《Snapshots of an Artist》


 Likeness

    The artist was sleepy. It was nearly noon, but he had only been asleep for a few hours. The night before had stricken him with a mania about an idea. A concept which consumed him. It consumed his intellect, his emotions, and - of course - his time.


    Earlier in the day, he had been in line to buy cigarettes, and a wretched smelling fellow was in line in front of him. It was all he could do to make space between them to escape the cloud of odor. It was foul, and very off-putting. The mangled ginger hair had formed ropes from the obvious lack of bathing.The man appeared to be in good spirits, but in that out of his mind kind of way. And to make matters worse, the store clerk (ok, actually there were two clerks), was incredibly slow, or incompetent, or both. So the artist stood there, making space, avoiding eye contact, escaping the smell, swapping facial gestures with a lady, who was also in the line, who was also trapped by the current predicament.


    And even though this foul smelling man was hard to stand near, there was something intriguing about him. Who was he?What was his story?When the man finally got to the front of the line, he ordered two single servings of Fireball cinnamon whiskey. As if the man wasn''t peculiar enough already - here he was procuring his medicine for the day, or the night, or the moment. And with the small funds he had available - mostly coins. Two small, fifty milliliter plastic bottles. Just the right amount?


    The artist wondered if this was his regular habit?Or maybe this was a special occasion?Why Fireball? Did it represent something?Or remind him of something? It obviously wasn''t to commemorate his latest bath or application of deodorant or cologne.


    The entire episode might have lasted four or five minutes.


    Yet, the experience was unusual in some way. It made an impression on the artist. And that impression stuck around for a while, circulating in his thoughts. In that common, but strange way, he didn''t think about the experience much in the moment, consciously. But as he wandered home, it lingered. Who was that man?What was his story?What was his condition?So many things seemed to indicate he was down on his luck - yet his spirit appeared to remain intact. He was neither sad nor gloomy nor desperate. He was nearly giddy.


    Upon returning to his apartment, the artist couldn''t let the image of the man go. Not just the image of the man, but the image of the experience. The observation of this man. The wonder about the man and his story.


    --


    Two bourbons later, the artist was napping on his sofa. The soft sound of his snoring echoing through the halls of the old house that made up the apartment. As he slept, he experienced a lucid dream about being the companion of the smelly stranger. In his dream, he and the man were homeless colleagues who maintained a positive outlook on life. And they would find ways to hitch hike to this particular smoke and liquor shop to celebrate their life wins. A win was whenever either of them had something to celebrate. And that could be anything - a donation from a pedestrian, a birthday, good weather, a good night''s sleep, whatever. Oddly, it wasn''t something they discussed or defined criteria for. There was never a conversation about "Well, here''s a list of times when we should celebrate". Rather, when the moment came, they seemed to both just know - now is a time to celebrate.


    And celebrate meant finding a way to the liquor and smoke shop with whatever funds they could round up. Purchasing a pack of cheap cigarettes, and a bottle of Fireball whiskey. In his dream, they would drink the Fireball straight from the bottle. When his companion passed the bottle to him, he took a large swig of it - grinned at the flavor and the way it expanded like a balloon in his mouth. And then, suddenly, he woke up.


    The sound of his roommate yelling at him roused him from his sleep. The effect of the bourbon was still present, though he now attributed its effect to the Fireball he consumed in his dream. His roommate continued until he responded with something like "Hey - what the fuck, man - Iwas sleeping!".


    The artist''s roommate was a young philanderer, who rolled through life like it was a skate park. He turned tricks and attempted toimpress everyone at every opportunity. His virtue was his laid back style and attitude, which - generally - allowed the artist a lot of latitude in their living arrangement. At times, his roommate would become his muse. The artist was intrigued by his attitude toward life and the way he appeared to be in control of his own destiny. His roommate reliably seemed confident and self-assured, even in moments when the artist knew he was clearly out of his league. For instance, this one time they went out on a Friday night a little after one in the morning. For some reason, they both had ended their obligations early in the day, and napped through the late afternoon and into the evening. Onwaking, they both found home boredom to be more than they could stand.


    They decided to walk to a nearby bar. It was a regular haunt, though lately they had tried to avoid the place as they didn''t want to appear to settle for a local bar. They had an internal desire to be more out there, more adventurous. But the reality is that despite their desires, they were ultimately, also lazy. The local bar was only a few blocks from their apartment. And it wasn''t much to speak of. Food consisted of pretzels in a bowl on the bar. Their best whiskey was Jim Beam. Their best beer was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Not that best particularly mattered to this pair. They were perfectly happy with the Jim Beam, and truly preferred cheapAmerican lagers, such as Miller Lite. It wasn''t that they thought these were the best tasting options. However, they relished the idea that they were cheap, and relished the cheapness of the experience. Certainly, if offered a better bourbon, they would have readily drank it. But on their own dime, this was more than adequate.


    In any case, two Jim beams, and two Miller Lite''s later, the artist''s roommate was chatting up a young woman at the bar. The artist was slightly amused by this because he knew his roommate was drunk, and he could sense the young woman''s equal enchantment and repulsion. It was like he could see that she was enamored with the drunk version of him, but could also anticipate his dire living condition, and even more dire life condition. The woman was attired in a chic grey dress, with attractive black short heels and a fair amount ofmakeup. She was likely in the same age range, but clearly from a different background; a different class. The artist wondered if she was merely having fun with his roommate; providing a sounding board for his cheap confessions and desperate advances. The artist had tried to reel his roommate in a few times - with offers of food, other bars, drink variations. But each was declined, quickly, and with subtlety. So the artist relented, and resigned himself to observer.


    Ultimately, the lights came on and his roommate was abandoned, without even a phone number. His roommate''s mood was dampened, but not exhausted. The alcohol and fervent conversation fueled his enthusiasm and confidence, and he begged to continue to pursue the night. The artist, never one to miss an action or a drama, conceded. They continued the escapade a few blocks down. The night, however, ended in a kind of bleakness. The roommate was not able to parlay his success at the new bar. And the artist had lost interest in observing his roommates defeat, and even more - had lost interest in continuing to drink through the night. It wasn''t that he couldn''t. He was simply tired from the emotional expense of observing his roommate through the evening. His mind had wandered through several fields which contained different ways of expressing his observations and analysis of his roommate''s behavior and experience. Unfortunately, as entertaining as this mind exercise was - it wasn''t enough to truly inspire him. And, so, the thoughts soon faded. Once they returned home, the artist succumbed to sleep - where Fireball made a second appearance in his dreams; though ill-defined and fleeting this time.


    The next day, the artist awoke near to noon. His dreams from the night were vague, but maintained a presence somewhere in his memory. He could sense something about Fireball, though its meaning and purpose was lost in a fog. He wanted to think that stinky Fireball man, himself, had visited his unconscious during the night as well, but couldn¡¯t find a breadcrumb from his dream memories that led back to him, other than the vague Fireball reference.


    After a cup of coffee, the artist found himself motivated. The images of the fragrant ginger-dreadlocked stranger were still fresh in his memory. He could close his eyes and be right back in that moment. He was conflicted, though. In his recollection, he''d had a visceral reaction to the initial moment; it hadraised the hair on his neck and made his nostrils flair. He had felt a sense of fear, a sense of unpredictability. But that perception was at odds with the happiness and joy, the rapid shifting of balance between legs - the way you might make a geometry compass walk, the near mania in his eyes.


    Was this stranger some kind of crazy?Was he some kind of psycho?Was he some kind of derelict?It was impossible to tell. And the superposition of perceptions about him created a type of mania within the artist. It birthed an idea, a concept, a path. The artist was compelled to walk this path to see where it led. These were moments that gave the artist a rush. The opportunity, motivation, and means to create.


    The idea was fairly simple, though he was confident it hadn¡¯t been done before.


    The concept only took a few minutes to sketch out. When his roommate awoke, the artist was starting to assemble the first canvas. His roommate had experienced this before, and knew not to interrupt or interject his opinion. So, he collected his keys and cigarettes, and exited without comment.


    The artist was consumed with his work, and gave little notice to the roommate as he left.


    The artist had never constructed a three dimensional painting before, and so was forced to address the issues related to not just brush strokes and color, but dimension and structure. He figured it would not be too difficult; however, his first idea of assembling a papier mache sculpture failed fantastically. Mostly because he was too impatient to let it dry and reach an appropriate level of rigidity. So, he was left with a mess of soggy materials that looked like nothing but soggy materials.


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    Eventually, he found a way to create a wireframe structure that he could attach to the canvas in a way that provided a foundation for the torso, arms, and head. He created his own papier mache-type material using canvas to cover the wireframe,and a mixture of glues, which resulted in a structural sculpture he could later paint.


    Some areas gave him challenge, such as the facial features like nose, eyes, lips, and the ears. Hefound ways to stack and structure the glue and canvas to sculpt these details. He fell in particular love with the face he created. It evoked the giddy mood of the stranger.


    The next challenge was the dreadlock hair. He had some initial thoughts on how to create these. Ultimately, though, he opted for authenticity.


    The artist visited several wig shops until he found one with the appropriate shade and length. It wasn¡¯t cheap, but he felt the cost and effort was important for his artistic integrity. With the wig home, he trimmed it a bit, and the started the ¡°aging¡±process, as he thought of it. It was not unlike the way a chop house aged their premium steaks. Over time, he would fondle, add oil, and otherwise twist and contort the follicles. Eventually, the process worked, and he ended up with a wig of dreadlocks. It took at nearly 8 weeks to really look right.


    The dreadlocks were not the last touch, but nearly. He had also to create the full torso section, including arms, and head, and ensure they made the impression he was looking for. He added real clothes, which disappeared into the canvas. The dreadlocks provided a significant boost in fidelity for his model. Although he never knew the strangers name, he had begun referring to his creation as ¡°Jay¡±. In his mind it was short for James or Jason or something. But Jay wasn¡¯t too concerned about which you thought it was; and he was certainly not worried if you spent the effort to vocally produce his full name or not.


    The artist eventually spent several weeks on just this front torso view. Then, he turned his attention to the lower portion of Jay. He wasn¡¯t certain Jay needed a lower half; or, if he did, what it would be. It seemed almost trivial to conceive of Jay¡¯s conventional beginnings, to try and present Jay¡¯s run-of-the-mill past. But still, he felt this was important.He didn¡¯t know Jay¡¯s background, but assumed that he had experienced some alternate life-path that was planted at birth, and which he followed for some time. The ultimate work would be a depiction of Jay¡¯s transition from mundane to special. Thus, Jay¡¯s lower half was something like legs in mundane second-hand pants and shoes. In order to ensure the contrast, the artist embellished the tattoos he remembered and extended them across Jay¡¯s arms, torso, and a brief appearance above his neck line. These images provided an additional storyline for Jay.


    The cout-de-tat was to induce the full experience for observers. This included a small addition of cinnamonwhiskey and smoke ¡°fragrance¡±, and a large addition of body odor. The artist would need to include instructions for how to maintain the fragrance, if it were ever properly displayed in a gallery,so that patrons could always get the right experience.


    The entire project took a little more than four months. The finished work was intense, creepy, and invigorating. You couldn¡¯t experience it and come away with a mild impression. You either loved it, hated it, or didn¡¯t want to ever see it again.


    The artist, himself, ended up with mixed feelings about the work. He wanted it to represent his perception of the man he had come to call Jay. But, really, the work was a complacent and safe expression of a mundane experience. What was it about Jay he wanted to express?Ultimately, he didn¡¯t know.He only knew he wanted to share that initial moment with others.


    This perspective haunted him a bit. He wanted to intimately identify with the work. However proud he was of his effort and the result, he still felt that it was foreign, alien. When he observed it, he felt the presence of the original moment; but he wasn¡¯t sure anyone else would get what he was trying to convey.


    And, after all, what was he trying to convey? Certainly, his audience would get the visual and dimensional expression, and definitely, they would get the odiferous impression. But was that it?Was that enough?Really, it wasn¡¯t. He was trying to convey something deeper. Something about the contrast, the fight that existed within Jay. He wanted people to smell the stench, but see the joy, to repel at the look, but pity Jay¡¯s past potential. He was afraid that it was all too safe, and too complex.


    But what could he do at this point?The work was complete. He wasn¡¯t going to redo it, or destroy it. He had learned long before that you cannot work backwards, only forwards. And this work had reached the end of the road. There was little more he could do. It was either complete or a waste of paint or both.


    What he wanted was to present the opportunity for others to experience the transition from disgust to wonder they way he had done. From initial repugnance, to a final interest in who this human was, and how his story went. But he feared that most only experienced the repugnance, and never veered into the tunnel of wonder, of interest, of intrigue.


    ***


    And then theartist was distraught. This creation, this expression, was complete, but disappointing. Unfulfilling.Embarrassing. He wanted to destroy it. It was a poor representation of his concept.


    But, like a mother, he still loved his ugly offspring.


    And he lost himself.


    And he despaired.


    But what to do?Could he share this expression, as flawed as it was?How could he send this creation out into the world?Without ridicule?


    And what would they say? Would they accept it?Would they accept him?


    And what if they didn¡¯t?Where would he be then?


    And bourbon and bourbon and bourbon.


    And these moments are the moments when the artist lost himself in the ground. His body and his soul sunk below the earth. He lost his identity.


    And these moments are the moments when the fairies enter his mind. They whisper the despicable things that haunt and infect his thoughts. They infect his emotion. They rob him of his motivation. Their tiny hands hold him down, and steal his affinities.


    And soon. Soon, these moments are the moments, when he loses his motivation to live. And why shouldn¡¯t he?Who should march forward in these circumstances... in which his soul has been trampled by virtual angels?And so, the belt. The ledge. The door jam. These all become like magnets. Their pull is insatiable.


    The artist makes a loop from his belt. He ties a knot in the other end. He tests it on the door jamb of the bathroom. Be he loses his motivation, again.


    A voice in his head is saying something. It sounds like a whisper and a boom at the same time. He can¡¯t quite make out what it¡¯s saying. But in his gut, he feels something. It¡¯s a gravity pulling his stomach toward the ground, tugging his heart along with it.


    There¡¯s still bourbon in the bottle. So he pours. And he pours. And he pours. And then he is asleep. And then he is dreaming. About his work. And the people hate it. In his dream, a man walks up to it, evaluates it for a moment, then opens his trousers and urinates on it. A woman is nearby, yelling at the work. Calling it obscene. Calling it exploitative. Calling it a reflection of the modern relative morality of the world. In his dream, the artist tries to protect the work; but ultimately, he is also the receiver of excrementand curses. Then the artist is naked next to the work, while the crowd has gone. He is exposed. And he is frightened. And he is concerned for his safety. And he isn¡¯t sure how to move from this moment. He steals the dreadlocks, and uses them as a makeshift fig leaf covering his genitals as he seeks his next shelter. On the street, he tries to make his way home with his dreadlock genital cover, but his accusers find him and follow him. They shout doubts and criticisms at him. He doesn¡¯t understand the language and words, but he understands the intent. He is ashamed.


    The artist awakes, drenched in sweat. The dream still fresh and vivid in his mind and his emotions. He stares at his creation in the room. Itssilhouette in shadows from the nightlight on his wall. He loves it, but it frightens him.It is like his Frankenstein¡¯s Monster. He has given it life. But he¡¯s sure the people will want to burn his abomination.


    The artist alsotakes pity on his creation. He stares at it, he adores its presence. He absorbs its intentions, its emotions. He sees through it.He remembers the original experience.


    In that moment, when he is considering his sub-masterpiece, his roommate wanders into the room andoffers perspective. ¡°What the fuck is that thing supposed to be?Some kind of Prometheus?It looks like a Fraggle on crack.¡±


    And so, without notice, the artist rouses himself from his bed. He walks to the kitchen to find an average steak knife. And back to his bedroom. His roommate is still there, gazing confusingly at the monstrosity. And the artist, without emotion, severs Jay¡¯s head from the work. It falls to the floor with a dramatic thump and roll. His roommate is motionless. The artist slashes the sides of the canvas, creating deep gashes beside Jay¡¯s arms. The artist slices Jay¡¯s hands, and they too fall to the floor. The artist mocks fucking Jay in the ass in the alternate work. And as he does, he stabs the knife into the sculpture of Jay¡¯s ass. He slices across to remove the legs. And his roommate is now frightened, and intrigued, and amused. He wants to laugh, but isn¡¯t sure that that the artist won¡¯t slice him next with the knife. So his besmirched faced is all that exists in theeerie silence of the moment.


    When the artist is done, he falls back into the bed. Emotionally exhausted, but excited by the moment; excited by the adrenalin. He feels both dead, and able to take on anything.But. mostly, numb.


    A brief moment of rush and energy pulls him up from his bed, and he grabs the remaining canvas and torso and slams it against the wall, and his knee, and the bed, until it¡¯s only a mangled mess with dangling body parts and fractured frame. His roommate remains speechless.


    Eventually the artist mutters something about integrity and cause. The roommate is still afraid and not sure what to make of the moment. He simply nods in agreement. The artist stares blankly at him, and then rotates his head to hide his face in a pillow, and maintains this posture long enough for the roommate to feel uncomfortable still being in the room. His roommate leaves. The artist wants to cry. But the emotion isn¡¯t there. He was never that close to this creation to lament its demise. So his emotion dries up, and he¡¯s left bereft of emotion and motivation.

 Sketch

    Sleeping in is a specialty of the artist. He considers his conscious / sleep cycle as a kind of proprietary secret recipe. He never reveals when he goes to bed or wakes up. He never, (well, usually never) discusses his dreams with others. His diligence is considered rude and off-putting in general conversation. But his rhythm, his cycle, his movement is his own. And the artist has convinced himself that these things are unique and special and contributory to his expression.


    Also, the artist is naive. And vain. And banal.


    His "Sketch of a Specialist" has become an obsession. The night before last, on his journey toward drunken stupor, he found himself in a familiar predicament. Inebriated, but present. On the stool of a new establishment. In a dark setting. A familiar bartender, inquiring for needs and wants. A voluminous set of choices. The artist, feeling particularly indifferent toward consumption this night, has enlisted the help of the specialist.


    Now, a specialist is not a usual encounter. A specialist is someone who has earned the trust of, and established a reputation with, the artist. And the artist is cynical, skeptical, untrusting. So this is a moment of particular importance, of particular impact. The specialist, here, is the whiskey sommelier, the alcohol expert, the entre poi of intoxication.


    The artist has lent this savant his trust. Something about this servant has intrigued the artist. It''s something about his combination of expertise and hubris, combined with his humility and servitude. The artist had expected vanity and profanity and obscenity and ignorance. So he is surprised when this butler administers to his needs in such a swift and elegant manner.


    There is a commotion around them as they engage. But it all falls to silence as they continue to dance around alcohols and ethers, to embrace florals and fragrances, to manifest conversations regarding aging, and wood treatments, and barrels, and selection, and tasting, bottling, and cutting. This exercise culminates in a romantic tango of linguistic affection for the whiskeys they are considering. Ultimately, the artist is led onto a path of discovery by his new guide. And his guide, in turn, is led into discovery himself about the artist and his path toward discovery. It is artist vis a vis artiste.


    The first sips are brilliant and spicy. Vibrant and invigorating. The artist senses immediate inspiration. But he also experiences the gravity of the spirit. He feels the pull of this ephemeral beverage, and goes back for more. And more. In some time, he has become satiated. This pursuit is reaching the finish line, so he downs the crumbs and heads for home.


    The artist¡¯s mind has relaxed. His thoughts wander, slowly, as he considers the evening. As he contemplates this whiskey discovery, and what it might mean, if anything for himself, he escapes into a world of music. His playlist lands on ¡°Funny Little Man¡± by Aphex Twin. The groove and quirky melodies and vocals create sparks of lightness in his mind and his emotions. ¡°Come on you little funny man¡± rings in his ears, like a kind of robot elf serenading him. The usually joyless artist smiles as the song continues like the ghost of a clown in the way it entertains him. As the song continues, the artist suddenly has a sense, or maybe even hears, a much lower voice say ¡°Come on you little funny man¡±. It¡¯s similar to an experience he might have on LSD or some other psychotropic substance. It feels like a lumberjack whispering in his ear. He only senses it one time, as the song continues.


    Few playlists would follow Aphex Twin with Merle Haggard, yet this is one of them. ¡°Green Green Grass of Home¡± kicks on with Merle¡¯s rich baritone describing a dream of escaping jail and going back to his roots. The artist has felt comfortable listening to Merle Haggard as if his voice were like the loving arms of his parents embracing him. The combination of thoughts of parents, home, and the sweet burning on his tongue from the whiskey has brought on a nostalgic mood. He remembers a recent dream.


    He had awoke in his bed, alone. His phone was playing a conference call with his former art teacher, and several of his commiserating student colleagues. He couldn¡¯t decipher what they were saying on the call. But he got up anyway. Next, he was observing some unknown young cousins putting on dresses. Next, his aunt was looking for his help. The bathroom sink was backing up. She showed him the sink, with standing water, as she poured a blue-ish drain cleaner into the sink. The water swirled down into the drain, built up a bit, then drained out again. His aunt was surprised by this; the artist was relieved. He didn¡¯t know anything about resolving plumbing issues.


    The next moment, he was in a room, with his father. And then, also his uncle. Both deceased in waking life. The artist had an epiphany in his dream. He recognized that they were both dead, and so this must be a dream. This recognition of lucid dreaming excited him. However, although he was experiencing it lucidly, he wasn¡¯t convinced of it. He had a brief conversation with his father, but he can¡¯t remember what was said, except that the exchange started normal, and then became strange. His father kept repeating some phrase, like a glitchy robot. He asked his father, ¡°What year is it?¡±


    He thought asking what the current year was would inform him if it was a lucid dream, or some other kind of experience, maybe involving time travel. Next, the artist was outside, on a hill. There were a few people milling about. He asked them what year it was. Someone told him it was 2018. He wanted to believe them, but continued to ask more people. The third person did not tell him what year it was. Instead, they insisted that the clock tower in the town was their adversary. As the artist looked past the hill, into the town down in the valley, he could see a clock tower, which had sprouted arms and was terrorizing the town¡¯s citizens and destroying property, like some demented Godzilla-style Cogsworth.


