Excerpt: February 22, 2222

As they went through the museum, Eskar found the names of the artists surprising, though he should have expected it. Dolly Salvadora…Jacqueline de Vermeer…Paula Picasso…Irene Fuseli…Vincera van Gogh. The Change that had occurred between 2106 and 2122 had gone through artists as well as historical figures. As always, Eskar wondered what had really happened. If every human on the planet was asleep during these days, who went through history books and rewrote them? Who altered the names on the brass placards in the Gugghenheim Museum? The only other change to the paintings besides the names were the fact that men had been diminshed. There was not a single male figure in Leonarda da Vinci’s The Last Supper. Paintings of soldiers showed women fighting. Medical representations were of female doctors, and female patients. Queen Henrietta VIII frowned down from a Heidi Holbein.

“She had six husbands,” said Chugga-Wugga. “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to know anything about history,” Eskar said.

Chugga-Wugga shrugged. “Clums talk about it all the time. It’s hard not to know it.”

Eskar soon found out that it was not a complete reversal of roles for men and women in the area of art. Edith Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass still showed naked women, but they were drawn with intelligent faces. The man, wearing their Sunday bests, stared stupidly at the women, as if waiting for them to give instructions. The Grand Odalisque looked the same as it did when Eskar visited the Milwaukee Museum of Fine Arts in 2073. There was no statue of David, though. The male form had apparently been seen as something disturbing. Apparently Michellangela had sculpted a statue of Bathsheba, the ruling queen of Israel after David’s wife, Naomi, died. As Eskar would learn later, David had almost lost his limited power, but had killed Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, so that she could become the reigning queen and he’d retain his kingship. Of course, being a King was no big deal in this world—only Queens were significant. But a King could attempt to persuade his wife to do things, and that is where his power lay. He also, hopefully, would impregnate the Queen with girls, to keep the throne in the family name after she died. So the history ran, anyhow.