain, and of course no one was shooting at you. So I must admit that I had fallen into a kind of relaxed routine and I really wasn't on my guard when one of the museum visitors approached me.

Instead I prepared myself to answer a lot of stupid questions about the valuable state property we had on exhibit here and to remind the visitor that it was close to closing time. Then I saw him take out a folded handkerchief and hold it over his nose and mouth. “Oh no,” I thought. I hoped that he didn't have a cold. I just hated it when the stupid visitors coughed or sneezed right into your face.

Then I saw that he was holding what looked like a small bottle of perfume in his other hand. Naturally suspicious, I was looking closely at the bottle to make sure that it wasn't something the visitor had picked up from one of the displays, and so I was completely surprised when the visitor pushed the plunger on the bottle and a fine misty cloud came out of the bottle to surround my face.

The cloud smelled sort of sweet and pleasant like honeysuckle and I sniffed at its pleasant fragrance. But then suddenly the room started getting darker and I saw the floor rushing up at my face just before everything went completely black.

By the time I opened my eyes again, I was completely confused and disoriented and it took me several moments to remember that I was supposed to be on guard in the museum. The first thing I noticed was that the museum was completely quiet like it was after closing when everyone had gone home. The next thing I noticed was that I was sitting down and immediate panic gripped me. Guards were never allowed to sit down while on duty!

I tried to stand up and that was when I discovered the ropes. I had ropes tied all over me! They were pulling my hands back behind my back and squeezing my chest and my legs and my ankles together so that I couldn't move. They were even tied to the chair so that I couldn't even move my feet!

Then I saw the same visitor standing over me with a pleased look on his face.

“So you decided to wake up.”

I didn't know who this visitor was, but I didn't think his little games were very funny, and I started to tell him so. That was when I discovered that there was a big wad of cloth holding my tongue down and filling up my mouth. And there were several layers of sticky tape plastered all over my lips, cheeks and chin so that my mouth was completely sealed. What did they want?

“Mmmoo mar moo? Mmhat moo goo gant?” I hummed behind the tape.

“We want everything!” the visitor laughed at me. “And we're going to take everything!”

Oh no, I couldn't let them do that! I began to struggle against the tight ropes and to make all kinds of strange sounds behind the gag that was hugging my mouth closed, but none of my words made any sense, and the tight ropes wouldn't let me go.

“Easy there lad,” the visitor purred at me while he straightened my cap on my head. “You just sit there quietly like a good boy and maybe we won't have to hurt you before we leave.”

Hurt me…? For the first time the seriousness of my situation penetrated my thick skull. I was completely at the mercy of this strange man! So I stopped my struggles and quieted my humming mouth while I watched him walk off into the other room where I could hear other men busily taking apart exhibits and packing them up to go.

Then I had another thought. They might go ahead and kill me anyway! So I kept one eye on the door where the visitor went while I began to struggle against the ropes that were holding my hands. I struggled quietly at first, afraid that I might make too much noise. But the tight knots wouldn't give and the tight ropes were beginning to bite into my skin and so my struggles became more and more desperate as I tried to find some way, any way to get free!

I did manage to get myself up out of the chair, but then the ropes binding my ankles to the chair tripped me up, XXXXing both the chair and me over onto the floor with a frightful crash.

Then I saw the polished shoes of the visitor walking across the floor toward me.

“I warned you to sit quietly,” he growled.

Then I lifted my head and looked up to see several more lengths of rope in his strong hands. I tried to resist, but I couldn't avoid his strong hands as he wrapped and tied those ropes between my ankles and my wrists until my body was being bent up backwards and there was so much pressure on my chest that it was hard to breathe.

“Last chance, soldier boy, be quiet or be dead.” The visitor put my cap back on my head and walked away.

I moaned into my soggy mouthful of cloth and I could feel tears of frustration welling up in my eyes. What could I do? I rolled around on the hard floor and strained myself against the biting ropes, but the more I did this, the more it hurt and the harder it was for me to breathe. Then I heard the visitor’s polished shoes walking back toward me.

“I've got good news soldier boy. I told my boss about you and he wants to see you. My boss is a very wealthy man with a nice big house with two very nice galleries. One gallery is for this museum junk were stealing and the other gallery he has is where he exhibits healthy young men like yourself to all of his friends.

What did he mean exhibit? I began thrashing around on the floor and screaming for help behind the tape-trapped wad of soggy cloth. They weren't going to take me!

But the visitor just smiled at me. “Relax kid, my boss takes real good care of the pieces he likes.”

Then the visitor molded his handkerchief over his nose and mouth again and pointed his little perfume sprayer down at me. And the last thing I remembered was the sweet smell of honeysuckle as the floor came up to XXXX my XXXX head.

THE END

The Guard played by Danny

Photography by Caitiff