    The artist felt empowered to defeat the clock tower giant, but as he approached it, he woke up. He was in that familiar daze where your mind has to reset to reality after enjoying what felt like reality in the dream. But soon it faded, and his eyes closed, and he spent the remainder of the night in unremarkable sleep.


    ***


    The next morning, the artist awoke, remembering the specialist, and his strange dream. It was a curious juxtaposition of ideas. On the one hand was the dominant expertise, on the other was destructive forces. Regardless, he had that familiar feeling of inspiration sprinkling into his mind.


    Pencil in hand, he began to draw. In his mind, the clock tower giant and the specialist bartender were becoming the same being. He started by imagining a bar where this clock tower giant was employed, but would only serve when the clock struck particular times. Instead of destroying the town, the clock tower giant would also contain beer kegs and taps, like a self-roaming bar to himself. He would pull glasses from a cabinet in his chest, and select taps from around his waist to fill the glasses, and distribute the ale to the town folk.


    The town was to be represented by rolling hills and cottages. The simple citizens of the town would be commuting between their houses and the mobile Clocktower pub master.


    A small river, winding through the town, would be the life blood of the Clocktower, wherever it was. The Clocktower would drag the river with his large pots and dump the spoils into an opening near what would humanly be an ear.


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    The tower would also visit the town mill, to gather the grains. The corn, barley, rye, oats, and rice all went into an opening near his other ¡°ear¡±. The grains would be filtered, malted, and roasted.


    The roof of the Clock was also like a kettle. The valve on top was slightly open to release steam.    Inside, a large pot held the water and grains, boiling them to extract the sugars and flavors. Below the pot, a fermentation cone would catch the wort. Over several days, the wort would combine with yeast to create the ale. Much like a human (or other mammal), as well, it would recede into the woods to excrete the remaining grain mash.


    While the Clock was brewing ale to be consumed by the surrounding town folk, it was also angsty and unpredictable. At times, a real Jeckyll and Hyde. This scene was somewhere in between, with the Clock handing out ale in one hand, while destroying a house with the other.


    The work of pencil on Bristol Vellum was coming together. It almost could be mistaken for a scene from a storyboard - for a movie about an enraged clock-brewery-beast. The town men were so enamored with the brew that they would risk their lives for a pint. Women and children running to save their own lives.


    ***


    ¡°The Clocktower¡± never made it out of the artist¡¯s studio, which was really also his bedroom. He had essentially completed it, but was never really satisfied with it. He couldn¡¯t identify if the problem was his emotional connection to the piece, his technique, the lack of color, or just the obscenity of the content. Whatever the reason, it was soon supplanted by several other incomplete canvases, all of which were also air-gapped from his emotions.


    Strangely, the concept did not leave his mind, however.


    The artist, later, returned to ¡°The Clocktower¡±. As he took in the structure of the images, and the lines and shapes, he tried to retain some separation between himself and the work. In a way, he sensed something like a denial. But denial of what? The denial was similar to fear. But fear of what?


    As he continued to gaze at the work, he couldn¡¯t solve the puzzle. He looked into each corner of the work, at the way he had depicted the clock tower, and the town, and the people, and their needs. The clock tower had a menacing look, but a somewhat benign appearance (despite the ravaging). The town was pastoral, but aggressive. The people were happy, but remorseful. These duplicitous meanings were everywhere he looked.


    Finally, after many minutes of deciphering only the layers of meaning, he looked away. And in that moment, something happened which surprised him.  As he looked down at the floor, and then at the wall, he blinked. With his eyes closed, he saw a brief image of his father. It was like a negative camera image, white on black, with a slight glow. He blinked again and it was still there, but more faint. He forced himself to blink again, but this time it was gone. And that is when he felt something in his body. A strange out-of-body sense, like he was floating slightly above he floor, and his brain was numb. His initial impression was one of overall numbness, but seconds later, a warmth flowed from his pelvis, and simultaneously down to his feet and up, through his stomach and chest, to his head. As it passed through his throat, he felt like he might throw up. In the next second, his eyes welled up, and he collapsed on the floor. His body contracted into a fetal position. His eyes shut tightly. His fists and muscles tightened, in an attempt to control what was happening. And then, suddenly, without warning, an irrepressible cry escaped his mouth, and evolved into an animalistic moan as his eyes leaked tears, for several minutes, into a puddle on the floor below his head.


    He laid there for many minutes. He sobbed. He adjusted. He lost his motivation and his hope and his drive. He felt a weight upon his body that kept him down. He stared blankly when his eyes were clear. He let his mouth drool upon the floor.


    He wanted to get up, to get out of this mood. But he couldn¡¯t wrestle himself to do so. He continued to lie on the floor. He adjusted his arms and legs to allow his joints to release pressure on his bones. After what seemed like hours, he pulled himself together.


    He wanted to just climb into bed, pull a light cover over himself, and allow his exhaustion to take him under. As he got up, he sat on the edge of the bed. His mind was blank, nearly numb. He stared into where the wall met the floor for several minutes.


    Once he regained control of his senses and intentions, he went to the kitchen and fixed himself a drink. It was just cheap bourbon with some ice. Back in his room, he sat up in his bed, placed the bourbon on the nightstand, and opened his journal. He began to write:


    ¡°Today was strange and uncomfortable. When I got home, I decided to look at the Clock Tower work. I thought I might find something in it. There has been something about it which I connect to, but can¡¯t identify, and tonight, I think I found that thing.


    I thought that it had been a depiction of a dream I had. And, in many ways, it was. But I had never faced the idea about my father in the dream. I always knew he was there, but I also had hidden him from my mind, from my heart.


    Today, when I looked at this work, he came to me. He entered my mind. I blinked, and he was there. And then, he was in my heart. And I couldn¡¯t escape it, the grief, the pain, the longing, the missing. And it overwhelmed me. It was like he had died all over again, right before my eyes. I was consumed with the emotion of his loss.¡±


    When the artist¡¯s father had passed, he felt it deeply. Although, only for a week or two. It was the surprise of it as much as the loss itself. His father had been like a pillar - like a foundational structure keeping the sky from falling. That¡¯s not to say he hadn¡¯t been critical or demonstrative. His father had been like a force of nature which could not be stopped with emotion, reason, or brutish confrontation. The artist had a conflicted respect for this aspect of his father. He never liked the way his father intended to steamroller him. He wanted to be the insurmountable apex his father could never champion. Yet, in the end, he always felt like the slight ant below his fathers tires. And while this made him feel low, he understood it as a kind of power. And as much as he resented the power being used against him, he longed to wield that power against others, to put others under his thumb.


    Ultimately, however, this was not a skill he possessed. He had made a few attempts since then to express this power, this force toward others. Instead of rolling over, they put up walls, and then launched offensive strikes of their own. The artist always lost the battle, and was a recluse in his tomb, rebounded in his emotion, and restrained in his motivation. How many losses does one sustain before they cease to play the game?


    ***


    The next morning, the artist slept in, and in, and in. Without being overly tired, he was simply unmotivated to start the day, this day, any day. The night before he had stared at the ceiling, leaving his light on, in his bed, with a light cover over his legs and torso. He was tired, and unable to focus for more than a few seconds on anything in particular. Yet, within moments, he was always anchored by an idea of his father, as a tormentor, as a villain.


    The clock tower was leaning against the wall across from his bed now. As he blinked, and blinked again, he saw it differently. Now the clock tower was his father, and the town his home, and town people himself and his family. The clock tower was now a belligerent beast, chasing after its mortal prey, who were doing what they could to escape its clutches; its wrath. And this was motivation.


    The original clocktower had been expressed as lines of concrete and stone. But suddenly, the graphite streaks dug deep into the face of the tower, exposing a hidden grimace and spiteful eyes. The ale glasses in the tower¡¯s hands became daggers, and the beer became a deep maroon of blood, and the town people were fleeing in surprise and fear. The bright sky became a dull grey-blue night, and wicked, sharp winged, birds took flight like apostles of the tower. The frantic reimagining had destroyed the pastoral impression, and replaced it with something from Dante.


    In the end, the penciled landscape had been transformed into something both beautiful and honest, calming and terrifying at the same time. The layers of expression reflected layers of sentiment and understanding. But, ultimately, the ruin and decay is what the observer was left with. One could make out the pastoral layer, but could not appreciate or understand its persistence in the face of the destructive power of the clock tower, of the father. It was a scene, washed in the acid of the artist¡¯s experience.


    The voice in his head was saying something again. It was like laughter. When he looked at the clock tower, the laughter became more intense. Looking away from the work, it disappeared completely. Looking back at the clock tower ... he could almost make out words. Something that sounded almost like ¡°you¡¯ll never understand¡±, followed by more whispered, booming laughter.


    Despite this, the artist was still unfulfilled with the work. It now felt cheap that a simple emotion had overcome him and enraged itself onto his canvas. So, "The Clocktower" went back, behind the canvases, below the frames, out of sight, out of mind.

 Kodachrome

    The day had started late, after the artist had slept in. His previous evening had been tame, consisting mainly of being on his own, eating a couple of tacos, and day-meditating - which was his own concept. Day-meditation was similar to day dreaming, but with intentional internal reflection as he sat solo while out in public. It was a way to direct and experience his thoughts, without allowing them to wander out into pure imagination. Instead, he would let them loose for a few moments, and then reel them back and focus. His breath, a constant reminder to ground himself. Some people call this mindfulness, but the artist preferred the term day-meditating.


    The dinner itself was quick, requiring little time to consume the tacos. He had spent more time in his meditative state. Usually these meditations resulted in a calm, introspective demeanor. Sometimes the feeling would extend to a numbness and calm feeling that rivaled a marijuana high. This mood wasn¡¯t quite that strong; it was more of a casual relaxation. However, his mind, relaxed as it was, did not stop wandering and wondering.


    Introspection often led the artist to new realizations about himself, which then often led to something like growth. These realizations were like strange reflections from a funhouse mirror, allowing the artist to see himself in a real, but distorted and ugly way. Faced with these reflections and realizations, the artist would consider who and what he saw, and ask himself if this is who he wanted to be.


    Yet, sometimes this practice went in a different directions. Sometimes, confronted with the oft unfamiliar truth of himself, the artist descended into depression. It was a reaction to the reality of who he was, of what he saw in himself. This disappointment would extend to his works, as he saw the reality of himself in his art. Sometimes this led to destruction of the evidence extant in his creations. Sometimes it led to personal debasement. After all, who was he, except the evidence of his convictions?


    This day, after the late sleep in, the artist found himself in such a state, and spiraling downward. Each thought led to another deeper, more disappointing realization about himself. And each work was evidence and affirmation of his failure as an artist and person. The mediocrity and mundaneness of his work ate at him. His inability to connect with people tore away his outer shell, leaving his emotions raw and exposed. This meta-state of depression, and iterative reflection and continued depression became a demon of consequence. The consequences being sadness, apathy, ennui, and self-deprecation. The artist would berate himself as he continued to live in his head.


    This state of mind ended in several ways. Sometimes, the artist would simply exhaust himself, and drift off after pulling himself into a fetal position. Sometimes, the artist would find a creative energy, and maniacally express this mood into some kind of work. Sometimes, the artist would open a bottle of whiskey, and start on it. A few pours would be the thing to calm his mind - pulling it down or up to some familiar level. But then, a desire to maintain, to exceed this level, would push him further. And he would find himself, the next morning, in the same fetal position, but lights on, and glass half full.


    But, sometimes, the artist found himself in an altogether different state of mind. This state was not brought on by any particular drink, thought, or introspection. Certainly, there was probably some common root cause, but he couldn¡¯t identify it. Whatever the cause, the artist found this place dark, comfortable, and, in its own way, peaceful. In these moments, he was calm, and deeply engaged in his own perception of himself. But it was no longer introspection. Instead, it was more like transcendent understanding of himself.


    Given to his own devices and motivation, the artist might never escape these vignettes. An unmarked bottle of pills in his bathroom had been set aside for these moments. Not as something to bring him back up, but rather, as something to keep him down, all the way down.


    The artist sat on his bed, and kept a keen stare toward the bottle. Every so often, he would pick it up and fondle the round edges; he would twist the cap; he would consider himself and the contents of the bottle. He would wonder if he had good or bad information, and if the contents of the bottle were true or fraudulent.


    You might think that someone in this state might think of certain things. You might think they would consider the consequences. You might think they would have some positive perspective on life, on themselves. Some anchor. That they might find something like a ¡°reason to live¡±. But that¡¯s really, really not how it works. This is like thinking that the person who has a deathly fear of bees should have a rational and calm reaction when one lands on them; but they don¡¯t. Thinking of bees rationally, as simple harmless creatures is not a thing that occurs to them. And they are caught in a reaction. And if more bees were to arrive, this would spiral and crescendo. And the person in the midst of the bees has only one thought, one motivation: get out of this situation, get away from the bees. And so it was for the artist. Get out of this situation. No anchor. Only adrift at sea. The bottle represented nothing but bee killer. And so he continued to turn it over in his hand, as the bees continued to buzz around his head. As the waves continued to bash and shove his boat.


    ***


    The next day, the artist awoke sharply. The lights yelling at him, the glass mostly empty, the, mostly empty, bottle several inches away from his grasp on the bed. On the floor, the ghosts of dead bees. But a new day is like a new chance, a new opportunity. Because, the artist is really an optimist. He expects and wants good things. Like a seaman on a sandy beach after the storm.


    But he also considers himself a realist. The optimism is what he wants. And though he expects it, he is rarely surprised when it doesn''t materialize. There is no shock when the bad thoughts, the down thoughts, appear - when he finds himself over top the downward spiral and ready to fall into it. And it''s no mistake, he willingly steps into the pit. The sense of danger is comforting, and the feeling of falling is familiar, like stepping into a volcano. The feeling of falling had always been a terrible comfort zone for him. Like Alice down the rabbit hole, he felt at home. Like a sideshow freak who lays on a bed of nails, the pain didn¡¯t exist in this world.


    Although he only just awoke, it is already early afternoon. His phone appears to have several messages waiting for him. As he picks it up to inspect the messages, he gets a call. It is from Florence. Florence is a somewhat complex presence in his life. She was assigned male at birth, but presents herself as female. She is 22 years old, with medium blonde hair. In a glance, you might mistake her for Lady Gaga. She isn''t tall, and her figure is slight. But her posture and demeanor is strong, solid, respectable. He answers the call...


    "What''s up, bitch?" she says.


    "Oh man... hey. Nothing. Just woke up."


    "Well, what are you doing tonight?"


    Before he could answer, she continued...


    "Going up to The Mill House later to catch a friend''s band. They''ve got this cool blend of rave beats and punk rock. We''re heading there around 10. You up for it?"


    "Yeah - cool. Sounds great. See you there."


    "You better be there, bitch."


    "I ain''t nobody''s bitch... well, maybe yours. But yeah, I''ll be there."


    The last time he had hung out with Florence, they had a long night. It started with a band, and included getting really high, eating late night pizza, and making it back to his place to discuss their differing opinions on art and philosophy. But there was something enchanting about Florence. A perfect blend of feminine softness, with the right dose of masculine intensity. Her go-with-the-flo (no pun intended) attitude resonated with him as well.


    Fast forward to that evening. The artist wandered into the club a little past 11pm, to the sound of loud beats and neon lasers shining around the ceiling. The lasers provided limited reflection against the black interior, which helped the overwhelmingly black-clad audience remain incognito.


    Near the front of the crowd, he could easily spot Florence¡¯s bright orange hair bobbing with the beat. He made his way over to her. Flo¡¯s tight black faux patent leather dress was hugging her taught figure as she moved to the music. Several waify emo guys were dancing near her; though none could muster the confidence to actually dance with her. Their indistinguishable uniform of tight black pants, boots, shirts, and hair - their slight, non-muscular frames - their constant shoe gazing and their clearly-stoned look, all made Florence amused and disgusted. These were the conforming non-conformists. They wanted to be both outside mainstream society, and welcomed in this sub-society. Florence couldn¡¯t give a fuck. Their constant presence and consistent appearance made them nearly invisible to hear. They were part of floor, of the ambiance. Sure, they were people, but not the people she wanted to associate with.


    She knew their conversation too well. They were depressed. They wanted to be artists. Their range of emotional expression was the same as a gnat. Their education was moderate at best, as their interests were limited to primal instincts. Inevitably, every conversation led to a cheap entre to sexual innuendo. That¡¯s not to say that Florence never indulged. But usually, she was much more discerning, and these boys mostly bored her. And there was also the inevitable biological mixup that would leave her disappointed, and the boy confused. She has resigned herself to be more particular - smoking out the posers, the idiots, the prejudiced, and the in-confident and non-expressives.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ***


    An off-kilter bar stool supported Florence, while the artist sips a cloudy ESB. And they are all surrounded by others. Can''t they just order their fucking drinks elsewhere at the bar? And what''s with all the fucking smiling? It might be nice outside, but really, inside - it''s miserable, even disconcerting.


    So for several minutes, they just sit there. Florence still moving to the beat from the dance floor. The artist looking like maybe he should have stayed in bed. The ESB seems to have injected a little life into him, so he ordered a bourbon to bring himself back down a little. He didn''t want to be too awake. He liked this moderate state of sleepy, peripherally aware, moving, but mostly still in a dream.


    Flo started to tell him something, but he only caught parts of it. Each thing became an image in his wakeful dream, and the things blended together. The adjectives, too, blended together. His dream was a collaboration of every moment she mentioned, but he could perceive all of it at once. The more she talked, the more of a map was revealed, and he could navigate the terrain in any order he chose. As she finished, the dream vision persisted. He spent a few moments exploring and memorizing it, so that he could set it aside and revisit it later.


    Florence could tell he was hearing her, but not processing like normal. Still, she continued the story. At the end, she ordered a cocktail. When the artist had come back into focus, he looked at her. Through a window behind her, he could see the outline of some industrial building. It was silhouetted by the bright industrial lights behind it. His focus was lost briefly in that moment before it came back to Florence. She stared at him; she captured his attention; he smiled at her. "How has the music been?", he finally asked.


    Still representing the rhythm in her seat, she began to exaggerate her moves as she told him: "It would have been better in a bubble with you, my love."


    This made him want to smile, and in his mind he had. But Florence could only detect a small movement of his lips into a slight grimace. "Wanna get out of here?".


    Before she even finished the question, he had planted his feet on the ground, and taken her hand. He was guiding her through the club. He stopped in front of the men''s bathroom, telling Florence - "I''ll be right back", as he dropped her hand. "Darling boy, I can go in there too, you know?", she said as she followed him through the door. He approached a urinal, but just as he was about to turn, Florence aggressively steered him into a stall, and casually locked the door behind her. He was facing the toilet, with her behind him. She wrapped her arms around his torso, as her hands caressed his sides down to his waist. She tangled with his belt for a moment, before separating the leather and brass. His button fly jeans were parted within a second, and with one hand she pushed his jeans and underwear down, while the other found his cock and aimed it at the toilet. He stood firmly and relieved himself, sighing as he finished. She stroked and shook him a few times before loading him back up into his underwear and jeans. She left the belt for him to deal with, as she unlocked the stall. Two steps out of the stall, and a few other men were giving her curious looks. She just looked back at them with a wry smile and her eyebrows raised. The artist followed her out of the bathroom, and back into the club.


    ***


    From his bed, the artist was conceiving his next work. He began by setting up several rudimentary easels in addition to his primary real easel. He arranged them in a circular pattern around himself. In all, there were 10 easels facing him - each containing a 12" x 12" canvas stretched across a pine frame. Next, he created 10 distinct base tones - one for each of the images.


    He put in some earbuds and settled on Adele''s "25" album. The opening piano chords of "Hello" set a mood in the artist. "Hello, can you hear me" - he heard this from the music. But, then, he heard it again - a different voice. It was still relatively early in the day, and the artist was merely putting some organization into his work. He hadn''t yet had anything to alter his mind or mood, other than the music. But there it was again - "Hello, can you hear me?".


    He pretended it was something he had heard in the music, but simply hadn''t recognized before. As the track ended, he heard it once more, in a deep voice:  "Hello, can you hear me?". He took the earbuds out, and examined them. He examined his phone. Nothing obvious to him.


    His next step was to get a charcoal pencil and sketch on each canvas. On the first canvas, he created a torso which was reminiscent of Michelangelo''s David sculpture. On another, he drew a right arm holding a scale. The next, a left arm with a snake wrapped around it. The next, a hairy leg with a cloven hoof. The next, a mechanical leg, like what you might expect on a humanoid robot.


    On the fifth canvas, he drew a head with a face that resembled Joseph Merrick, if his deformities had been smooth like a neutral white carnival mask. The look on the face was haunting, with a slight wry smile.


    After this, he took a break. The album had completed in his ears, and now he was ready for an auditory break as well. He first just laid in bed, allowing his work to settle in his mind. He felt hungry, but didn''t really feel like eating. Instead, he put on his shoes and went outside for a walk. The air would invigorate him.


    His feet on the sidewalk created a rhythm in his head. His head was mostly down, watching his steps, creating a visual rhythm. It was still early afternoon, but within a few blocks he was at The Blistering Sun pub. The door was open an inch or so, like it almost always was. He grabbed the handle and entered, finding himself about 3 steps from a stool at the bar. A yellow-haired slim guy came from the back room, and upon seeing the artist, extended his arms, and walked toward him with an exaggerated swagger. "Get over here, beautiful!". The artist stood up, wrapped his arms, and placed a brief, but serious kiss on the lips.


    "Hi EB. I didn''t think you were working days anymore?"


    "Money is money, bitch - you know what I''m saying?"


    "Yeah, I know what you mean."


    EB lifted a hinged portion of the bar, walked behind the bar, and asked "Well, what can I get you?".


    The artist had evolved a small smile on his face since EB made an appearance. He looked up with a bit of a grin and said, "I''ll have Sex With An Alligator". He couldn''t help but chuckle a little as he ordered it. Honestly, he had no idea what was in it; he just enjoyed the name. EB had introduced him to the drink a few months before.


    EB smiled. The last time the artist had ordered this, they had engaged in an entire conversation of double entendre and foreplay. EB tried not to get too excited as he topped the chilled fruit liquors with Jager. He put the glass on the bar in front of the artist, but didn''t let go. As the artist reached for the glass, his hand wrapped around EB''s. They both felt something, and smiled. The artist laughed and pulled the drink toward himself, taking a quick drink.


    After two more drinks, it was getting late in the afternoon and the artist was missing his work. He paid some money, and had a last conversation with EB. "I''m heading back to work on my latest project. But, uh... join me later?".


    EB smiled with wide eyes, looking excited, then frowned suddenly. "Oh dear, I''d love to. But I can''t. I''m here all night."


    "Ok, ok. Maybe another time?"


    EB retained a disappointed look, pouty lip and all. The artist left, and walked back home. This time his feet made the rhythm, but he didn''t watch them. Instead, he gazed ahead, with several thoughts racing through his mind. He was thinking about this project. He was thinking about EB. He was thinking he was feeling tired, and his bed. He was thinking how it would be for EB to come over to his bed, and then nap after, and then work on his project. But that wouldn''t work. He couldn''t work in front of EB. But still, he was thinking of them together.


    At home, his easels had been stacked up in a corner - one atop the other. He was a bit incensed by this. His roommate ...


    He had just arranged the easels back into order when his phone buzzed. "Hi beauty".


    He paused. Read the message again. He had expected he wouldn''t hear from EB for a few days. He had expected to come home and work on his project. "Hi".


    "Slow night, I''m off early. Thought I might come by?"


    A grin returned to his face. "Yeah. OK. Give me a few minutes to tidy up?"


    "Well, I need a shower too!"


    With no one looking, the artist blushed.


    "Uhm. Right. Ok. I''ll see you soon".


    The artist left the canvases to rest. He tidied his room and his bed. Not long after, there was a knock at the door.


    ***


    In the morning, the artist woke earlier than usual. The sun was up, but just barely. In his bed, his arms, legs, and torso felt lifeless and numb. His head was a fog, his mind without focus. He was searching for motivation to move, but could find none. So he just laid there on his back, the sheets covering him up to his neck. He stared at the ceiling for minutes.


    Moving his head to the right, he could see EB lying next to him in a semi-fetal position, with his head on the pillow and his hands clasped under the pillow. He was peacefully sleeping, breathing easily. For moments, the artist just watched him.


    He could hear his roommate making coffee. His eyes returned to the ceiling. He wanted to enjoy this moment, and record it. But the fog was still there. He couldn''t focus for more than a few seconds on any particular thought. His eyes darted around the ceiling looking for something of interest, something to pull his focus. But within a few moments, his eyes would divert to something else, or his head would shift. But then, the idea came.


    On a shelf near the bed was a variety of figures. The first was a skeleton with a mirrorball for a head. The second was a Marilyn Monroe figure being lowered into a volcano. The third was some kind of monster, but with a parachute - as if it were a paratrooper. Next to that was a Leica M2 camera.


    The morning light reflected beautifully on EB as he slept. This was the motivation that the artist was searching for. He quietly pushed the covers down to reveal his naked body. The room was warm enough. As he stood up, he stopped for a moment to allow his blood to equalize throughout his body.


    The shelf was only a step or two away. He reached for the camera, and examined it for a minute or so to be sure it was in working order. He had obsessively kept the camera loaded with Kodak Kodachrome film. A previous experience of missing a photographic opportunity had taught him a lesson. With the viewfinder to his eye, he moved around the room, with the camera pointed at the bed.


    There was one view of EB asleep, and with the artist''s shadow extending across the bed - the shape of his body and the camera making a dark impression on the sheets. He took several quick shots of this view. He moved in a semi-circular pattern around the bed. Finding shots as the sun became brighter through the window. At one point, EB had stirred, scratching his nose and rotating his arms and body. He ended up mostly on his back with his arms in a Y shape above his head. In the movement, his smooth upper chest was exposed as the blanket shifted to reveal EB¡¯s ankles and feet.


    The artist had especially loved the slender and svelte chest of EB. It''s hairless smooth skin was like porcelain; his nipples like candy milestones across his body. The light was shining a ray through the window and illuminated the skin just above EB''s nipples up to his neck. The artist snapped several shots of this image, include a few that were closer and showed only a section of EB''s upper chest.


    After he was satisfied, he put the camera back on the shelf. He climbed back into bed, and wrapped his arms around EB, who made a kind of snorting breathing sound for a moment, then shifted his body away from the artist, who then pulled EB closer into a spoon position. The artist drifted back to sleep, holding EB.

 Poem

    thieves and liars.


    murderous insects.


    hateful and hate stricken.


    there could be beauty, instead only greed.


    there could be love, instead only affectation.


    most days are only darkness.


    but the lights, the lights are like fireworks.


    but they too fade and expire.


    the burning outside becomes the burning inside.


    and this energy, with all its glory, also expires, exhausted.


    my cocoon, my chrysalis, my future beauty.


    but i must survive this harsh environment.


    i must survive these wicked winged insects and predators.


    and is it just time? i can never believe in just time.


    i can believe in what i see, what i experience.


    and this world is full of experience.


    full of things that prey, that mock, that study, that insult, that covet.


    i grab the hand of the giant; but his hypocrisy rejects my gravity.


    but sometimes, life is hell. sometimes life is nothing but suffering.


    this world is my enemy.


    i want to conquer it.


    i will conquer it.


    let these Gomorrahns defend themselves. let them come for me. let them comfort me.


    So what? Am I a thrill seeker?


    The world is my assassin. I must defend myself. So what?


    ***


    This was how the artist started the spring. It was a period of awakening - but also one of the dying winter. The sweater he had worn most of the season was tattered and smoke holed. The rain inspired his sorrow. The brief periods of sunlight pulled him like a gravity, but could rarely rouse him from his bed.


    A stack of notebooks assembled themselves like ramps and towers of Piza; like bridges for rodents; like Jinga, at any moment. Some filled, some half filled. Some had just a few doodles. One had been an outline for a play - in three acts. The title had been capriciously titled ¡°How to fuck your mother¡±. It was a study of Freudism in modern society. The first act dealt with a young boy named Frank, and his maturity into puberty. One could easily see it as a summary of Roth¡¯s ¡°Portnoy¡¯s Complaint¡± set on stage - complete with liver and his father¡¯s Fleshlight. The second act focused on Frank¡¯s conception of his mother as a sexual object and his increasing desire and motivation to have sex with her. The second act culminates in his mother entering his room as he masturbates to a fantasy of her. Frank climaxes as his mother walks in, and the lights go out for intermission. The last act takes place later in Frank¡¯s life as a young adult in his 20¡¯s. He is visiting home for the holidays. There seems to be a tension and simultaneously an affection and excitement between them. With family and friends visiting for dinner as well, the main scenes center around the dinner and various tensions. Ultimately, the guests leave one by one, until Frank and his mother are left alone. As they finish their dessert, they leave the table - speechless - and walk toward the bedroom.


    It was never really finished. He had completed the outline and the first act, but soon lost interest as it took so much time. Also, the artist was finding his characters difficult to relate to, and difficult to voice. He understood the underlying Freudian themes, but couldn¡¯t express them in language that seemed fitting for Frank and his mother. Some time later, he did commit the general idea to canvas in a piece he called, somewhat cryptically, Motherhood and Apple Pie. (The latter part a reference to a mediocre comedic film which featured masturbation with an actual. literal, apple pie).


    Many of the notebooks contained summaries or even just brief glimpses of ideas. The constant flow of ideas, which arrived seemingly from out of the ether, needed to be captured. It was an obsession, really. Any idea could be a great one; and every idea that didn¡¯t get captured was a lost opportunity for artistic greatness. Ironically, he almost never went back to review the ideas. Most of his work occurred in the moment of the idea. If he wasn¡¯t driven to execute immediately, it got documented in the notebooks. Every several years he tried to review them; but he almost never found the same emotion or inspiration to pick it up and work it.


    Today, as he lay in bed, surrounded by his library - he found himself curious. He wanted to take an unusual moment to revisit some ideas. He wasn¡¯t looking to revisit any particular idea today, but rather, just wanted to browse where he had been. He found that much of the ideas were dancing around his mental and emotional state at the time he captured them. He was - somewhat subconsciously - looking for something that reminded him of the Spring season; and there were several candidates:


    *) A work titled ¡°The Flirtations of Venus¡± would be visual and depict an androgynous ¡°Venus¡± in the center, with various incarnations of other ¡°Venuses¡± offering their attentions, affections, and sexuality. But these various Venuses would be held up by demons, as they couldn¡¯t fly on their own.


    *) A poem - ¡°Untitled¡± - that would lament the demands of various lovers towards a complacent and apathetic ¡°master lover¡±. The master lover would pick and choose without affectation or interest in order to fulfill his purely physical needs, while providing a heavenly experience for his subservient lovers.


    *) A sculpture - ¡°Untitled¡± - (humorously unofficially titled ¡°ice ice baby¡±) which would be constructed of a heat/cold conducting metal. The interior would feature a cooling and heating element. The metal sculpture would be a baby, held up by a pair of hands. Next, the artist would create an opaque water substance, and sculpt a dense ice sculpture of a pregnant woman around the baby. When presented, the ice would melt to reveal the baby.


    *) A speech - ¡°Fulcrum for a fetus¡± - which would feature the artist on a milk crate with a megaphone reciting one-line summaries of abortions from mother¡¯s whose lives were at risk.


    *) A novella - ¡°Flowers at dawn / Flowers in the field¡± - which would be a treatise on the tragedies of dying at the cusp of spring.


    Each of these sparked a small emotional reaction as he considered his mindset at the moment he captured them. Yet, ultimately, they all fell flat in this moment.


    ***


    BIG BANGS AND BEDROOMS


    birds and bees


    like fleas on a dog


    like monkeys in a zoo


    doing their thing


    fucking in flight must be something


    thoughts and desires


    like mud on my shoes


    like murder in the streets


    infecting my mind


    do plants suffer in the dark?


    a cross on my breast, in orange and black


    a one-time mis-spent afternoon


    fooled by words


    fooled by lust, lust for meaning


    a memory in my heart, in blood and muscle


    the everyday mis-spent nights


    fooled by lust


    fooled by love, love for a warm body, a warm mind


    dirt and rainwater, in soil and my mind


    like food in my soul


    like a placenta in motion


    pushing me through


    is this how the gods did it?


    mercury and moonbeams


    like truth in a bottle


    like escaping from Alcatraz


    ontologies of yesteryear keeping me down


    can this universe reflect on itself?


    ***


    A mild depression is common for the artist as spring rolls in. As stems pop up from the ground, his mood compensates by grinding down. Some years, it¡¯s more exaggerated - but this year, it¡¯s relatively subtle. His friends don¡¯t really notice; but what do they really notice, anyway?


    It¡¯s like seeing everything and everyone around you gaining energy from the ether. And you can see the energy flowing into them. And their uplift wears you down. And that little difference between them and you is like the little difference between heat and cold that physicists use to create air conditioning, or weather uses to create tornados.


    So the artist has to move in and out of conversations, in and out of social events, in and out of his friendships. The April showers, don¡¯t bring May flowers. They bring destruction and sadness. They bring days in bed; they bring the eaters of inspiration. While other artists experience the rebirth, the return of excitation after the dreary winter, this artist lapses. Into his bed, under the covers. Shielding from the sunlight.


    All artists experience the shifting moods. For many, the down moods are where seeds are sewn, where the roots of deep emotions spin their roots into the fertile ground of the artist¡¯s soul. A happy artist isn¡¯t always a productive one; in fact, frequently the opposite. Some like to create the circumstances where such moods can exist and the artist can swim in the dark waters of emotional abandonment, of failed social interactions, of disappointment in the world, of pain too intense and complex to simply speak it.


    Our artist is one who sees himself as something of a curator of these moods. Both in himself, and often with others. He likes to walk a small path around their life until he finds the small path that leads into their dark woods, and once there, he explores. It¡¯s never malicious - he just wants to see what they see, feel what they feel, and put himself into their soul for some moments. He wants to consume their experience, ball it into a seed, and plant it within his own dark forest. His woods are a potpourri of human experience of every variety. Over here - a frail and small boy who was bullied by his parents and schoolmates for his effiminate character. Over there, a woman who tries hard, but has been beaten down over and over again to where she is at the edge of suicide. On the corner, a set of parents who are grieving over the loss of their child to a house fire. This one, a trans friend who can find lust and sex, but never love.


    Most are based on real interactions, moments of conversations, evenings of enlightenment. Others, however, are merely imagined. Standing outside a building, smoking a cigarette, and watching the various clusters of people pass by. Sometimes there¡¯s just a man across the street - maybe waiting, or maybe sitting on the curb. The artist imagines his story, and files it away in the forest. This old man, he was once a humble pipe fitter. He had spent his days as a union worker, making union wages, married to an irish women who never put up with his bullshit and personal issues, but allowed him his weekend evenings with his buddies to drink away his sorrows and disappointment at having not amounted to more. He had wanted to be something more in his youth - something like a radio or tv announcer. But, alas, his dreary looks were not for television, and his accent - a strange mix of Irish brogue and Cantonese - was not right for the air waves. His father was a third generation immigrant with Irish roots. His great great grandfather Taswell, called Taz, had come from the outskirts of Dublin to America to find a better life. The man¡¯s father had a fondness for Asian brothels, and upon impregnating ¡°Jade¡± (real name Biju), had vowed to marry her and raise the child. They named him Conner - though growing up most called him Connie. The irish lads took fine to the nickname, but others found the courage to degrade him as they saw it as a girl¡¯s name - a nickname for Constance - itself viewed as a name for austere nuns. Growing up he spoke a variety of English that was highly influenced by the fading Irish brogue and colorful phrasing of his father. However, his mother¡¯s broken English and Eastern world view also affected Connie as a boy. The idea of an Irishman marrying a Chinese whore was also seen as a complication both culturally in general, and for fitting in with society in general. The Irishman was not really accepted in the Irish community, and Chinatown wanted nothing to do with the mixed family of a whore. All of this left Connie without a strong footing in the world. His foot in each culture seemed unsteady, like standing on two slick rocks in a creek, about to fall into the water at any moment. And so, as he graduated school - he wanted to college, but there was no money for that. So he entered a trade school and became a pipe fitter¡¯s apprentice, joined the union, and became a static cog in the machinery of building and maintence. He had once loved a woman, only to find she was already married. Their 6 month affair had inspired and fulfilled him in ways he never thought possible. But when he proposed and she confessed she was already married, he was more than crestfallen. He was done - with life, with love. He thought he would off himself, but was saved by a woman named Maggie. She found him outside the local pub, drunk as possible, trying to make a noose of his belt. But he was unstable, and trying to keep upright against the pub¡¯s brick wall. She eventually brought him to her place, and nursed him over two days. She convinced him to return to work, and to forget about the hussie he had been in love with. After a week, he returned to her house with a small bouquet of flowers to thank her. She again took him in and made him a basic dinner of sausages and boiled potatoes. Over time, the two would see each other more often, until they mutually decided to get married. He was never as in love with her as he was with the ¡°other woman¡±; but he had love for her, and she for him. She was a strong Irish woman who never allowed him to wallow in such self pity again. When he would deliver his sermons about self loathing and disappointment with his life and the world, she would kick him in the pants and remind him that the world owed him nothing and if he couldn¡¯t be happy with what he had - including her - she could march him right back to that pub, get him stinking drunk, and make the bloody noose from his belt for him. She didn¡¯t have time for such nonsense. He always relented. He was never sure if this was her way of loving him. He adored her strength and her tenderness toward him. Sitting on the curb, it had been 3 years since she passed from breast cancer. Those 3 years felt more like 30. He could remember her, but the feeling of her had been fading for so long that he couldn¡¯t remember what it felt like to be near her. And at this age, at the tail of his pipe fitting career, with no money, a house covered in dust and ruin, he could not find the courage to think there was any future. Each day he thought about the pub, the drink, the noose. The one idea, the one memory, that persisted was her lack of pity, her heavy hand, her committment to construct the noose for him. It felt like betrayal to consider doing this himself at this point. He coudl go to the pub, he could get drunk, but he couldn¡¯t go further because she owned those steps. So rather than ending his life, he suffered it - without her - without an exit. And now, here he was - on the curb. Waiting for a bus to take him to a pipe fitting job in some forgotten corner of the city. It was all he had - focus on the job. It was all that defined him. Well, that - and his weekends at the pub with his buddies. But they too were fading and failing. The group that had been as many as six, was now just three. And Connie was simply waiting his turn until there would be two.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    All of this happens within just a few minutes of the artist¡¯s mind. He files it away in the forest because he believes there are several moments that might be candidates for his work. He thinks the idea of this broken down, but not broken man has something endearing about it. And he wants to explore that later. He finishes his cigarette, and walks east away from ¡°Connie¡±. Connie - put aside to a pocket, but not forgotten. Filed away - he may write about him in his notebook later. Or maybe Connie will stay buried in the forest for years before the artist makes his way down that path again.


    ***


    While the artist feels a repulsion for the Spring, he doesn¡¯t see the perspective where he is, himself, like the Spring. These seeds he plants - though year round, occur most frequently in the Spring. He doesn¡¯t act on them, of course. They are not ripe for plucking into everyday expression. Rather, they are the seeds, the nuts, the fruits which he buries in his forest, in his dark wood. There is no instantaneous rebirth of these into plump inspiration. No. They are almost more like a beer or wine, fermenting in the land of this wood. He doesn¡¯t tend them. He doesn¡¯t water them. He lets them simmer, he lets them marinate, he lets them unfold as they might. He lets them infect, and become infected. Until sometime, maybe a day, maybe 5 years. He wanders down that path of his forest, and stumbles upon a plant or tree he doesn¡¯t recognize. And as he digs it up, examines it, breaks it down. As he inspects its trunk, its root. As he touches the stalk with his hands, and rubs the leaves on his face - then, maybe, the inspiration comes. And the artist, becomes the pipe fitter. He becomes the instrument of interconnection, of integration. And suddenly - ¡°The Connie Vision¡± emerges in his mind.


    ***


    Visions are often vague and abstract. They are artifacts of your mind, after all. And your mind can make sense of anything, truly. Have you ever dreamt of flying? Of talking animals? Of people who are one person, then suddenly and simultaneously another person? These are not things you normally encounter, and so they might seem strange in normal consciousness. But in a dream, they don¡¯t seem strange at all. They are just concepts, and you process them like any other concept. Rarely do they seem strange enough to question them. Occasionally, you might recognize their peculiarity, and even enter a lucid state - where you recognize the dream, and can even direct it.


    This is not different from the artist¡¯s concept. They are regularly like dreams. There is a concept, but it¡¯s not one you can necessarily understand in waking life. You might have to open your dream mind to appreciate them. Some people walk around day to day in a dream mind state. They are brilliant, but usually cannot function in normal society. Often, they can¡¯t distinguish between the dream state and reality. Hell, often, they believe that the dream state is more real than reality. And they go off proselytizing their beliefs, their certainties.


    But what is certain in this world? Is anything for sure? Bets you thought you won. Decisions you are sure you made. Things that happened yesterday, that today seem ¡°different¡±.


    So, Connie. In his yellow shirt, covered in stains. Or was it green? Blue? Who the fuck knows. Or even cares. He was a person. A human. He was a picture of something. Surrounded by the world. A world of imposters, of pretenders, of fake it til you make it, of who the fuck is this guy, and why is he leaning over my shoulder at the bar. Like his phone call is so important.


    His vision of Connie was different from his observation of Connie. The observation represented some kind of reality. A snapshot, a quick picture of a point in time. This person, on his corner, living his own life. And so many questions.


    Did he know love?


    Did he know beauty?


    Did he know compassion?


    Did he know suffering?


    Did he know abuse?


    This vision was replete with so many questions. Some which inspired, others which informed.


    But it was all the artist could see in his mind. This person. This Connie.


    He could only see the internal struggle. The history. The hopeful future.


    But this Connie. This person. This man. Who was he?


    There were always multiple answers to this question.


    He was who he was. He was who he wanted to be. He was his own potential future self.


    Connie was his own mirror; his personal ouroboros.


    There were times when the artist revered Connie. His freedom. He wasn¡¯t tied down, so he could be anyone. He could shift in the moonlight and become someone else.


    And there were times when Connie repulsed him. This lackluster nobody.


    People are so fragile.


    Their internals. Their externals.


    The artist was so interested in what drove these different personas.


    The gay and trans wanted to appear straight.


    The blacks wanted to appear white.


    The whites wanted to appear successful.


    Sometimes, it worked. The community accepted them as the imposters they portrayed.


    And sometimes, the community was skeptical, cynical. Who are these freaks? What are they doing in my neighborhood? At my places?


    That week, the artist visited several establishments.


    Each one, an eclectic bar with the ¡°usual¡± options. Shitty beer. Shitty whiskey. But he didn¡¯t care. Good, bad, or otherwise - alcohol was always the thing that brought him down to Earth. You couldn¡¯t be high when you were drunk, only grounded. Sometimes on the dirt, sometimes on the pavement. Sometimes, with boots in the mud, in the muck. And sometimes, you could escape into the high as you left.


    The artist, ever the scientist - loved to experiment with the patrons. This day, he would engage them in conversation. The next, he would buy them a drink, or food - anonymously - and watch their response. The concept of another human, randomly endearing them - without knowledge or familiarity - always surprised the patrons. The artist, however, felt it somewhat like an investment. His theory was that if every human invested in another human, the world would experience a change. A different phase of humanity.


    So, Connie. Where did Connie fit in this tapestry of humanity that the artist observed. In many ways, he was the center. The core of averaged humanity. The essential components of what it means to be human, compressed into a single body. There were always accessories, hangers on. Beings whose existence supported or distorted another. They were just as important, just not to this artist¡¯s focus.


    The exceptional had always caught his eye, but it was the everyday, the mundane that made the structure of his world. The firmament of his idea of the world. Firmament being a clear misnomer. There was nothing firm in this world. Nothing static. The world was always changing. The people. The Earth. Himself.


    So, Connie. The vision. The expression. The artist was like a machine, a synthesizer. It took an input, and applied its algorithms. And it created some output. And Connie was a rich and detailed input. Both the real Connie, and the artist¡¯s perception of Connie.


    The output was always the catalyst for the artist. Sometimes it was a poem, or a sculpture, a painting, or a song. It all depended on the synthesis.


    In this case, what was ¡°Connie¡±? Essentially a visual snapshot of a man, and the artist¡¯s own runaway imagination. Mostly, the later. How to properly convey Connie to others?


    He pondered this for days. Keeping it to himself. Until...


    He said something about it to Flo one night. He hadn¡¯t meant to let it slip... but as the words came out of his mouth, in his head he was thinking: ¡±What the fuck did I just do?¡±


    He thought he might get away with it, because sometimes he mumbles, and sometimes Flo isn¡¯t listening. But not this time.


    ¡°So what¡¯s this Connie thing?¡±, Flo asked.


    The artist looked at her dead in the eye. He might deny it... tell her she heard him wrong. But then he softened his look a bit, raised his eyebrows and smiled a touch, as if to say ¡°You have unlocked the door, and now you may enter.¡±


    ¡°Yeah... about that. I didn¡¯t mean ... ¡°


    ¡°So it¡¯s a new work?¡±


    ¡°Kinda. I mean, yeah - probably. But I don¡¯t quite know yet.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the prob?¡±


    ¡°Usually.... I mean, I know how I want to manifest my work ... but with Connie... it¡¯s just ... not happening.¡±


    There was a quiet moment between the two of them. In that space, he could hear the voice in his head again. It distracted him enough that he could make out it saying something like ¡°Connie, the human. The destroyer. The destroyed.¡±


    ¡°So, Connie is this guy, or man who ...¡±


    The artist was startled away from the voice, and began to tell the fable of Connie the American. (Connie the destroyed?)


    As he finished, Flo was just looking at him strangely. She wasn¡¯t sure if he was done, or if there was more to the story. The artist lowered his eyes and looked away. He appeared to be lost in a thought.


    And he was. It hadn¡¯t materialized just yet. It was like a cloud floating around in his head, and he needed to catch it somehow. His fingers repeatedly passing through the ethereal possession. He was still hearing an echo of the voice.


    But then he grabbed it. The idea. A solution.


    He looked back up at Flo, ¡°Hmm.... I think I know what I need to do with Connie now¡±.


    And there it was, and already proven. And that is how ¡°The Connie Vision¡± became ¡°The Fable of Constance Irishman¡°.


    ***


    Those who knew him had little idea where the artist came from, or much about his childhood. This had been somewhat by design, as the artist didn¡¯t really like talking about it.


    He had grown up on the far outskirts of the city, in a small lower middle-class ¡°neighborhood¡±. There were only about a hundred homes in Parsley Fields, a terrible name. The kids always had much catchier, alternate names: ¡±Fartly Fields¡±, ¡°Parsely Pills¡±, ¡°Fairy Fields¡±, and so on.


    He grew up as a younger brother, three years the inferior. His older brother had a learning disability, and didn¡¯t always make sense when they talked.


    The artist¡¯s father was the main parent during his youth. He has faint memories of his mother, but there aren¡¯t many of them. Sometime when the artist was around four years old, his mother had separated from his father. She moved out to live with her mother, about an hour away. A month after moving out, his mother and grandmother were driving home one night, when a semi-truck ran them off the road. They were both killed in the crash. He never really understood what happened; but he did know the emotion it created in him, and never really knew how to deal with it.


    His father was destroyed by it. There was a tacit assumption that the separation was temporary, and she would be home again soon. Although his father hadn¡¯t been much of a drinker before, he found a new reason to swim deeper and deeper into liquor, vodka being his mistress of choice. A small dose to start the day, and more later to help him sleep.


    The artist¡¯s brother took it hardest of all.  He was old enough to understand, but his learning issues prevented him from fully processing it. He knew his mother had died, but still asked when she was coming home - every day.


    ***


    The artist¡¯s brother became a burden as he got older. The artist¡¯s father, in his usual drunken state could not provide proper supervision for his eldest son. The artist was still in school, and doing his best to keep his ideas and emotions to himself.


    This all happened when the artist was seventeen and his brother was twenty. His brother usually watched television all day. He liked soap operas. He didn¡¯t really follow the stories, however, the recurring characters made him feel comfortable. The artist was sure his brother knew the characters weren¡¯t real, but still - it certainly seemed like he thought of them as real people who were living out the drama with him. Sometimes at dinner or later, his brother would try to tell them about what happened in the day¡¯s episode; unfortunately, it was always convoluted, and the artist could never understand what had transpired.


    Down the street, there was another family who had three daughters, ages fourteen, sixteen, and nineteen. The artist and his brother knew them well enough. The youngest daughter had some kind of learning disability also, though the other two weren¡¯t particularly geniuses. Because of her learning disability, the youngest was home schooled by her mother. They would have morning classes, a mid-day lunch break, and then afternoon classes.


    When the weather was nice, they would have class outside. The young daughter was particularly fond of those days. She loved being outside, the trees and flowers. But, like any family, there were days when her mother wasn¡¯t unavailable. In late fall, her mother had come down with influenza, and had to take several days off from her daughter¡¯s education.


    On days like this, her daughter would usually just watch television or otherwise occupy herself. This particular week in late fall was warmer than usual, and her daughter wanted to go outside. There were trees, mostly devoid of their leaves, and no flowers to be found. A small wooded area behind the houses had many trees and a few dirt paths. She had decided to walk through the woods to find some kind of flower. It was her quest for the day.


    That same week was a particularly sexy and steamy one for the soap opera the artist¡¯s brother liked. In a particular episode this same day, a handsome doctor had come home and grabbed his girlfriend (well, really - his best friend¡¯s wife - you know how soap opera¡¯s are). He took her shoulders, pushed her against the wall, and started kissing her. She feigned resistance for a moment, then gave in. Next they were disrobing and into the bed.


    The artist¡¯s brother didn¡¯t really know anything about sex, other than what he had seen on these soap operas. From the window in the tv room, his brother could see the neighbor girl walking down the street toward the path that led to the woods. The television scene had aroused him, and the sight of his neighbor created something energetic within him. He turned off the television, and watched her make her way to the path.


    After putting on his shoes, he walked out the door and headed toward the path as well. It didn¡¯t take long for him to catch up with her. Due to their shared disability, their conversations seemed innocent and demure. He began to tell her about the events from today¡¯s soap opera episode. She just laughed at him. She had no real idea what he was talking about.


    A moment later, he asked her if she wanted to see his penis. She didn¡¯t know how to respond, but he pulled it out before she said anything. She had never seen one before. He was just laughing, although within seconds, it had become very erect. He walked toward her, and grabbed her shoulders. He pushed her toward a tree and put his mouth to hers forcefully.


    She wasn¡¯t sure what to do. The feeling was a strange combination of intense arousal and intense fear. She couldn¡¯t scream because his mouth was over hers. He began grasping at her clothes to expose her breasts. Then they were on the ground, her below him. His pants were down to his ankles. Her breasts were exposed, with her shirt and bra lifted above them. As he laid on top of her, and could feel her belly and breasts against his own torso, he ejaculated - partly on her pants and partly on her stomach. A wave of euphoria washed over him. She, however, was disgusted.


    He got up, and left her there as he walked back home.


    The next day, the police showed up at the artist¡¯s house. His brother was arrested for rape and taken to jail. A few weeks later, he pled guilty on advice from his public attorney. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.


    In prison, his brother didn¡¯t last long. Everyone knows that prisoners aren¡¯t fond of rapists and pedophiles. With his learning disability, his brother only barely understood what had happened. But since the experience had been so emotionally and physically significant, he relived it frequently. He would lie in his bed at night, and masturbate while talking himself through the event, letting everyone know what had happened. After a week of this, his cell mate shanked him in the shower. A small sharp edge had been created from a piece of rigid plastic. As the prisoners were in the shower, they all left except for the artist¡¯s brother and his cell mate. His brother was paying no attention to the fact that everyone had gone. The cell mate walked up behind him and used the shank to stab his sides, and his neck. There was a loud shriek with the first blows. Then his cell mate punched him on the side of his head, and he fell down onto the tile floor, water and blood exiting to the drain.


    Because no one saw anything, no charges could be brought.


    The artist was incredibly sad from the entire experience. It was another human cut from his life, and in the worst way possible. But it was the artist¡¯s dad who really suffered. He had come back slightly from his alcoholic days, now down to one bottle of vodka per week (along with various beers as well, of course). This event destroyed him, again. He only sat in his bedroom, and cried. His vodka consumption quickly ramped back up.


    A week after the stabbing, they had a funeral. It was the last time the artist laid eyes on his elder brother. He felt overwhelmed with sadness, disappointment, depression. He knew his brother had never meant to hurt anyone, but this wasn¡¯t something that was explainable or understandable if you didn¡¯t know him. After the funeral, the artist had to drive his father home, as he was already one bottle of vodka in before the afternoon.


    At home, his dad passed out in his room.


    The next day was a Saturday. Per his usual habits, the artist had slept in late. His dad, usually an early riser, even when hungover wasn¡¯t up yet. He figured maybe his dad had consumed enough extra alcohol to keep him in bed later than normal. As the afternoon plowed into the early evening, the artist was getting ready to leave the house. He needed to clear his head. He knocked on his dad¡¯s bedroom door, but there was no answer. He called out to his dad a few times. He knocked again. Then he opened the door.


    On the bed, his dad was in mostly undress, in just his underwear. He was halfway on his back, laying diagonally across the bed. On the nightstand was a nearly empty bottle of cheap vodka.


    The smell had hit him immediately when he opened the door. It was the smell of the vomit next to his dad¡¯s head, with some of it still spilling out of his mouth. The artist was confused at the sight. He grabbed one of his dad¡¯s ankles, and shook it. He tried calling to him. But he could tell from the feel of his dad¡¯s skin, and the temperature, that it was too late.


    The artist collapsed onto the floor, his legs spread out, and his head fallen into his hands. It wasn¡¯t that he didn¡¯t know these things happen, and happen like this. He had just been in denial. Or, no - that wasn¡¯t it. This had just been how things had always been. It was the artist¡¯s normal. He just never understood that this was how his normal could turn out.


    The artist stopped going to school after this. He received money from his dad¡¯s insurance, which helped pay for his day-to-day needs. A lawyer helped him sell the house and all of the things in it. His mother had been an only child, but his dad had a brother. The artist¡¯s uncle lived on the other side of the country, however. He had escaped the ill fortunes of the family. The artist thought he might go live near him, but later decided that he would just get an apartment and a job. He stayed in the house until he turned eighteen, then moved to the  city.

 Performance

    It was Saturday. The artist had only gone to bed around 4:30am. So, no one was expecting to see him before 2:00pm or so. His roommate was surprised, then, to see him heading out the door a little past noon.


    ¡°Good morning, sunshine.¡±


    ¡°Hey.¡±


    ¡°Where you off to so ¡®early¡¯¡± (His roommate made air quotes as he said early).


    ¡°The library. See ya later.¡± (As he closed the door behind himself).


    Entering the library, he saw an easel holding a sign that read:


    Gudrun Zauberlige presents Kierkegaard


    In the Imyndaoa Lecture Hall, 2nd Floor


    The artist ascended the stairs which formed the centerpiece of the main entry hall, to the second floor. He looked left, then right - and discovered another sign pointing to the lecture hall. As he approached, he could hear that the session had already begun. He had read Gudrun Zauberlige¡¯s book, ¡°The Misgiving¡¯s of an Existentialist¡± - which was something of a biography of Soren Kierkegaard while simultaneously being an academic critique of his philosophies. Today¡¯s talk was to be a 45 minute presentation about Kierkegaard¡¯s perspective on commitment, followed by a 30 minute question and answer session.


    Walking in, he heard Ms. Gundrun:


    ¡°... when he described commitment as core to one¡¯s identity. He sensed that without commitment, we are nothing, no one.¡±


    The artist found a seat near the door, and towards the back of the hall. There were seats for at least 100 people, though it was clear that only about 30 people were in attendance - scattered throughout the seating grid.


    There was a projector showing a photograph of Ms. Gudrun, alongside a drawing of Kierkegaard, both above a bold font reading ¡°The Misgiving¡¯s of Kierkegaard¡± - an obvious evolution of her book title. Though a microphone and speaker were available, she spoke without them in her aggressive, but understandable German accent. She dressed smart and conservative in a mostly black ensemble that included a pearl necklace and a red brooch that the artist couldn¡¯t quite make out from this distance.


    The artist had been interested in the ideas of Kierkegaard for a few years. Someone at a bar had mentioned the philosopher, and it piqued his interest. A short time later, he read ¡°Either / Or¡±. He was immediately drawn to the duplicity of thought that Kierkegaard presented. His themes of ethics, aesthetics, and seduction all felt familiar to the artist.


    He could hear Ms. Gudrun now discussing Kierkegaard¡¯s perspective on Mozart¡¯s ¡®Don Giovanni¡¯ - a fantastic piece of classical opera, considered one of Mozart¡¯s best.


    ¡°And while listeners across the world can experience the joy of the music on its own, it is Kierkegaard who finds an erotic nature to the work. Here, erotic means not necessarily sexual, as it is commonly understood today, but rather a heightened emotional state, and one which is committed and fully engaged in the experience, and in the moment. One which is subjectively interwoven with the performance.¡±


    It is these ideas which helped broaden the artist¡¯s perspective, and open a door to deeper understanding of the world and our collective experience within it. Though his na?vet¨¦ still owns him, he has been growing and expanding. He cannot see the world and life for all that it is, but he is no longer locked into his youthful blinders.


    As the presentation comes to a close, he waits to see what questions are asked. A few attendants leave through the door near him. He stands up to leave, but is drawn in by a question from an older woman midway in the seating grid:


    ¡°To what do you attribute Kierkegaard¡¯s rejection of objectivity?¡±


    This seemed a curious question to the artist, so before exiting the door, he found a place to lean against the wall nearby.


    Ms. Gudrun began:


    ¡°Well, you have to understand the time in which Kierkegaard lived and the state of so-called ¡®science¡¯ at the time. Certainly, objective science was still in its nascent years, and the abundance of snake oil was overtaking many communities in the western world. Kierkegaard¡¯s perspective was actually less about rejecting ¡®objectivism¡¯, and more about recognizing that personal experience was something that could never be supplanted. And this kind of idea motivated his philosophy toward a personal understanding of the world, a personal understanding of existence. That¡¯s not to say he recognized no objective reality; only that subjective experience for an individual is the most important, because it informs ethics, relationships, commitments, and aesthetic experience, all of which he found much more fulfilling than objective truths.¡±


    The artist recorded this moment in his memory. He didn¡¯t know what it meant to him personally just yet, but he felt that it was important, and something that resonated deep in his self.


    ***


    He left the library feeling pensive. This moment felt important, but he still couldn¡¯t identify why. As he walked, he considered Ms. Gudrun¡¯s presentation. It had reignited his interest in Kierkegaard.


    The pub next to the library was open, so he wandered in. There were a few apparent regulars toward the back of the bar. He took a seat at a table in a dark corner near the front. The Irish waitress came around a few minutes later and took his order. He thought he wanted bourbon, but wanted to keep his head a bit clearer, so he ordered a Fuller¡¯s ESB. The waitress was quick to bring him a pint. As she returned to the bar, and disappeared in the back, the door opened and a wiry young guy entered. He grabbed a stool at the bar, and watched the television a bit, anxiously. There was a news story about JFK on, but the artist was disinterested and had his own thoughts to consider.


    He sipped his ESB in silence and ignored whatever banter was happening at the bar. The wiry guy left, and not 30 seconds later, Ms. Gudrun entered the door. The artist was nervous, and a bit stunned. He watched her approach the bar and order, or at least attempt to order a Hefeweissen. When she was told they didn¡¯t carry any, she looked over the bar, and settled on a tipperary cocktail. She took a seat just behind the artist, pulled out her notebook, and took a big sip of her drink.


    The artist was aware. Very aware. He wanted to say something, but he was frozen. In his head, he was thinking how to open the conversation. But he could come up with nothing. A few seconds later, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and was staring at Ms. Gudrun.


    He could now see that the brooch she was wearing was a devil holding a cross.


    ¡°Excuse me young fellow, could I borrow your salt? Mine seems to be exhausted.¡±


    The artist looked at her, stunned by the shock of the interaction, and equally by the request. He quickly regained his cool, and smiled.


    ¡°Sure thing.¡± He turned to his table and collected the salt shaker, which he communicated to Ms. Gudrun.


    ¡°Thank you so much.¡± She turned, salt shaker in hand, and poured several dashes into her hand, and from there into her tipperary. The artist found this action a bit odd.


    He then found the courage to ask:


    ¡°Excuse me, miss. Why do you add salt?¡±


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s just something my father used to do. He said it helped abate hangovers and also scare away any demons!¡± Then she laughed heartily, mostly to herself.


    ¡°We all have demons¡±, the artist offered.


    At this point, the artist realized that Ms. Gudrun did not recognize him from the earlier presentation. He decided to play dumb, at least for the time being.


    The artist tapped her on the should.


    ¡°Excuse me, young miss. Could I borrow your salt? Mine has gone ... missing? And I have an urgent need to eradicate my demons!¡±, he said with a sly smile.


    She laughed, grabbed the salt shaker, and handed it to him. He grasped the salt from her, dash a small amount into his hand, and then sprinkled a few crystals into his pint glass, stirring it with his middle finger. After removing his finger from the glass, he slurped the droplets of beer from it with his lips.


    ¡°Where are you from?¡±, he asked.


    Ms. Gudrun rotated her chair to meet him.


    ¡°Well, I live in Amsterdam now. But my family is from Sonderburg. My father was German, and my mother, Dutch.¡±


    The artist smiled. He already knew this.


    ¡°So what brings you ¡®round here?¡± He asked, taking a sip of his beer.


    ¡°Well, I just finished a presentation at the library next door. And just needed to wind down.¡±


    ¡°Ah.¡± He took another sip of his beer.


    ¡°What was your presentation about?¡±, he asked.


    ¡°Oh, you wouldn¡¯t be interested. Archaic philosophy stuff.¡± She waved her hand to dismiss the idea that it was anything worth discussing.


    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ¡°Really? What kind of philosophy?¡±, he questioned.


    ¡°Well, primarily about the existential philosophies of Kierkegaard.¡± She raised her eyebrows, as if to ask ¡°Have you ever heard of that?¡±


    ¡°Mmmh. Kierkegaard, eh?¡±


    ¡°Yes¡±.


    ¡°Wasn¡¯t he the guy who was all about god is dead and the superman and all that?¡±


    She laughed.


    ¡°Oh no. You¡¯re thinking of Nietzsche¡±.


    ¡°Ah, right. Also Sprach Zarathustra, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡± She exclaimed.


    ¡°Then, which one is Kierkegaard?¡±


    She began to tell him about the basic ideas and intellectual frameworks espoused by Kierkegaard. All the while, he simply nodded in agreement and understanding. In his mind he was thinking that it was exhilarating to listen to her describe concepts that have been floating around in his head for years. He was thinking about whether he should show his hand; let her know that he, too, was a fanatic. But then his paranoia kicked in also. What if she would judge him for withholding this information, that she would think he was just fucking with her. He wondered if maybe she was an expert, but not necessarily a fanatic. What if she spent her time not just learning and synthesizing the ideas in order to lecture on them, but rather to ultimately critique and disprove him.


    As her discourse migrated from metaphysics to Christianity and faith, she paused. Looking at him, directly at him, into his eyes:


    ¡°Do you believe in God?¡±


    The artist appeared to shrink back into himself. Wanting to provide an authentic answer, given his disposition as an anti-fanatic imposter:


    ¡°Well, that is an interesting question. I don¡¯t believe in any God in the way that most religions define it.¡±


    She grimaced at this.


    ¡°Hmmm. Ok. Tell me about this God you do believe in?¡±


    He wasn¡¯t sure he wanted to venture very far down this road. After all - what did he believe in?


    ¡°To start with, I don¡¯t believe in worship. The whole ceremony of it seems fruitless and superstitious, and - frankly - a bit silly.¡±


    She continued to look at him intently, as he continued.


    ¡°And gospels and testaments seem like something for a forgotten culture when people lived closer to their animal instincts than they do now.¡±


    ¡°Animal instincts?¡±, she inquired.


    ¡°Yeah - well, without education and culture and sophisticated social rules, there must have been a lot more incidents when baser instincts won the moment. Eye for an eye, and all that.¡±


    ¡°I see. But what about God?¡±


    ¡°To me, God isn¡¯t really a thing or a being that exists. I think of God as a permeating existence that kind of binds the universe together. It doesn¡¯t judge or demand worship. It doesn¡¯t speak to people in English ...¡± - with this he paused for a moment, as if derailed by his own thoughts.


    ¡°What are you thinking?¡± - she could see the meandering in his eyes.


    ¡°It¡¯s weird. I don¡¯t believe in a God that talks to people...¡±


    ¡°But?¡±


    ¡°... but, sometimes. *sigh* I don¡¯t know...¡±


    He was now thinking that she would judge him crazy if he continued. What was he going to say? That he doesn¡¯t really believe in God, but sometimes he hears God talk to him?


    Ms. Gudrun waited as he worked through this line of thinking.


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure how to put this...¡±


    She waited...


    ¡°... sometimes ...¡±


    ... and waited ...


    ¡°God talks to me.¡±


    She blinked. She almost laughed, but caught herself before it made its way to her throat, mouth, and nose. Instead, she let a small smile form on her lips.


    The artist¡¯s face was bright red from embarrassment. He lowered his head a bit, but kept his eyes on her smile. There was something reassuring and comforting about it. Something that appeared to please or amuse her about his statement.


    ¡°In English?¡±


    ¡°Uhm... yeah...¡±


    ¡°What does God say to you?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the thing. He doesn¡¯t exactly ¡®say¡¯ anything. It¡¯s not like a big booming voice from heaven that gives me instructions or anything. Well, I mean... it¡¯s like a booming whisper voice. It comes from nowhere, and it does ¡®say¡¯ things, but it¡¯s not like a conversation.¡±


    He paused again, considering how to put it.


    ¡°It¡¯s more like he puts ideas into my head. I hear them sometimes in my own voice, but mostly in the booming whisper. They don¡¯t come from me - from my own mind. They are disconnected from my normal train of thought.¡°


    ¡°Interesting. What kind of ideas?¡±


    ¡°Ideas about people, about myself. Ideas about ... ¡°


    At this, she leaned toward him...


    ¡°What do you do? I mean, for a living?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m an artist.¡±


    This was an easier and more familiar line of questioning.


    ¡°An artist?¡±, she said, a bit sardonically.


    He grimaced at this. An artist. One of ¡°those¡±, right? Idealist. Head in the clouds. Chronically depressed and bored with existence. Not that he wasn¡¯t exactly these things. But fuck her for judging him, even if he does match some facile stereotype.


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°What kind of artist? Painter? Sculptor?¡±


    ¡°I work in a variety of mediums. I started as a painter - but found that painting didn¡¯t always capture what I wanted to express. I branched out to multi-media painting, then sculpture. I also compose poetry and songs. Occasionally photography. Really, I experiment with different methods of expression. Even conversation can be art.¡±


    ¡°Conversation? Really? Enlighten me.¡±


    ¡°Conversation is the art of sharing ideas. Like any art, there can be expression, tension, resolution. There can be drama, or humor, or both. It can be heavy, or light, or something in between.¡±


    ¡°Is our conversation some kind of art?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know yet.¡±


    ¡°At some point you will know?¡±


    ¡°Maybe...¡±


    ¡°Do you feel tension in our conversation?¡±


    The artist chuckled a little to himself. Tension. In this conversation. He considered whether this was the point when he should come clean. Let her know about his real reason for being here. His real knowledge of Kierkegaard.


    ¡°A bit.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡±, she inquired.


    ¡°What is making you tense?¡¯, she continued


    He chuckled to himself again, thinking, ¡°if you only knew¡±.


    Waiting, she looked at him - with intent, with anticipation. She could feel a tension starting.


    ¡°Well, you see, Ms. Gudrun...¡°


    Ms. Gudrun blinked in response to hearing her name. Her eyes dilated a bit.


    ¡°... I was at your lecture earlier.¡±


    He paused for effect. Ms. Gudrun continued to stare, completely engaged and waiting for what would come next.


    ¡°I am a bit of a Kierkegaard fanatic. I¡¯ve read your book, ¡®The Misgivings of an Existentialist¡¯. I have found some similarities between my own thought paths, and Kierkegaard¡¯s.¡±


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting you to show up here, but was excited when you did. And to be having a conversation with you... has made me a bit ... nervous?¡±


    ¡°I see¡±, she responded in her German accent.


    ¡°Why are you so nervous? Do you think I am judging you? Do you think I cannot have a conversation with a regular artist or a Kierkegaard fanatic?¡±


    She laughed to herself at this last phrase. ¡°A Kierkegaard fanatic¡±. What was that, anyway?


    ¡°A Kierkegaard fanatic? I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever met one of those...¡±


    The artist blushed again. Was he really a fanatic?


    ¡°Well, I read ¡®Either/Or¡¯ several years ago, and was intrigued with his approach to existence and being. I didn¡¯t resonate with his specifics about Christianity, exactly - but the idea of existing in the concept, rather than existing because of the concept, or existing to follow the concept. My daily life is an either / or. But I don¡¯t subscribe to a particular idea of what I am supposed to do. Rather, I follow what I feel I am meant to do. And it¡¯s surprising how much that works out for me.¡±


    ¡°Do you feel like you were meant to meet me?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. I know I was meant to experience your lecture earlier. Meeting you feels like serendipity. But ¡®meant¡¯ to meet you... I don¡¯t know. I think that depends on what happens next?¡±


    To this, Ms. Gudrun leaned back. Was she being propositioned? She blushed at the idea.


    The artist, feeling confident now, continued...


    ¡°What are you doing tonight?¡±


    ¡°I am heading back to my hotel. I have to call my husband.¡±


    She paused to gauge his reaction. He looked at her, dispassionately. He didn¡¯t blink.


    ¡°And after that?¡±


    ¡°After that?¡±


    ¡°Yes. After that?¡±


    ¡°After that, I had intended to go to bed. I have to fly out in the morning.¡±


    ¡°Go to bed?¡±, he asked with his own sly grin.


    She blushed again. She must have been at least twenty years his elder. She hadn¡¯t felt the rush of passion and lust in quite some time. She was embarrassed by it. It impacted her confidence for such a young man to express such things towards her.


    ¡°Yes, bed.¡±, she confirmed.


    With this, she grasped the hem of her skirt tightly, and tugged it from her knee toward her thigh. The artist could see her panty hose, and the slightest hint of a garter. This made him feel a bit hot in his place. She was looking at him with a more intense smile, and quite direct eye contact.


    ¡°Where are you staying?¡±


    She relayed her hotel information, quickly.


    ¡°Would you like ...¡± he paused, mostly for impact.


    ¡°... company?¡±.


    Ms. Gudrun was quite flush now.


    ¡°Are you offering to keep me company for the evening?¡±, she asked.


    ***


    Growing up - the artist was frequently amused by religion. The idea of a God, the idea of rules for living from a God, the idea of prophets. All seemed like a social expression of art.


    But the one he always came back to was Jesus. The jewish man who, as the literal and corporeal sun of God, gave his life so that humanity could live, and to abolish their sins. A man who was a perpetual servant. He helped the lepers and the whores. He brought wisdom to the ignorant. He led the lost.


    How far would such a man go? What was the extent of his love - both romantic and so-called agape?


    He is said to have loved, and maybe even married, Mary Magdalene.


    The artist was, at times, enthralled by the idea of Jesus. And if Jesus was human, and existed, then - like all humans - he must have existed on the sexuality scale. And, the artist reasoned, it¡¯s possible that Jesus was completely heterosexual. But it¡¯s almost more probable that Jesus was some part homosexual, like most humans. Somewhere on the spectrum between hetero- and homo- sexual. That Jesus - in a time and age of beautiful young men - could have loved others.


    And what would that be like? What would it mean for Jesus to love another man? And this thought is what led the artist to his next piece - his first real ¡°masterpiece¡±.


    A laughter erupted in his head. It was the voice again. Whispering and booming, but clearer this time. He wondered if he could have a conversation with it, or if it was just a slice of his consciousness carving out its own space. This time it said: ¡±Jesus juice Zeus zealous cross lost marry Mary¡±. This was just nonsense to the artist. The voice quickly dissipated.


    ¡ª¡ª


    At the start, he didn¡¯t want to make it too explicit. But he did want to ensure the main idea came across. He had thought he had left painting behind, but this seemed like the perfect concept to render as oil on canvas. He wanted it to have the feel, texture, experience of viewing an older work. Like something from Botticelli.


    And the material, the canvas itself, the frame, the colors, the brushes - all needed to be made in the old-style. Contemporary mass-produced tools wouldn¡¯t suffice for this effort.


    And location was also important. He couldn¡¯t just work on this in his bedroom. He needed a place with more earth, more ground, more water - more fire. He needed a more natural environment.


    And he wanted to get the right emotion, the right ... excitement, the right energy. He needed EB to be there, to be here, to be present. He needed that anticipation. He needed that tension. And EB was exactly the right person to elevate the artist.


    ¡ª


    The painting itself, could have easily been passed over in a museum if you weren¡¯t paying too much attention. The image of an apple tree in a garden, sometime near to dusk. Jesus, standing next to the tree - his arms outstretched and using the trunk for support. A beautiful slightly younger man behind him. Both naked. The young man¡¯s had extending around Jesus¡¯ torso, and grasping his erect penis. The younger man¡¯s pelvis equal to Jesus¡¯ buttocks, slightly impressed. A sincere look of pleasure on both men¡¯s faces. And a snake slithering off in the distance, into the underbrush - just his tail visible.


    His Jesus was as authentic as he could imagine. He wasn¡¯t the white, long haired, bearded guy. Instead, he was a dark skinned Jew, his penis unaltered at birth - foreskin completely intact.


    ***


    Can you see me?


    I sit here. In the midst of the crowd.


    Maybe I appear sharp and dangerous.


    Maybe I appear aloof and boring.


    Does it matter what I appear?


    Is my appearance who I am?


    My earbuds, firmly planted. They shout this music at me.


    I hear it, it isn¡¯t invisible.


    But I am. Am I? Am I invisible?


    These fantastic rhythms and melodies. These complex syncopations. A rich tapestry and layers in my ears. And my vision is just mundane people. I see them.


    Would they see me in these sounds? Would they see me in the streets?


    The math seems so simple. But one can¡¯t arrive at an answer without trying to solve it.


    Yet, here I am. Existing. In a space. The same space as everyone else. But my fog, my mist is not for them. My ethereal presence is hardly to be noticed; hardly to be noted.


    This self importance. This flattery. This endearing aesthetic. This ownership of this space. This lost and creepy look in my eyes. To decipher their meaning, their intentions? Alas...


    These looks, like I am a devil. Maybe I am a devil. Maybe I am evil. Am I evil? Yes I am. I am human, after all.

 After Party

    The artist had been working for some time to find an agent. But his pride and arrogance toward his art had always made such a relationship quite trying. He never wanted to just sell his art. He had to know that it was going to a place where it would be properly cared for. Not just hung appropriately and dusted - but truly cared for. The owner had to have a reverence and personal affection for the work. The owner didn¡¯t need have the same interpretation as the artist - and in fact, it would be good if they had their own. But it couldn¡¯t exist as some item, used to impress the owners friends and mistresses.


    Two weeks had passed since he finished ¡°the jesus¡± (as his roommate called it). After waking around noon, Flo called to meet up for a drink - or - well - really - drinks. There was a new gallery that had just opened, and she wanted to visit it with him. They planned to meet around 8pm.


    The artist had time to nap before getting up officially. As he lay in bed, he closed his eyes - curious about this new gallery. He was properly skeptical - since he had yet to find a gallery (much less an agent) that could appropriately make his art available. The lack of a definitive medium and style made showing off his work challenging. How was one to interpret an artist¡¯s visions across poetry, painting, and performance? As he drifted off, he imagined a night of his art at this new gallery. He imagined it as a purely black room - black floor, black walls, black ceiling. No light to add or distract - except exactly where he wanted. It would also be quiet - no excess sounds, reverberations, or other extraneous noises.


    At first, he imagined all of his paintings along one wall - making it easier for his afficionados. But then, he pulled back. Rather - maybe he would organize them chronologically? That still felt forced and superfluous. Instead, he settled on gathering his collective displayable works in the center of the room, and using his intuition to place them. They would be provided without any additional descriptions, as many artists do. Once those were complete, he moved on to the more challenging items.


    He would place himself in the center of the room. And rather than meeting the guests, shaking their hands, and making gratuitous smalltalk, he would perform. From start to finish. He would begin in the center of the room, completely cloaked in black. It might appear to the guests as if it were a not-yet-disclosed sculpture - awaiting removal of its shroud. At the appropriate moment, he would emerge from the cloak and begin his performance.


    In his mind, it was black, and he could sense the guests arriving to the gallery. He could sense his own breathing, and the hotness of his breath beneath the cover. Just as he began the reveal, he could hear laughing. It started small - like a single girl somewhere nearby. Then it expanded. He closed his eyes as the cloak fell to the ground, the laughter infected its way across the crowd. When he opened his eyes, all around him were his guests - all laughing maniacally. And worse, they were all smartly dressed, but their heads were a variety of animals, and their laughter turned to the laughing sounds of animals. Horses and pigs. Asses and ducks. Flies and bees. All with sophisticated cocktails in one hand, their other hand slapping a neighbor or their own side in hilarity. The guests formed a circle around him, bringing it in tighter as their laughter grew. The artist retrieved his cloak, covering himself. Amidst the laughter, he melted below the floor before he awoke.


    It was only a little past 1pm.


    Still in bed, the voice came again. This time it told him: ¡±my son ... this darkness around you ... when will you ascend? when will you become?¡±


    A deep breath, then the artist said - in his mind: ¡±who are you? where are you? are you me?¡±


    The voice didn¡¯t exactly reply. Instead, he just heard more laughter. He didn¡¯t know if it was laughing at him. He tried to ask again, but nothing.


    ***


    8pm. Lenny''s.


    It wasn''t "Lenny''s Bar", or "Lenny''s Pub", or "Lenny''s Restaurant" or whatever... it was just "Lenny''s". From the outside, you would have assumed it was the diviest, crappiest place on earth. But on the inside, it was more like the 10th diviest, crappiest place on earth. The "bar" itself was ancient. Some kind of cheap wood that was dry-rotted and crumbling - and had been covered in linoleum several times. The latest covering having the appearance of a checkerboard. Maybe Lenny thought the patrons might engage in a contest of wits and wisdom, as there was a partial chess set at one end of the bar - next to the napkins and straws. They were the cheap, hollow plastic kind - that if you barely touched them, they would just fall over, and roll off behind the bar somewhere. No-one had ever been seen playing - but it was assumed they complemented the set with their own pennies (pawns), quarters (king or queen), nickel (knights), and dimes (bishops or rooks). One could distinguish the dual-role coins based on heads or tails, perhaps.


    The bar had room for about 8, or maybe 12, patrons, give or take their size. If the bikers rolled in, you might only get about 4 of them across.


    Lenny, himself was a small man. Probably of Italian descent. He would occasionally throw in some kind of Italian-American slang during conversation, and everyone would just sort of nod and grimace - despite having no idea what he meant. At this point Lenny must have been in his late 60''s - or maybe early 70''s. But he was fit, and looked like he could kick your ass despite his diminutive stature. Feisty and scrappy would be two good words to describe him.


    In addition to the bar, there were a handful of tables - three or maybe four depending on their state of repair (or disrepair as was more often the case). Tables had two or three or four chairs - depending on the latest "crowd", and their flair for interior design and feng shui. That is, if feng shui took into account who had their back to the door, who got the best chair, and how many whiskey glasses you could fit into a corner of the table.


    Lenny''s was one of Flo''s go-to places because the only bartender that worked there besides Lenny, was a drag queen who went by the name Elle Diablo. A bright red and fiery hair, and a shiny red mascara helped sell the "Diablo" part. A pair of medium size fake breasts and a pair of gaff panties (and frequent shaving) helped sell the "Elle" part.


    Unlike many drag queens who find enjoyment in ragging on each other with terms of endearment such as "bitch", "whore", "hoe", and so on - Elle was actually more like a nice and sweet girl. Whenever the other "girls" would call her by one of these epithets, she would just smile and blow them a kiss. Maybe bat her eyelashes a little.


    No one ever seemed to understand the relationship between Lenny and Elle. He seemed to take care of her, and she seemed to take care of him - but there didn''t seem to be anything sexual between them. There was a rumor that they might be related somehow - like that Elle had once been Lenny''s nephew or something. But neither would ever talk much about their past or relationship. So it remained a mystery.


    Usually, the television at Lenny¡¯s was off. But this night, it was on. Who knows why? When it was on, it was usually showing some obscure movie from 20 years ago, or more. Tonight, it was showing a news program. They were talking about a local organization that had become more visible to authorities. They were being accused of illicit behavior, including kidnapping Asian women. Several had gone missing, and were later found dead - execution style. The artist caught a bit of the story as he waited.


    Incidentally, a group of local Asian women decided that rather being taken advantage of, they would insinuate themselves into the organization in order to bring it down. This wasn¡¯t mentioned during the news story, because it wasn¡¯t anything anyone knew about except for the Asian women themselves.


    It was about 8:15 or 8:20 when Flo arrived. Elle scurried the short distance to meet her, and gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. Flo leaned on the bar, as Elle made her way back behind it. Elle grabbed a rocks glass, dumping in some ice and vodka, with a sprinkling of cranberry juice. She set the cocktail into Flo''s hand - her fingers lingering on Flo''s for just a moment. Flo just smiled, picked up the drink, and took a few sips.


    Lenny arrived from the basement, behind the bar, with a case of beer. He gave Flo a head nod, and followed with "How ya'' doin'', ladies?". Flo rolled her eyes - for no particular reason. She was about to respond, when she saw the artist sitting at a table in the corner. Elle gave Flo a wide-eyed, high browed inquisitive look. Flo just rolled her eyes again as she turned to me the artist.


    Flo slid across the room to the table furthest from the bar. The table itself was a bit janky. Flo held her cocktail in her hand. The artist was sitting across from her.


    "So what''s this new gallery?". In his head, the artist was still anchored on the space he had imagined in his dream.


    "Well, it''s not exactly like other galleries...", she started.


    "What do you mean?"


    "It''s more like an event, than a gallery...", she says. "Each event is held in a secret location, and you have to be invited to be either a patron or an artist."


    "Uhm. Ok. So how do I get invited?"


    "That''s the thing, love. You''ve been invited."


    The artist looks a bit confused. "When or how did I get invited?"


    Flo cackles for a moment. She draws a cigarette from her purse, and before she gets up to light it, she says, "Just now...". She walks out the door as the flame caresses the end of the cigarette. The artist is still at the table ... not exactly sure what to do, or what to make of this situation.


    The artist swallows the remainder of his drink, as he gets up and walks to the bar, setting the empty glass down.


    From behind the bar, Elle shouts at the artist: "You want something else, babe?"


    "Whiskey", he yells back quickly. "Any kind of whiskey". Elle nods in approval.


    The voice in his head suddenly appears: ¡±yes, we love whiskey¡±.


    As Flo comes back in, Elle is just finishing slopping together another mostly vodka and a splash and cranberry. Flo grabs her cocktail, and walks back to the table, the artist feeling a bit lost in the moment, following her back to the table, whiskey in hand.


    The artist says "This sounds a little weird, or fishy, or something..."


    Flo assures him it''s not fishy. "Look, doll. It''s kind of an underground thing. A lot of the art is perverse or subversive. A lot of the clientele are not your average businessmen. But if you get a hit at this place, it can be very lucrative."


    "You''ve been?"


    "I went once... back when I had clients, you know?". The artist grimaces at this.


    "He was into all kinds of underground shit, and not just the usual. It wasn''t just drugs and guns. He could get these weird exotic animals that you''ve never heard of. Secret doctors who could get organs and perform surgeries. Some crazy shit. It¡¯s pretty fucked up what money can buy you!"


    "Anyway, one night he picks me up in this black car with a driver, and we take a long drive - out of the city. It took probably 45 minutes or maybe an hour to get there. We rode in the back, with the windows blacked out. The driver seemed to know where we were going. I found out later - that they sent the driver. Anyway ... I could smell the water when we got out of the car. There was a small marina, with a bunch of small boats. The driver walked down and had a conversation with a guy who looked like a hitman out of a movie or something. He had on this all black suit, a bald head, an aggressive looking goatee. The driver showed him something on his phone. Then the driver looked back at us, and motioned for us to come over."


    The artist was listening, but looking a bit incredulous at this point.


    "We walk down there, and the guy gives me a look over. He pats me down, head to toe. When he got to my crotch, he chuckled to himself. He did the same with my date. I mean, he patted him down... he didn''t laugh at his crotch."


    "He walked us down to a small boat. We were the only ones on the boat. I thought we were waiting for someone, but then the boat started up, and took us out a ways. It was late and dark. We could see a few lights along the way - from other boats, or houses along the shore - but mostly it was pretty dark. In the distance, we could see three orange lights in like a triangle shape. It was some huge yacht or something. It had a small deck or whatever, with some kind of magnet thing that our boat hooked on to. We got on the yacht, and followed a small set of stairs up, and through a door."


    Flo paused, grabbed her cocktail and took a couple of big gulps. The artist had finished his whiskey already.


    "There was a small waiting room inside the first door. On each side was a coat check, but we weren''t wearing any coats. There was a tall man wearing a tuxedo and a top hat. But he also had one of those masks, like from A Clockwork Orange or something. And instead of collecting coats, the coat check girls were handing out masks. My date grabbed one for me that looked like a rabbit, while his looked like a lion. We put them on, and the tuxedo guy opens the door for us."


    "Inside was like a circus or something. Everyone was dressed really nice, and wearing some kind of mask. In the middle of the room, it looked like there was a fire pit or something. And there were several men - who were completely naked, dancing around the fire. Most of the crowd was scattered along the walls, with the fire dancers in the middle."


    "In the space between the crowd and the fire dancers, there were a series of women, walking in a circle. Each woman carried and displayed some piece of art or other item that was for sale. Oh, and they were exotic looking women, wearing some kind of oriental robes or something."


    "Remember I said this guy I was with, was into all kinds of stuff? This one chick walks by with a cage that has these two huge bats in it. My guy elbows me subtly, and nods toward them. The night carried on until every item was sold. And by sold, I mean the buyer would simply walk over to the girl, put her arm in his, and walk to some other secluded part of the boat to complete the transaction - if you know what I mean?"


    "Before the sun came up, we got back on the small boat, rode back to the marina where our driver was waiting, and came back to the city."


    The artist was listening, but feeling like Flo was embellishing a lot, if not most, of the story he just heard.


    "So, how did I get the honor of being ''invited''? And what does that mean, anyway?"


    "It means, you get to put your art on display - for sale, honey."


    "And you got the invite because I had told my date about my artist friend. And he told me that if I ever saw anything of interest that might fit in, I should let him know."


    The artist sighed. "The jesus?"


    "Of course the fucking jesus."


    The voice, again: ¡±Yes, the fucking Jesus juice Zeus zealous marry mary¡±.


    "Can''t I just sell it to him? Or something? I''m not good with crowds and galleries and all that. It just makes me anxious and crazy."


    "Well, that''s not how this one works, sweetheart."


    "So when and where is the next yacht party?"


    "I don''t know yet. I won''t know until the day of. I just know it''s sometime this month. I''ll call you when I know."


    "Listen, I gotta run, babe. See you at the club later?"


    "I don''t know. Maybe, we''ll see. Be safe."


    "You too, lover."


    Flo picked herself up and walked out of Lenny''s. The artist relocated himself at the bar. He ordered another whiskey, and sat there thinking about what he had just heard.


    The voice, this time more clear: ¡±Yes, we love whiskey¡±.


    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ***


    Apparently this underground market had been in operation for quite some time. The world of vibrators and masturbation sleeves, flavored lubricants, and nipple clamps isn''t difficult to navigate these days. You can hop down to your local shop, or visit many online stores to find the right thing to satisfy you - and possibly your lover.


    Since at least the time of ancient Greece, women had used devices as false phalli for the purposes of personal pleasure. But, it was the Industrial Revolution, and the entrepreneurial spirit of several American inventors that really advanced the art and science.


    The availability of new materials, easier access to materials, and automation via steam engines drove inventors to create all manner of contraptions. In 1869, George Taylor created his "Manipulator", which was constructed of a small steam engine, attached to a phallus which would oscillate.


    It was only a few years on that more dedicated and efficient inventions were created. But, unlike the Manipulator, these devices were much more obviously sex toys. And they had become quite expensive. But they were also beautiful works of art. Carved and painted wood meeting with polished metals. Engines that were hidden or dampened to reduce the sound.


    There were designs that used tables - so that the interested party could straddle the phallus, as if riding on a saddle. There were chairs which included openings in them, through which a phallus could protrude. And all manner of lubricants, from harvested saliva to olive oil to concoctions of every imagination.


    These inventions, however, brought the ire of mainstream America - and public shame for those who were found out and exposed. So, like many ideas that the mainstream doesn''t understand or agree with - these inventions and their use recessed into the shadows.


    However, it wasn''t long before several customers of such devices needed support. Steam engines would break down, gears would wear out, and these customers needed their orgasms. It was two wealthy New Englanders who started the idea of having a group of engineers who could work on such machines. Many of the machines were large, or permanently installed in homes; so, the engineers would travel around the region, repairing the various sexual toys of the rich. These engineers knew an opportunity when they saw it, and began to elaborate on the existing designs - improving areas that appeared to be weaknesses in the originals. A group of three engineers formed the Secret Engines Company, which they used to manufacture and sell their wares. After being shuttered three times by local government, they took their company into the shadows as well.


    One year later, the two wealthy New Englanders and the three engineers, decided to start The Dark Machine Show. The idea was pretty simple. This group would establish a collection of purchasable sex machines, and invite wealthy, discreet customers to browse and purchase items for their homes and personal use. The first show was held in a castle in upstate New York. It was put on under the guise of a birthday party for the wife of one of the patrons. Each guest had their own private quarters. A central dining hall provided sustenance. But the Grand Ballroom was the real attraction. Discretion, secrecy, and confidentiality were important for this first show. Many of the men dressed in tuxedos - a relatively new jacket style they had borrowed from the Tuxedo Club, where many of them were members. The women were always in dresses, and always in masks. This was important because some of the men brought their wives, and others brought their mistresses. A few even brought their boyfriends, who also sometimes wore dresses and masks.


    Sometime after dinner, late into the evening, a gong would ring. The patrons would make their way to the Grand Ballroom, lining the walls. The castle had been planned such that main entry faced directly south. The Grand Ballroom was centrally located, and included large doorways, leading to the east and western wings. From the east door there would be another bell or other sound, the doors would open, and the engineers would bring in their latest machine. They would demonstrate the machine by itself, to small murmurings from the crowd. Then, from the same door, a woman - usually a diminutive Asian - would appear, dressed in only a silk robe. She would cross the room to the machine, and as she mounted it, her robe would fall to the floor. As the machine penetrated her for several minutes, she would make wild sounds and movements until she collapsed and the machine turned off. This was the part of the show that set the crowd on fire. Upon completion of the demonstration, the woman would pull her robe back on, and exit the east door - while the engineers would collect the machine and exit through the west door.


    In the early days - there would be a bidding on the item shown. Since there were only a few engineers, they could only assemble so many machines for the show - and there were never enough. Eventually, the engineers started to also take commissions from the patrons. The event became an annual affair at the castle. However, on the 10th anniversary a great fire destroyed most of the building. A group of fire dance performers were imported to elevate the entertainment; unfortunately, there was an accident which set one of the textiles on fire - and as the guests trampled each other to leave, and others tried to extinguish the fire, there was only chaos and pandemonium. Ultimately, two of the fire dancers perished, and all of the patrons escaped without physical harm. There were a few mistresses who were unmasked - including at least one who was the wife of a different patron who was in attendance with his own mistress.


    Starting with the 11th year, they began hosting the event at different locations. Usually it would be a private hotel or mansion - one where they could be assured of their discretion.


    As time passed, the inventions became more bold. And, as technologies improved - bringing electricity and electric motors into their designs - the demand grew. Soon, the shows were being held more frequently. At one particular show, a person - who was not one of the engineers - brought a small bed into the center of the room, and laid what appeared to be some kind of sword on the floor in front of the bed. An asian woman emerged from the east, wearing a silken robe covered in flowers. She sat on the bed in a kind of meditative position for several moments, as the crowd whispered curiosities. The woman drew the sword and began to make various motions with it. Most of the motion was too quick to really see, and the entire display took only a handful of seconds. She placed the sword back on the floor, and stood up. It was now that the crowd could see that she had made several fine cuts into her legs and arms, and as she stood, the blood highlighted the cuts before beginning to drip down her naked body. She pulled her robe on, and exited to the  west.


    The crowd was stunned, and not sure what had just happened. As the person (who was not an engineer) emerged to remove the sword and bed, the crowd began to talk loudly about what they just witnessed. Not only was the display unusual, but they weren''t sure if it was a demonstration of something for sale, or just strange entertainment. However, upon the end of the evening, as the patrons reviewed the various machines which had been shown, there was a table with the sword on top. Behind the table, they could now see the Japanese man who had brought the bed out earlier. Next to him, the Japanese woman, in her robe - blood visible and making the flowers look as though they were bleeding. The woman was not for sale, but the sword was.


    In modern times, most anything imaginable could be found for sale at the Dark Machine Show. It was held semi-regularly and always at a new location. Men and women came as equals, with both wearing masks. Items for show were always accompanied by a naked woman. And in the center of the room was always some form of entertainment. Purchases were always made in cash. The attendees represented all walks of life, and were not restricted to only wealthy Americans. With the right invitation, any one could attend.


    ***


    After meeting Flo at a mundane location, the artist loaded his work into a dark van. It wasn''t one of those old large vans. It was more like a small-ish delivery van. There was a driver who looked like he could be anyone. He wore a driver''s cap, and dark sunglasses. Otherwise he appeared incredibly average and forgettable. He didn''t say anything the entire time.


    The back of the van was large enough for mid-size cargo, with plenty of room for the painting. Between the cargo space and the driver, there were two captain''s chairs. Flo was quiet, but a little giggly the whole time. The artist maintained his skepticism, with a dose of paranoia.


    Once in the van, they realized there was a dark glass divider between themselves and the driver. And the rest of the back area where they were had no windows. In the center there was a small console. It opened after a gentle push. Inside they found 2 glasses, a bottle of whiskey, a small bag with about an ounce of marijuana, a small case - which held a small amount of cocaine, a razor blade, and a straw, another small case that held a variety of pills, and a box of condoms. The artist looked mildly interested, while Flo seemed excited.


    Flo grabbed the cocaine and razor blade. The small case that contained it had a smooth surface of just the right size. She made a small pile with her fingers, then made several small lines of granules using the razor blade. Putting the straw to her nose, she inhaled each line. She left one line, and offered it to the artist. He gave her a look, then grabbed one of the glasses and the whiskey. Below where the whiskey sat, there was another small container - which held 2 king cubes of ice. He placed one of the cubes in his glass, then poured the whiskey over it. He swallowed the first glass all at once. Then poured another.


    The entire ride took about an hour - though they didn''t really notice. They were both feeling good when the van finally stopped. It was pitch black when they exited the vehicle. There did not seem to be lights anywhere. A small man who looked like he might have otherwise been a Tibetan monk approached them. He took Flo''s hand, and guided them away from the van. They could just make out a concrete path that led into a wooded area. As they walked, there was a dim red light appearing through the trees. As they escaped the woods, the concrete spread out forming what they at first thought was a parking lot. But then about 100 yards ahead, they could see where they were going.


    A larger, dark black jet - with a black stairway - was parked on the tarmac. The stairs were lit by 2 men holding red lights on each side. Their guide brought them to the steps and helped Flo to reach the top. The artist followed.


    This Airbus A380 was officially registered to the ambassador to the US from Brunei, providing diplomatic immunity. Instead of landing in the US, if something happened, the crew was instructed to return to Brunei. The crew, in this case consisted of two captains and first officer. Only two of the crew operated the airplane at any time, with a small area behind the cockpit for a bed. This configuration ensured that at least one captain was always on duty.


    In a normal commercial jet, there would be additional crew to handle the passengers. This wasn''t a normal commercial jet though. The entirety of the interior had been designed in a very specific manner. It almost looked like a large warehouse before it was fully outfitted. At the widest point of the fuselage, there was a floor that extended completely across, and from front to back (mostly). The floor appeared to be some kind of marble or other similar surface. Near the front and back areas of the floor were stairs. At the front the stairs led up to a somewhat smaller area. This upper deck included a handful of private rooms in a IU shape, with an open central area. The central area contained several comfortable seats, and a central console which was really a much larger version of the console in the car. The lower deck held all of the works for sale, along with smaller quarters for the ring girls to share.


    Boarding placed passengers immediately on the middle deck. A small receiving area, consisting of two humorless mercenaries, and a host who greeted everyone. Behind the host was a small asian woman, and a dark curtain. After the greeting, the asian woman handed Flo and the artist each a mask. Flo''s mask was that of a  a hellhound, and the artist''s was that of Zeus. They walked thru the dark curtain.


    They first noticed how bright and dim the room was. It seemed bright in the middle, but dark and dim on the edges, like a vignette. In the brightly lit center of the floor, there were 3 muscular and naked men. They were performing a series of acrobatic maneuvers by using each other''s bodies. Around the edges of the room were 50 or so men and women, with a variety of dress from formal tuxedos (no top hats), to patent leather rock-star pants, to elegant asian suits, and a few that simply defied description. The woman were all in long black dresses, many of them with shiny silk gloves that extended nearly to their elbows. The artist was simply dressed in his black jeans and boots, with a black button down shirt - untucked. Flo''s dark purple skirt didn''t look too out of place - but her bright green hair definitely did. The pair continued to take in the room, when their guide through the woods reappeared, himself donning a fox mask. He extended his hand to Flo, as before, and led them to the stairs that descended to the lower level.


    As they emerged into the lower deck, they could see that it was lit exclusively with red lights. There were a series of curtains lining the walls. Their guide brought them to one of the curtains. On the floor, the artist could see a symbol that looked like an upside down letter "u". As he looked along the floor, he discovered each curtain was marked with a letter of the greek alphabet, with this one being the letter "mu". As they stopped in front of the curtain, their guide pulled it back to reveal the artist''s painting - "The Penetration of Jesus". Their guide looked at the painting, then at the artist - trying to determine if the artist recognized this as his own. The artist simply nodded, and their guide nodded in return.


    Next, the guide gathered Flo''s hand again, and walked the pair to the rear of the lower deck. A larger curtain extended across the area. The guide dropped Flo''s hand, and pulled the curtain completely open. Behind the curtain, there was a line of beautiful asian women. They all looked almost the same - slim, short, dark hair, none of them smiling. Now, the guide fetched the artist by his hand, and walked him along the line - allowing time to stop and consider each woman. Confused, the artist finally discovered that he was being asked to choose one - though for what purpose, he wasn''t clear. He finally stopped in front of one woman who had a tattoo of what the artist thought was a picture of Xuanwu - a Chinese god. Strangely, he wasn''t sure why he knew this; however this entire experience had twisted his mind a bit.


    The guide looked at the woman, then at the artist - questioningly. The artist nodded again, and the guide smiled. He then pulled the curtain to cover the woman. The guide then led them back up the stairs at the front, and motioned for them to enter the middle level.


    Speakers overhead began to announce that the plane would be taking off soon. The message was repeated in several languages. Everyone in the room they were in settled into a seat around the edge, and buckled their seat belt. The artist and Flo found two seats together, and strapped themselves in as well. It was only a few moments before they felt the plane moving. And only a minute later they were in the air. The captain then reminded the passengers to remain seated as they haven''t leveled off yet.


    Flo took the artist''s hand in hers. Soon, the captain announced that they had reached their cruising altitude, and the guests all removed their seat belts, and began to move around the room. As they did, the male acrobats returned. Now there was a set of silk ribbons descending from the ceiling. One or two at a time, they would climb, swing, and rotate around the room on the silks. Several of the guests made their way to the upper deck, including the artist and Flo. Upon discovering the goodies, Flo took another line, and the artist collected his own bottle of whiskey. It was difficult with their masks - apparently an oversight by the coordinators of this event. Flo had to raise her mask above her nose, while the artist simply injected the whiskey bottle into his mask.


    They were inspecting the upper level, the various goodies, and the numerous patrons, when something like a gong sounded. All of the guests in the upper level took notice, and began making their way to the middle deck. The artist and Flo followed.


    The voice: ¡±You must descend before you can ascend¡±.


    All of the guests were aligning themselves in a rectangle around the edges of the room. The acrobatic men continued their display. A curtain was stretched to cover the rear stairway. A sound - somewhat musical began to resonate throughout the room. A moment later, an Asian woman appeared. She was holding what looked like a type of gun. The artist did not recognize it, although he was not an expert in firearms anyway. The woman stood in front of the curtain for a moment, then made her way around the room, between the passengers along the edges and the acrobats in the center. She returned to her starting point and disappeared behind the curtain.


    Another woman was birthed from the curtain. She appeared to be holding a large horn. As she got closer, they could see that it wasn''t a horn, but a tusk - probably from some African elephant. The next woman came out and displayed what looked like vials of blood. Next, was a sculpture. It was placed on a trolley, and the Asian ring girl pushed the trolley around the room. The sculpture was that of some kind of warrior beheading another man with a large scimitar. The work was exquisite, with detailing of every texture, and painting illustrating everything from the warriors dark complexion, to the dead man''s blood. A few of the patrons seemed to show some amusement at the work.


    The next girl brought out a large tray. Upon the tray was a larger mound of a white substance. As she walked the room, she approached each guest. The tray included several razor blades and straws - at which point it was clear what this was. Many of the patrons partook - most making positive nods after consuming the drug. Flo did not partake this time - as she wasn''t entirely sure what it was or what might have been mixed with it.


    Soon, the woman with the Xuanwu tattoo appeared, carrying the artist''s painting. He surveyed the room to see most everyone making some kind of face - mostly smirks and amusement. As the woman approached the artist, she stayed for just a moment longer than for the others. The artist smiled behind his mask, and she smiled back, and continued her way around the room - ultimately escaping behind the curtain like the others.


    The show continued for a few hours until the last item was shown. The gong sounded again - presumably to indicate the end of the show. The pair noticed that almost no one was having conversation. As they were discussing this amongst themselves, their guide appeared and handed the artist a ticket. It simply had a number on it. The artist looked at it confused, and the guide simply nodded with a big smile and walked away.


    Once the plane landed, Flo and the artist departed through the curtain at the front of the middle level. There, they met the mercenaries, and the same Asian woman - who collected their masks. Their guide was waiting on the stairs. They turned to leave - but their guide didn''t move, and the Asian woman had her hand extended toward the artist, palm up. He thought she wanted a tip - but he hadn''t brought any cash. As he fumbled through his pocket, he found the ticket - at which point the Asian woman made a face that suggested he should hand her the ticket. He placed the ticket in her hand. The host, who was seated at a table in front of them, smiled and said something that sounded like "Thank you so much", though it was in a strange accent, and could have been anything. The host produced a dark black envelope and handed it to the artist. The artist retrieved the envelope with a confused look.


    With that, the guide took Flo''s hand and guided her down the stars to the tarmac, the artist behind her. They were led back through the woods, and eventually to the same van that had delivered them here. Once inside, they didn''t say anything for the ride back. The driver dropped them at a different, but equally mundane location.


    ***


    "What the fuck?" - were the artist''s first words once the van drove off.


    Flo looked at him, speechless, but with so much to say.


    "I need a drink...", the artist finally admitted.


    Flo - feeling impatient, offered - "Well?"


    "Well what? Well where do you want to get a drink?"


    "That''s not what I mean?", said Flo.


    "You want to know what''s in the envelope?", he replied.


    They stayed in that moment, that mood, for a moment.


    "Fine. But not here... ok?"


    "Sure. Let''s get that drink".


    The pair wandered through the neighborhood. It was late. Very late. Well past 3am. Several bars they passed were closed. They finally - luckily - stumbled upon a broken down bar; it looked like it''s good dive years were well behind it. But, the doors opened, and there was a man behind the bar. Opening the door rang a bell, causing the bartender to look up at them.


    Flo ordered a vodka and cranberry, but they had no cranberry. The artist ordered a whiskey. The bartender produced both drinks, and Flo laid a $20 bill on the counter. The older bartender took the $20, and disappeared into the back or somewhere. Flo thought he was making change - but he didn''t come back.


    The stools at the bar were wobbly, so they both chose to stand and lean against the bar - which was more stable than the stools. Flo was giving the artist a look. He smiled at her, and laid the envelope on the bar. It looked like a normal size mailing envelope, save for the black color. The shape, weight, and density suggested it was cash.


    The artist eventually peeled the envelope open. Inside, there was a stack of $100 bills. There was also a stack of 5 Visa gift cards - each marked with a $1000 icon. After counting, the artist discovered there was $15,000 in all. This was a great surprise, but also a bit of a burden for him. He had never had that much money on hand, and certainly had never received that much for a work.


    The artist looked at Flo - "Who are these people?"

 Dreamscape

    Several weeks passed since the artist attended the Dark Machine Show. He had kept the envelope hidden, and had not spent any of the money. He was conflicted. Who were these people? That would pay so much for his work? He wanted to find them and have them commission more work so he could make more money. He also wanted to find them and collect his painting from them, condemning them for paying such a ridiculous amount for a work he was sure they didn''t understand.


    He hadn''t seen Flo since that night either.


    He had seen Isabel over the weekend, and had made plans with her again this week. Isabel was a soft and feminine being who exuded only love and affection - like a cat - but like you want a cat to be. She was equally happy with sex or just being physically close. The artist loved the non-expectation from her, and the relaxed spirit that overflowed from her into his own. She wasn¡¯t the kind to suddenly scratch and bite you.


    Saturday was the day they planned to go out. Isabel met the artist at home. They had several drinks before departing for The Mill House. Isabel knew one of the bands playing.


    The band - called Black Cell - were something like dark wave mixed with accordion and nonsense. Fortunately, the drummer had a good groove, and it was at least danceable. Isabel dragged the artist onto the dance floor, and made him move around with her. The way she moved around him - forced a reaction in him. He had to respond.


    They stayed until the band was done, and made the trek back to the artist''s place. Collapsing into bed, they were both feeling sexual - and they were both exhausted, failing asleep in each other''s half-naked arms.


    As he slept, the artist dreamed of himself as a child. He had been painting in his bedroom, and his father had bursted in. On the easel was "The Penetration of Jesus", although - it looked different from the one he had actually painted. But it was enough the same that it outraged his father.


    Looking around his childhood bedroom, he could see a menagerie of animals, laughing at him. Foxes and bears, lions and raccoons... all making fun of him. A man with no face, dressed all in black shook his hand, giving him a large sum of cash. His father, screaming at him "What have you done?! What have you done?!"


    When he awoke, he was a bit shaken by the dream.


    The voice, this time: ¡±Ah yes, my son. The dreams. When could you learn to understand them?¡±


    ¡°Understand what?¡±, retorted the artist, in a quiet, but out loud voice.


    ¡°Understand the meaning. The roots and where they grow. The nerves that feed your reactions¡±, responded the voice.


    ¡°My reactions?¡±, queried the artist. But there was no response this time. Isabel woke up.


    ***


    The artist felt dry. Empty. Uninspired. Lost. He wanted to move to the next work - but what would it be?


    He kept thinking about the experience. He kept wondering who bought his work. He kept wondering what he should do with the money. He still hadn''t spent it. His paranoia kept telling him it was a scam, a sting. Anyday, someone was going to come looking to retrieve it.


    But, they never did.


    And life for the artist returned to semi-normal. Although, he wasn''t creating. He was spending the money, though, now. Mostly he used it for going out, eating, drinking, and such.


    It was several months later, when he was on the crumbs of that cash, that he was out again with Flo. They were just out for drinks and food, and conversation. They had discussed the whole experience, but really just rehashed the same details they always did. Flo followed the artist home that night.


    The next afternoon, the artist was awoken by his roommate. He tossed an envelope on the sleeping pair, rousing them from their sleep. "Fuck..." was the artist''s first response.


    Once his eyes cleared, he could see the envelope. It was dark black. It was addressed simply to "Artist" on the outside - no address or stamp. He opened the envelope - and inside was a single black card with a single word in white: "invitation".


    He showed the card to Flo, who shrugged her shoulders. "Is this the thing?", he asked.


    "I guess so.", she offered.


    Continuing, she said, "I''ve only seen one before - and it looked basically like that."


    His stomach sank a bit. This seemed imminent - and he had no work to offer.


    "I gotta get up...", he tore the covers off, but set still on the bed.


    "Honey... chill out", offered Flo as she put her hands around his waist.


    "But aren¡¯t they expecting ...", he started. "Something?"


    "It''s ok, honey ... if you don''t have anything you don''t have to go.", she said, supportingly.


    "Yeah - but. Agh. But - I''m broke. I spent all of that other money!", he proclaimed.


    "Aww, sweet, it''s just money. When has that meant anything?"


    The artist just sat there.


    Wondering - what comes next? Have I gone far enough?


    ***


    Not knowing what was expected, the artist felt a drowning anxiety begin to flood all around. ¡°The jesus¡± idea had seemed to come to him almost out of nowhere. He knew where the basic foundation of it came from ... but the specific idea just appeared in his mind, like a bird had flown overhead and dropped a seed on his head.


    And he needed time. He had no idea how much time he had. Flo had suggested he would be summoned within the month, which didn¡¯t leave a lot of time. It was no use trying to come up with something; that was the kind of thing that just invoked mediocrity. He simply had to wait.


    So he did. He waited. He waited in bed. He waited in the shower. He waited as he smoked cigarettes on the same corner where he had the ¡°Connie¡± vision. He waited in the clubs with Flo and EB. He waited in the bars as the whiskey ice dried up in his glass.


    But nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. A week had passed, and he felt lost in his own lack of inspiration. There was always something, something he could just latch on to, something he could just get the edge of a barb into, before he ripped it open to expose its entrails.


    And on into the next week, it was the same. The same nothing. The same anxiety. The same depression. The same darkness. Everyone in his orbit could see it. They saw it in his vacant eyes. In his lifeless demeanor. In his anti-joie de vivre. They were losing their interest in the company of the artist.


    And so it was. On a late weekend evening, he was alone. He had been at the club, but found it overwhelming and uninteresting. He didn¡¯t stay more than one drink, and walked out alone. Feeling bored with the usual trek home, he took a long stroll through the streets. Cigarette after cigarette until his lighter would only spark. That left him with tobacco that was useless. Just another failing, he thought to himself.


    He had just passed a small park. It was late, but there were lights providing visibility around the swing set and benches. He imagined the stay-at-home parents - mostly mothers, but a few fathers - sitting on the benches, as their kids swung higher and higher. The parents, bored and hardly engaged. Paying just enough attention to ensure that the kids didn¡¯t get kidnapped.


    He sat on one of the benches. He instinctively pulled another cigarette and put it to his lips. He reached for the lighter, and had the realization at the same time that it was kaput. He drew it up to the cigarette anyway, and gave the thumbwheel a couple of good tries, just in case. He shook the lighter for a second or two, and tried again. A small flame burst out of the lighter, and he smiled with the tobacco stick still in his mouth, putting the flame to it and inhaling. His exhale wasn¡¯t just the smoke, but a letting go of what he had been holding on to. Holding on to the need, the expectation, the mad desire to find the answer to this puzzle. In that one out breath, he let it all go. He would either have something, or he wouldn¡¯t. What the fuck did it matter? If he didn¡¯t, maybe he wouldn¡¯t be invited back. So what. He¡¯d just be right where he was before. And that was fine. It was familiar and comfortable.


    As the cigarette burned down to the filter, closer to his fingers - he took one last drag before flicking it off into the darkness. He strolled back toward the sidewalk. As he walked, his shoe caught in a hole in the ground, and he nearly fell to his face. But he did one of those run-skip movements where you think you are going to fall, but catch yourself at the last moment to regain your balance. He was embarrassed even though there was no one around to guffaw at his misfortune. He collected himself, and continued to the sidewalk and back to home.


    ***


    That night, he lay in bed just staring. Not focusing on any one thing or point. Not at the ceiling or the wall. Just staring off - beyond the walls. He felt defeated, but had given up playing the game, and he was back to tabula rasa.


    Eventually, his eyes glazed, and his eyelids descended over them. His breathing slowed and his body relaxed. Before long, his eyes were moving rapidly beneath their covering. Who knows how dreams come to you? But this one came to the artist.


    He found himself in a field. It was an overcast, almost gray day - only clouds, no sun, no blue sky. The field was vast, extending what looked like forever in all directions. There was a small oasis not far from where he was. He could see two rabbits drinking from the small spring that fed the oasis. He started to walk in that direction, but was stopped as he scanned the field. A fox was moving slowly toward the oasis also. His eyes fixed on the rabbits. The artist wanted to enjoy the beauty of the fox. And he didn¡¯t want to disrupt his hunt.


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    The artist stood still for several minutes, watching the fox make his engagement with the oasis. There was a tree between the fox and the rabbits, blocking the rabbits view or sense of the approaching predator. The rabbits continued their periodic head dip into the creek, and the fox continued his stealthy approach until he was just behind the tree, but in a place where he could still observe the rabbits. Then, without waiting for anything else, the fox pounced from his place.


    One of the rabbits jumped into the creek, and began swimming. As it reached about halfway across the creek, the water turned into a whirlpool, pulling the rabbit below the water. The rabbit disappeared, and the whirlpool settled back to a still water. The other rabbit had leapt upwards, doubling in size as it did. The rabbit landed just near the tree, the ground opening up beneath it, swallowing the rabbit before the grass recovered the hole.


    The fox melted into the ground, become nothing but a pelt, teeth, and claws. Next, the artist found himself staring over the remains of the fox. He was trying to make sense of the scene - staring at the creek, at the tree, at the fox, at the spot where the rabbit disappeared.


    The artist felt his body drop, like that feeling when a roller coaster begins its descent. The grass below him had given way, and quickly. There was no time to jump or grab on to anything. He was suddenly falling into the earth, down a long tunnel. The walls all around him were dark. But then he was still falling, but the walls had become a mirror, and he could see himself falling. And he was distorted. His head had become a rabbits head. His legs had become fox legs, and a bushy red tail behind him. The mirrors around him began to pull him apart. He could feel his body disintegrating into millions of pieces, being pulled in all directions toward the mirror walls. The last to go was his head, and then he woke up.


    The room was still lit. His eyes adjusted, and he pulled the covers closer to comfort himself. Two breaths later, he consciously felt the bed beneath him, the pillow below his head, and the weight of the blanket over him. The dream had seemed not just strange, but incredibly vivid. He tried to remember each element, each scene. He recorded them to memory, then got up to shutter the light, then right back under the cover. Within moments he was back asleep.


    ***


    The artist was sleepy. He had been out for a while - maybe nine or ten hours. When he woke, he had no idea where he was at first, and certainly no idea of the time. His body was clammy, and his pillow was damp with sweat.


    It only took a few seconds before the dream came back to him.


    He got up and formulated a hacked up plan.


    Where in the world could he get curved mirrors?


    No. That wasn''t enough. It would need to be more than a static mirror work. Time and money were both short - but the idea - was grand. It was beyond anything he had dreamt or created before. He called Flo...


    "I''ve got it."


    "That''s great, honey. What''ve you got?"


    "The work. The work. You might not see me for a while - it''s going to take some effort..."


    "Well, I''m here if you need me..."


    The artist hung up.


    The idea had a simplicity to it - but was ripe with intention and experience. And he would need some help.


    But once the idea was there, the rest was just execution.


    ***


    It was another several weeks before another black envelope arrived. Inside was a card with an address and a time. The artist called Flo and asked if she would join him.


    The artist was concerned, however. The work was not like a painting. It wasn''t going to fit in the back of a courier van. To even get it to the pickup location would be a struggle. He had rented a hauling truck, and driven it to the location.


    To his surprise, when the black van arrived, there was a person in addition to the driver. The second person looked like he could have been the driver''s twin or brother. He simply approached the artist, and put out his hand - palm up, and gave him an inquisitive look. The artist reached into his pocket and placed the keys in his hands. The artist and Flo entered the van, while the other guy climbed aboard the rented truck, installing himself in the driver''s seat.


    As they drove to their location - the artist was feeling excited. He thought this piece would be groundbreaking - an elevation beyond his previous work.


    As before, when the van stopped, they had no idea where they were.


    Surprisingly, the same guide as before met them at the van. And, as before, he took Flo''s hand, and led them into the dark. They didn''t have to walk quite as far before they could see the red lights. There were two of them on either side of a stairway leading down, like a subway.


    As they descended the stairs, they found themselves in an underground tunnel - also lit with the same red lights. They could just make out a few other guests ahead of them, also with their guide. After a walk that lasted about 20 minutes, they came upon a staircase leading up. Ascending the stairs, they found themselves in a somewhat familiar greeting area.


    The host extended his arms, embracing Flo and kissing her cheek. He shook the artists hand, clasping both his hands warmly around the artist''s. A beautiful Asian woman handed them both masks. This time, Flo was Cleopatra, and the artist was the devil or some kind of demon. His mask was red, with horns erupting at the top. They moved forward, behind the curtain the Asian woman held open for them.


    The room was huge. At least 200 or 300 feet square-ish. It was lit with a variety of gas lamps. The crowd looked smaller in this larger space. In the center of the room there was a square cage of probably 20 feet on each side. There was a divider in the middle of the cage - separating four exotic looking women from two exotic looking men and two animals the artist didn''t recognize. They were like deer but with larger horns that were twisted. Each man was caressing the animal next to him. The women, not naked, but hardly clothed looked like they were exploding in heat. The men were nearly frothing seeing the beautiful women before them.


    Before long, their guide appeared, taking Flo''s hand, and indicating to the artist that he should follow. They approached the eastern archway, finding their way behind the dark curtain. Behind yet another curtain they entered a new room. It was similar size as the other, but was lined with black curtains along the sides, each curtain bearing a unique symbol on the floor. This time the artist found himself standing near an omega symbol. The guide pulled the curtain to reveal his latest work. He nodded to the guide.


    They then walked to the far end of the room, and the guide retracted the curtain to reveal a chorus line of beautiful Asian women. As before, they walked down the line to evaluate and examine each one. This time, Flo was happy to whisper into the artist''s ear: "She''s cute. Oh I like that one", and so on.


    But it didn''t take long for the artist to recognize the tattoo. And with that, his selection was made. He thought he heard the voice say: ¡°Yes, we like that one.¡±


    Below the cage, there was a windrose indicating the cardinal directions. The artist and Flo had entered at the southwest corner, and could see that there were doorways on both the eastern and western walls. They noted a small alcove near the northeast corner, where other guests had clustered, and assumed that''s where they might find the goodies they had come to expect. Flo enjoyed her typical lines, while the artist simply requested a bottle of whiskey, eschewing any signs of taste or proper upbringing. As usual, most everyone kept to themselves. There were, however, a few moments when the artist received compliments on his mask - mostly from what appeared to be balding older men.


    There was no gong this time, but there was a rapid silence. The crowd at the goodie corner dispersed into places around the walls. A large chain, attached to the divider in the cage, was pulleyed up toward the ceiling. From somewhere, they could hear what sounded like tribal drums. The artist could now see that the women and men in the cage had particularly dark skin. The women''s faces were painted with dots and lines in a white color. The men''s faces were painted in red, with circles and arrows. The animals stayed in their places as the women began some kind of dance in place, and the men crossed the divider to perform a dance that appeared to be a hunt of the women.


    Within moments, the first ring girl appeared at the eastern curtain. She held a rope in her hands. Attached to the rope were four young boys. They appeared to be around 14 or 15 years old, possibly Thai or something similar. The ring girl was secure in her silk robe, but the boys were all naked and had their heads shaved. She led them around the room while the drums continued to beat, and the tribal men and women in the middle continued their dance.


    After circling the room, they departed behind the western curtain.


    The next ring girl entered with a cage on a dolly. Inside the cage was a mostly naked man. He had a small cotton cloth wrapped around his pelvis. His head was shaven, and his skin was dark tan. His ribs showed through his skin. His nails were visibly long and he was jittery beneath the lights and amongst the crowd. As the ring girl drew the cage nearer, the artist thought the man looked familiar. Flo grabbed his hand tightly at the same moment. As the cage wheeled it''s way past them, Flo couldn''t help but whisper in the artist''s ear: "You know who that was?"


    The artist gave her a squeeze back, indicating that he understood, but that they shouldn''t be conversing right now.


    As each item made it''s way around, the artist became nervous and anxious. What would these people think of his creation - or him?


    Eventually, the girl with the Xuanwu tattoo emerged from the eastern curtain. She also held a rope in her hand. But as she made her way into the room, the rope was pulling something large on a moving dolly. The crowd was clearly intrigued as they didn''t yet know what it was.


    At this same time, the tribal drums changed. The men in the cage began to pursue and grasp the women, holding them in place. The men stripped the minimal clothing from the women, and made a sound that encouraged the animals with them.


    As the artist''s work made its way into the room, there were many curious and interested onlookers.


    The woman with the Xuanwu tattoo stopped in front of a couple. The man was wearing a princess mask, and the woman was wearing a Medusa mask. With the cart stopped, the ring girl dropped the rope. She approached the man with the princess mask, and grasped his hand. Medusa made an encouraging sound. She led him to the cart. Two very large and athletic looking men appeared from the eastern curtain, each carrying a ladder. They placed their ladders on the eastern and western side of the cart. The man on the eastern side led the princess masked man up the ladder, while his counter part ascended on the other side. They each grabbed the man from atop the ladder, and lowered him into the center of what looked like a large sphere. As soon as the princess masked man was lowered, the tribal drums stopped. The women and men in the cage also stopped.


    For a moment, there was nothing.


    One of the ladder men placed a cover over the hole where the masked princess had been inserted.


    There was some kind of sound, like a light whirring. The patrons looked on for several minutes. After 5 or 6 minutes, they began to have conversations with their attending partners. And that''s when they heard the shriek. After that, the ladder man removed the cover. Each man reached down to pull the masked princess out of the contraption, allowing him to descend the western ladder. Once on the floor, the man stopped - looking stunned. It took at least five or ten seconds before he moved. But when he did, although his face was covered, all could sense the smile on his face. He returned to his Medusa, and the patrons all gave a rousing cheer and applause.


    With that, the Xuanwu girl continued to walk the machine around the room, eventually evaporating into the western curtain.


    ***


    The artist seemed pleased with this moment. In his mind, this was a great success.


    Flo, too, felt a rush of excitement, despite having no idea what the artist had actually created.


    His creation was the last item of the show. Their guide appeared, and handed the artist a ticket. As before, they made their way to the host.


    At the host desk, the Asian woman reached out her hand, palm up. The artist placed the ticket in her hand. She then vanished behind the curtain. While she was gone, the host gave them both a broad smile.


    After several minutes, the woman had not returned. Neither Flo nor the artist thought much of it. As they looked at the host, though - they could detect the falseness in his eyes. They were just about to ask about the woman...


    Two large men appeared behind them, placing dark bags over their heads. They both began to scream out, but tape was wrapped around their mouths.


    Then they both smelled something awful that they couldn''t recognize, their breathing became difficult, and instantly they were both unconscious. The last thing the artist heard was the voice: ¡±You must descend before you ascend¡±.

 Underworld

    When Flo woke up, she was home, in her own bed. She was in her panties and a tank top. Her eyes were itchy, and she was a bit groggy. It felt like she had been to the club. But as she lay in her bed, parts of the night came back to her. She could remember the cage, and the cart. And then nothing until now.


    She wanted to shrug it off, because there was no information she could access that suggested otherwise. However, in her gut something felt wrong. She grabbed the phone and called the artist... but there was no answer. Which was not unusual.


    She got dressed and started the coffee.


    ***


    There were three chairs. In the middle was the largest chair, although all three were pretty big. Each made of some kind of nice wood, with leather cushions. A man with a dark double breasted suit sat in the center chair. His dark hair slicked back. His infectious smile lighting the room. To each side, his two twin sons. They each opted for single breasted, but matching pin stripe suits. All three wore dark red silk ties.


    The artist could smell the smoke of their cigars. He could also just make out the scent of whiskey in the air, as each man had a healthy pour in his hand that wasn''t holding a cigar.


    The artist could also sense that it wasn''t just him and the three men. There must have been a handful of women as well. The head cover made it hard to establish exact numbers, obviously.


    The hood was pulled from his head. His eyes took nearly 20 seconds to adjust. He was in a house. Something like the great room of a typical large scale American house. He was seated in a hard wooden chair, and in front of him he could now see three similar looking men, all in what looked like comfortable leather chairs; all with cigars in one hand and whiskeys in the other.


    There were two couches, one on each side of him. Three exotic looking women occupied each couch.


    The man in the middle started the conversation:


    "Johnny, Johnny, Johnny..." he said with a broad smile.


    "Johnny artist. Do you mind if I call you Johnny?"


    The artist didn''t move. It was only several minutes later that he recognized his "host" as the man who had trialed his art at the Dark Machine Show.


    "Oh, Johnny. Johnny Boy", the man continued.


    "That was quite a trip. I mean - how do you come up with this shit?"


    The artist, still confused and uncertain what was happening. He realized now that his hands were tied behind his back, and his legs were tied to the chair he was in. If there was some escape, it wasn''t easy.


    He could now also see that his work was just behind the middle man.


    "You know, I wanted to pay you. I mean - I want to pay you. I''m gonna pay you. I love this thing..." - the man motions toward the work behind him.


    "But here''s the thing, Johnny boy. I think you got more in ya...", his broad smile opening for another puff of his cigar. The big man spoke in a somewhat charming New Jersey accent, like maybe he was a mobster who could charm strong men to their deaths.


    It was at this moment that the artist had enough awareness to wonder where Flo was. He recognized that she had been with him, but wasn''t here in this moment. He felt nervous and scared, but still a bit defiant.


    "Where''s Flo?"


    "Don''t worry about it" ... the man said.


    The artist shook his head and repeated:


    "Where the fuck is Flo?"


    "She''s good. She''s home. She''s fine. I told ya, don''t worry about it".


    This whole situation was testing his ability to remain calm and patient, but that ability was rapidly receding.


    "What the fuck do you want from me? Why the fuck am I tied up? You fucking crazy...", he stopped himself from that last retort.


    "Hey - easy tiger. I ain''t your enemy. I''m a fan. Maybe your biggest fan."


    The artist could feel his stomach turning. In his head he thought: "What the fuck is this? What have I gotten myself into?"


    "Sweetheart, I love this new thing you did. Hell, I love the old thing you did. I hang it in my piss room. Whenever my buddies come over, they gotta see Jesus gettin fucked up the ass! Ha! Get''s em every fuckin'' time!"


    This was the worst. The end. The bottom. This was when the artist was resigned to just fucking die, by whatever means necessary. This asshole using his art as fucking bathroom kitsch was too much to take.


    "How does it even work?", his guardian inquired.


    "I mean, for real. I done it twice already. Boom! Same fucking weirdness. Like I''m falling endlessly. How do ya fuckin'' do that?"


    The artist just stared at him. Defiant as ever, he offered: "I take the souls of shitpots like you and I drain their power into my art and power it from their disenchanted ever-unenlightened souls!"


    "Heh... that''s real fuckin'' poetic, my friend. I don''t know what the fuck it means, but it''s real fuckin'' poetic."


    "Well, I wouldn''t expect you to understand, much less appreciate what it is..."


    "Oh, I appreciate it. I can promise you that. I appreciate it. You got no idea how much I appreciate it."


    The man puffed his cigar, knowing that this wasn''t a battle of wits, even if that was the only game the artist had to play.


    "Why am I here? What the fuck do you want from me?", the artist exclaimed, feeling a bit belligerent.


    "Ah, Johnny... Johnny boy. You are here to be mine. My jester? My entertainer? My magician? My guy that gives me things and experiences I could not get otherwise."


    The artist wasn''t sure what any of that meant. "Your jester? Your entertainer? Your fucking magician? What the fuck is wrong with you? I''m not fucking entertaining you! Get me out of this fucking chair, you asshole!"


    The man in the middle got up from his chair, and leaned toward the artist, and continued: "Here''s the thing, Johnny boy. You¡¯re mine. I want what''s in that head of yours.¡± - he tapped the artist on his temple with his meaty finger, still holding the cigar - ¡°And I''m fuckin'' gonna get it. In the meantime, your friends - Flo? EB? They are home, they are safe. Your roommate? He''s good too. We just wanna probe a bit deeper, see what else you got under the hood, if you know what I mean?"


    The man chuckled briefly to himself as he retreated to his chair and sat down.


    In his head, the artist called out to the voice. He thought it might hear him. It might offer some advice or something. But it was quiet.


    ***


    The women on the couches approached the artist, placing a hood back over his head. He tried to protest, but as they lifted him to stand up, he recognized the smell inside the hood, and was instantly on his knees and out.


    When he next woke up, he was in a bedroom. It had wooden plank floors, and typical drywall ceiling and walls. There was no window. The door looked similar to a regular household door. When he tried it, he realized that it was locked. From the outside. With a deadbolt. And he could tell that the door was not a typical household door. It was a heavy steel door, painted to look like a typical one.


    There were 4 ceiling lights that lit the room, in a warm tone similar to sunlight. That¡¯s when he noticed that the ceilings were taller than usual. They must have been at least 15 feet tall.


    The walls were painted a shade of pale blue, robin¡¯s egg, perhaps? The ¡°bed¡± turned out to be a flat metal structure that lifted a thin mattress about twelve inches off the floor. A single sheet cloaked the mattress. His clothes had been replaced with a cheap, papery, hospital gown. He banged on the door, not expecting anyone to answer. And they didn¡¯t. He noticed that the room felt cool, which was strange because there were no air vents. The spaces around the door were also sealed, or at least he couldn¡¯t detect any space.


    So what next? He sat on the bed. Growing tired, he laid on top of the sheet.


    ¡ª¡ª


    After a nap of indefinite length, he woke to the sound of the deadbolt. The door opened, and an Asian woman entered and set a paper bowl and spoon on the floor. She eyed the artist on the bed the whole time. He didn¡¯t bother moving. After setting the bowl, she turned and walked out, shut the door, and locked it.


    The artist was trying to see what was past the door, but he couldn¡¯t make out anything. It just looked like darkness.


    He moved to the bowl on the floor. There was some kind of soup in it - it looked like vegetables in a broth. The spoon was not like one he had seen or used before. It worked fine as an eating utensil, but had limited rigidity, and was obviously of no use as any kind of weapon, should he require one.


    After finishing the soup, he left the bowl and spoon where they started. He started to inspect the room more closely - looking for some way to escape, or way to use something, anything, in the room as a possible weapon. But the walls were plain and solid. The floor the same. The metal bed might have offered some utility, but it weighed more than the artist could lift or move. He inventoried mobile items in the room. They were:


    Himself.


    His one-piece gown.


    The mattress.


    The sheet.


    The leftover bowl and spoon


    He wondered if he could use the sheet in some way - but it was made of a very thin and well worn textile - maybe cotton? He tested its strength, and it ripped instantly.


    The mattress was large and awkward. He picked it up, and it toppled over him. It was the definition of unwieldy: he could not wield it.


    Some time passed and he heard the deadbolt again. He stood in the middle of the room. The door opened, and 3 Asian women entered. One was holding a hood. He tried to protest, but two took his arms, and the third placed the hood over his head. There was no smell this time. However, they led him out of the room. He heard the door lock behind them. He then felt something bump into him from the back. The women let go his arms. Then two obviously much larger hands grabbed his arms, pulling him back onto a flat surface. Straps were strewn across his torso and arms, and also across his knees. All holding him tightly to the surface. There was no talking the whole time. The surface began to move, and he could hear the sound of wheels on a hard floor - maybe wood or concrete? He was in the position for only a few seconds, before it stopped moving.


    The knee straps were removed, followed by the torso straps. The two large hands grabbed him and stood him up. He was pushed forward, and he heard a metal door close behind him. He removed the hood that was still on him. He was now in a strange ... bathroom? It was a solid metal room. The ceiling, a similar 15 foot height, with similar quad lighting, was solid metal. The walls, the door. Along one wall was a toilet which had been built into the metal of the wall. It all appeared to be one smooth surface. No edges, no corners. No screws, bolts, or rivets. Everything shiny and rounded. The only things not metal were the lights above. There was no toilet paper at the toilet, and no sink for washing up. He walked over to the toilet and relieved himself. There was no water inside the toilet, so his urine made an interesting metallic sound. As soon as he was done, the door opened. Before he had a chance to see what was beyond the door, the three asian women were on him. They turned him away from the door, and placed the hood back over his head. The whole procedure repeated as before, only this time he ended up back in the bedroom.


    After a period of indeterminate time, the lights dimmed. The artist assumed this was some kind of signal. He decided it was a signal that the lights were about to go completely out, so he sat on the bed, trying to think. It was only a minute or two before the lights went completely out. The room was dark. Very dark. Darker than any he had ever been in. There was nothing but black wherever he looked. It was a bit disorienting because there was no visual reference at all. He thought maybe he just needed to wait for his eyes to adjust, but they never did. It was dark. As dark as dark gets. No light. No hint of light. A zero photon space.


    He wanted to sleep. He was thinking the sooner he slept, the sooner he could mentally escape this space. Laying on the bed, the sheet over his body ... he laid there. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting for sleep to come. And he waited. And more waiting. He couldn¡¯t tell if his thoughts were real or dreams. The darkness seemed to blind him in a way. Were his eyes open or closed? It was hard to tell.


    Eventually he must have fallen asleep, because he was awoken by the lights coming on and the sound of the deadbolt.


    ***


    This time, the big man entered. He looked at the artist in an almost loving way. The way a mother looks at her child.


    He started to speak: ¡±I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    The artist was groggy, and his eyes hadn¡¯t adjusted to the light yet.


    The man continued: ¡±Look, Johnny. I need you. You are my golden goose.¡±


    ¡°What the fuck was this maniac talking about?¡±, the artist thought to himself.


    The artist could now see the man more clearly. The door was open enough that he could also see several people standing beyond the door. It was probably the asian women and the other big men.


    ¡°Here¡¯s the thing. I probably shouldn¡¯t tell you this. Well, maybe I should.¡±, the big man chuckled to himself.


    ¡°That thing I said about your Jesus painting. I lied.¡±


    The artist was thoroughly confused at how that had anything to do with what was happening, especially right now.


    There was a subtle guffaw from behind the door, and a slight shuffling of feet.


    ¡°To to tell you the truth, I didn¡¯t put your thing up in my piss room. That was just a little joke - to get you riled up, maybe.¡±


    The artist¡¯s confusion continued.


    ¡°What I did do, though, is sell it.¡±


    With this the big man waited to see the artist¡¯s response. But the artist continued to stare blankly at him, waiting for the so-called rest of the story.


    ¡°Look, Johnny boy. In some other life, I¡¯d probably feel bad about it. But I don¡¯t. It¡¯s just what I do. I buy, I sell, I make money.¡±


    ¡°That Jesus thing you did got a lot of people very excited.¡±


    ¡°And this new thing - I don¡¯t even know how to explain it. I mean, I¡¯m gonna sell it too... but I don¡¯t even know how to describe it. It¡¯s way beyond the Jesus thing, and I got a pretty penny for that, let me tell you.¡±


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°You know what I got for that Jesus gettin¡¯ fucked? Three million. Three million fucking dollars. Can you believe that?¡±


    The artist¡¯s face flushed to pale and the blood left him. His stomach, turned over and over. He felt nauseous.


    The big man noticed this, and let off the gas a little. He waited for the artist to recover.


    The artist did not recover quickly, though. He leaned over the edge of the bed, and vomited on the floor. He used the sheet to wipe his mouth. The big man, a disgusted look on his face, made a motion toward the room. An asian woman entered with cleaning supplies and cleaned up the mess. The big man waited for her to complete her task before continuing.


    ¡°So. Now I got this new thing you did. And I don¡¯t know how to describe it. I mean, it¡¯s really something. But if I can¡¯t tell people what it is, I can¡¯t sell it. The Jesus thing was easy - I just told people I got a painting of Jesus getting fucked in the ass, and they went fucking crazy for it. What am I supposed to say this time? I got this weird thing you get in. And it fucks you up?¡±


    This was worse than the worst, the artist thought. This is hell. My hell. My hell where my art is not just misunderstood, but denigrated and sold to admirers for vanity. It wasn¡¯t that he didn¡¯t know that this kind of vanity and greed existed in the world, it was that he had worked to remove himself from that world. And now he had somehow become the center of it. An enslaved golden goose, whose only ambition was to make this fat man fatter.


    Yet, he still didn¡¯t say anything. He was hedging on his silence. He at least knew that being silent would only make the big man more uncomfortable and perhaps say more than he should.


    ¡°So, how would you describe it? What would you say it is?¡±


    The artist remained close lipped.


    ¡°Eh¡±, the big man shrugged his shoulders.


    ¡°I think I might call it the Fall Through Machine or something like that. But even with a catchy name, what it does is still something I can¡¯t put into words.¡±


    The artist remained close lipped.


    ¡°I did it twice, myself, you know. What a trip!¡±


    The artist remained close lipped.


    The artist remained close lipped.


    The artist couldn¡¯t help this time, though: ¡±What did you see? What did you experience?¡±


    ¡°What did I see? What did I experience? Fuck me!¡±


    The big man laughed to himself, and to the people outside the door.


    ¡°Johnny, you ever see that movie, Old Boy?¡±


    The artist shook his head.


    ¡°Great flick ... great fuckin¡¯ flick. Anyway. It¡¯s about this guy that gets locked up, and his daughter taken from him. When he gets older they let him out, or maybe he escapes - to tell you the truth, I don¡¯t fuckin¡¯ remember.¡±


    The big man was pacing around the room.


    ¡°So this guy ends up sleeping with this chick, and he and the chick then find out that the chick is his daughter! Can you believe that shit?¡±


    The artist just sat that there, looking uninterested.


    ¡°But that¡¯s what it felt like. It felt like that moment when that realization hits you. You didn¡¯t see it coming, couldn¡¯t have predicted that shit.¡±


    ¡°I saw everything. I experienced everything. Life, death, love, hate. But that part at the end - I was falling. It felt like I was falling forever. And the darkness of it. Falling down a bottomless hole forever. I don¡¯t know how you did it, but it was unlike any chemical trip I¡¯ve ever been on.¡±


    The artist smiled.


    The big man smiled back.


    The artist continued to smile.


    The big man continued to smile until he was uncomfortable with it.


    The artist started this time: ¡±You fell?¡±


    ¡°For an eternity?¡±


    The big man, losing his humor, said rather flatly: ¡±Yeah. I fell. For what seemed like an eternity.¡±


    The artist seemed pleased by this. A small smile crossed his face now.


    The big man, looking more uncomfortable by the minute: ¡±Isn¡¯t that what I was supposed to do? Fall?¡±


    The artist continued smiling, almost chuckling to himself. His eyes bright and alert. Himself clearly amused.


    ¡°You fell? Forever?¡±, the artist repeated.


    ¡°Yeah. Why? Does that mean something?¡±, the nervous big man said. He started to laugh like it was some kind of joke. ¡°I fell. For like forever!¡±, and his laugh escalated. He was looking at the artist for confirmation or support or something. He looked at his crew outside the door, engaging them to laugh with him.


    The artist stopped talking. He laid back on the bed, pulling the sheet over himself. He was smiling. Not a humoring smile, but a clear amusement deep within him. He laid there, smiling at the ceiling.


    The big man continued his stance. He was eyeing the artist with such curiosity and confusion. Waiting for the artist to say something else. Maybe explain why falling was so interesting or amusing.


    After several moments of realizing he wasn¡¯t going to get any more from the artist, the big man left the room. As the door was shutting, all could hear a subtle laughter from inside the room. A few seconds after the door was closed and the deadbolt executed, the lights went out. The artist continued in his own mood and spirit. He was relaxed, and calm. And before long was asleep.


    ***


    As he slept, the artist dreamt of nothing. Just nothing. His mind was empty and blank. If he had dreamt, it would have been of the darkness and the blackness. Sometime during the night, he awoke. He pulled the sheet closer, more for security than warmth, turned on his side, and fell back asleep. This time he dreamt vividly. It started in a hallway he didn¡¯t recognize. On each side of him, an asian woman. But as he looked down, he noticed that the woman to his left had a familiar tattoo. In his dream it looked like a pyramid, but he still recognized it as Xuanwu. The women each took an arm, and led him down the hallway. At the end was a door with a deadlock on the inside. The women nodded to the deadlock, as he reached for it, the lock became a doorknob, and the artist twisted it open. When the door opened, he could see a vast valley below them. It must have been hundreds of feet straight down. The women nodded at him in encouragement. He stalled, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and jumped in a swan dive as the women let go of his arms. He expected to fall. But instead, he only dropped a small amount before wings sprouted from his back. He flapped them and soared upwards. The sky was a clear and bright blue. Below he could see a waterfall flowing into a waterway directly below the cliff face he had jumped from. Looking back he could see a small crowd on the top of the cliff. They were watching him. He turned back toward the sky, and flew upwards. As he continued to flap his wings, he rose higher and higher. He could feel the heat of the sun getting warmer on his skin. The warmth felt invigorating, and he continued to climb. Suddenly he could see what looked like flames or fireballs emitting from the sun. They continued and flooded the sky. He tried to dodge them, but there were too many. In a flash, one of them struck his right wing, and it burned to just charred cartilage and bone. His remaining wing wasn¡¯t enough to sustain him, and he started to drift downwards. As his body inverted, head facing the Earth below, his single wing still outstretched. It grabbed the wind and sent his body into a spiral. As the fear rippled through his body, he woke up. Though the room was cool, he was sweating. He pulled the sheet close again and turned to his other side, and quickly fell asleep again, not waking until the lights came on.


    ***


    The lights were bright in his eyes. The deadbolt opened, and another asian woman entered with a bowl of yogurt and spoon. He smiled at her this time. She didn¡¯t smile back exactly, but something in her eyes responded.


    He finished the yogurt and sat on the bed, waiting.


    He began to bang on the door.


    ¡°Hey! Hey!¡± ... nothing.


    ¡°Come on!¡± ... nothing.


    ¡°I have an idea! I need materials!¡± ... nothing.


    He banged again, still nothing.


    He sat back on the bed.


    About ten minutes later, he heard the deadbolt. This time a young redhead appeared. She looked Irish or maybe Scottish. She had a notebook in her hands and a pen.


    ¡°Please stay there and sit down¡±, she said. Her accent sounded familiar, but he couldn¡¯t place it exactly. It wasn¡¯t foreign, but it wasn¡¯t local either.


    The artist continued sitting on the bed, the sheet around him.


    ¡°What do you need?¡±


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m not entirely sure what all I need. But I can give you a list to start from. I may need more after that.¡±


    The familiar ginger nodded, and took down the materials as he spoke.


    ¡°A variety of oil colors ... I can notate the specifics for you in a moment.¡±


    ¡°A canvas - at least 4 foot square. ¡°


    ¡°12 yards of red or black silk¡±.


    ¡°A variety of brushes ... I can notate those for you as well.¡±


    ¡°3 wigs of real human black hair¡±.


    ¡°I¡¯ll also need several razors, if that¡¯s ok.¡±


    She looked up - suspiciously.


    ¡°They are critical for the way I cut lines in the work.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s see... A wooden frame, a canvas stretcher.¡±


    ¡°A flashlight ... so I can continue to work at night.¡±


    ¡°And several strips of leather. Prefer untanned or natural.¡±


    She continued to notate these items. There were several more items he requested. When the list was complete, she handed him the notebook and pen, and he scrawled the paints and brushes he needed.


    ¡°As she got up, he shouted out: ¡±Oh, and a mirror! Don¡¯t forget a mirror!¡±.


    She rolled her eyes, but wrote it done still.


    ***


    Several hours passed, while the artist alternated between sitting on the edge of the bed, and laying down. Before long, the deadbolt sounded, and the young ginger entered. She had several paper bags of items. She placed them in the center of the floor, and left the room, the deadbolt locking behind her.


    The artist began to dump the items out onto the floor. Every item had been open and inspected before being delivered to him. He began by stretching the canvas onto the wooden frame, wrapping the canvas around the corners, and securing it to the frame.


    There was no easel, so he placed the canvas upright against the bed. He sat in front of the canvas, and arranged the other materials in a semi-circle behind him. Next, he started with a sketch in his head, followed by ideas about color.


    He worked for several hours. When he heard the deadlock, he would reverse the painting against the wall to conceal his work. His sustenance continued with more soup. And he left the room twice to visit the metallic bathroom.


    The artist applied his work in layers onto the canvas, giving time between each layer to set.


    He continued through the night, completing what he thought would be a great work that would spark the imagination of the big man.


    ***


    In the morning, the lights came on and the deadbolt sounded like normal. The door opened. The ginger entered to check the artist¡¯s progress.


    As she entered, she had a sinking feeling in her stomach. In the center of the room was the asian woman with the Xuanwu tattoo. She was holding a painting, and had a fearful look on her face.


    The ginger felt confused, and now scared herself. She looked around the room, but there was nowhere to look. There was just the bed, mattress, and sheet. The remains of the art supplies were gathered in a pile next to the bed.


    She began to say something like: ¡±Where is the ...¡±, but stopped herself mid-sentence. That is because she suddenly saw the the artist¡¯s painting. The background was dark black, not unlike the room at night. A compass in the top right indicated the cardinal directions - North, South, East, and West. On the East side of the painting was an asian woman, much like the ones accompanying the big man. On the West side was a ginger-haired woman. In the middle was the big man, each woman holding one of his hands. Well, not exactly holding. They were pulling him in both directions, and from top to bottom, his body was torn in half, and his entrails waterfalling down his legs (to the South). A pool of blood beneath the man appeared glossy and wet, and even appeared to still be dripping.


    The ginger wanted to say something like: ¡±Oh, no!¡±.


    Instead, she turned and ran out of the room.


    The asian woman with the Xuanwu tattoo set the painting down on the floor, leaning it against the bed so that it could still be seen. She walked out of the door, and followed a hallway to the left. There was, of course, a bit of commotion somewhere nearby. As she heard footsteps and anger, she noticed a metallic door to her left. Unlocking the deadbolt, she opened the door, and shut it behind her. The door was closed, but not locked. She could hear the commotion make it¡¯s way passed the door. She opened the door, and continued down the hallway. An industrial looking stairway was in front of her. She climbed to the mid-floor landing, and continued up to the next level.


    Out of the stairwell was another, wider hallway. The floor was linoleum, and windows lined one of the walls. It was bright daylight outside. Opposite the windows were a series of doors, all white with locks on the outside. Not too far ahead, she could see a metal gate extending across the hall. There was no one there, but the gate was locked. She tried everything to open it, but all attempts failed.


    There was something like more commotion coming from beyond the gate. She could hear deep voices and loud shoe falls. Thinking quick, she turned, her back to the gate, and stood as if she were on duty keeping watch. She couldn¡¯t see, but could tell from the footsteps and voices that this was the big man, and probably his two sons as well.


    The big man was obviously angry. He was yelling about: ¡°How could this happen? How the fuck could this happen? I mean there¡¯s no way in or out of that room! There¡¯s only one fucking key! Ahh for fuck¡¯s sake.¡±


    There was an electronic beep, and the gate opened. The big man and his entourage noticed the asian woman, but didn¡¯t say anything. They kept walking toward the stairway. She caught the gate before it latched, and waited for the men to descend the stairs. She pulled the gate open, and latched it behind her, as she continued down the hallway.


    At the end of the hall was another stairway going up, and a door that led to an enclosed walkway. Thru the door, and down the walkway until another doorway. She pushed that one open, and found herself in a residential garage. It was a relatively large 3 car garage, but there were no cars in it. There were, however, six motorcycles. Another residential looking door was on the opposite side of where she was.


    She looked for switches or controls on the wall to open the garage, but there were none. The only thing was a light switch on the wall. She tried to lift the garage door, but it was secured and wouldn¡¯t move. Finally, she put her ear to the door. She couldn¡¯t hear anything. So she opened the door.


    ***


    She found herself in a typical residential kitchen. To her right was a counter with overhead cabinets. Mid-way along the counter there was a sink with a window overlooking a yard. To her left, just passed the oven and refrigerator, was a small dining table with places for four people.


    Through the kitchen there was a large opening to her left that led into a great room. There were two couches positioned opposite of each other. There were also three large sitting chairs at one end of the room.


    Each couch had three asian women sitting on it. They were spooked by this new asian girl¡¯s appearance. They stood up and looked at her, but said nothing. They approached her, judging her from head to toe. One of them began to chuckle a bit. She was pointing at the Xuanwu tattoo. Another woman approached, looking the stranger in the eye. The stranger looked back at her, with a slight smile. This asian woman lifted her leg to reveal a tattoo ... a Xuanwu tattoo; she gave the stranger another look with raised eyebrows.


    Like a trapped animal, the artist had to make a swift fight or flight decision. Fortunately, though, it was made for him. The real asian woman with the Xuanwu tattoo gave him a reassuring smile, and grabbed his arm, leading him out of the great room and down another hallway. There was a door to the outside, which she opened to let him out. As he walked through the door, he threw the black wig and asian dress at the woman. Then he disappeared into the daytime.


    Several minutes later, the big man arrived back at the house. When he saw the woman with the Xuanwu tattoo, he confronted her: ¡±What the fuck? How did he do it? Is he some kind of fucking Houdini?¡±. She didn¡¯t say anything. He began to pull his right hand across his body to backhand smack her. But, before he could complete the action, she pushed his hand, causing him to spin around and almost fall down. She threw the wig and dress at him and gave him a look that suggested he probably shouldn¡¯t try that again.


    ***


    The artist was walking through a neighborhood in his paper hospital gown, and lots of paint on his face making him look every bit a madman. He tried to stay out of sight of any cars. He noted the street sign as he came to an intersection: ¡±Shade Lane¡±.  Below the street sign was a white sign that read: ¡±Reif Stimborne Sanitarium¡±, with an arrow pointing down the street - where he had just come from.


    The intersection was a small highway, with a medium level of traffic. A sidewalk on his side of the highway ran east and west. He followed it westward for close to an hour before he came upon any kind of evidence of a town.


    The artist stopped at a gas station and used the restroom there to clean up his face.


    He suddenly heard the voice again: ¡°Remember, my son, don¡¯t look back¡±.


    He wasn¡¯t sure where he was. Worse, he wasn¡¯t sure where to go. He was sure they knew where his house was. And Flo¡¯s too. He decided that Isabel might be his best bet. He asked the attendant if he could use the phone. He dialed Isabel¡¯s number, but there was no answer. He did not leave a message. He then asked the attendant what town they were in.


    ¡°You are in Grimville, son.¡±, he replied.


    ¡°I mean, most outsiders call it Grimeville, cause that¡¯s how it¡¯s spelt. But we call her Grimville¡±.


    The artist made note of this, and nodded his thanks.


    He had no idea where Grimeville was. He had never heard of it before. He told the attendant he was trying to get back home. The helpful attendant was happy to oblige:


    ¡°Well yeah, son. That¡¯s just over the bay. You gotta take a ferry or go the long way around. They keep talking ¡®bout puttin¡¯ a bridge in, but don¡¯t nobody want to pay for it.¡±


    ¡°How much is the ferry? I lost my wallet earlier today.¡±


    ¡°I think for just one person it¡¯s pretty cheap. Like fifty cents or something.¡±


    ¡°Is there anyway I could borrow two quarters from you? I promise to return and repay you.¡±


    ¡°Aw, shoot. You ain¡¯t gotta worry about that. Just take care a yourself. You¡¯re looking mighty pretty rough, son.¡±


    The ferry station was a few miles south of the gas station. The artist walked the distance. It was only midday, so he figured there must be plenty of time to make it across.


    The ferry station was relatively small. Just one small shack where you could buy tickets. There was a group of seven or eight cars waiting to drive on. A pier stretched into the water for walk-on passengers.


    He approached the shack, but there was a sign in the window that read: ¡±Buy tickets on board¡±.


    The ferry hadn¡¯t arrived yet, so he found a place to sit and wait. Forty-five minutes had gone by before he heard the fog horn of the vessel. Once docked, the gate to the drive on ramp was opened. A stair case also dropped onto the pier about mid-way down the boat. The artist walked down the pier and climbed the few stairs. Once onboard, there were several padded benches. He found one that looked comfortable and sat down. It took about fifteen minutes before the ferry was ready to depart.


    As he sat there, he was feeling tired - exhausted. Overwhelmed. No one had come by to collect his quarters for the trip. He laid down on his back on the padded bench. He placed the quarters - one on each eye - to help block the sun coming in from the eastern window. He closed his eyes, and fell asleep.


    ¡ª¡ª


    The sound of the fog horn woke the artist. He sat up, and looked out the window - it was a view he recognized. The quarters were gone from his eyes; and a ticket had tumbled from his torso down to his lap. Within a few minutes, the boat was docked, and he walked down the stairs onto the pier. As the ramp was lowered, and the gate opened, the cars began to drive off the ferry. There was a loud sound coming from the ferry, and as it got louder, six motorcycles sped from the ramp, and flew down the road.


    The motorcycles looked familiar.


    ***


    The artist continued on foot, since it was his only option. He was about a mile from Lenny¡¯s, and so made his way there. Lenny didn¡¯t seem to be around, but Elle was. He gave her a nod, and she looked back at him with aversion.


    ¡°What happened to you, sweetheart? You look like shit. And what the fuck are you wearing? You escape from a hospital or something?¡±, following that with a short giggle to herself.


    ¡°Something like that.¡±, he told her.


    ¡°You need anything, honey?¡±.


    ¡°Is Lenny around?¡±.


    ¡°Nope. He wasn¡¯t feeling well, so I¡¯m just here solo today.¡±


    The artist asked Elle if he could use the phone. She obliged, and he tried to call Isabel again. She answered this time.


    ¡°Cha cha cha!¡±, she answered.


    ¡°Hey Issie...¡±.


    ¡°Hey yourself!¡±.


    He took a breath and sighed. Why was he calling her? What would he have to tell her? He kept it brief, asking her to pick him up at Lenny¡¯s.


    Isabel arrived fairly quickly. She was a bit shocked when she saw him.


    ¡°My goodness, you look like a wreck of shit!¡±


    He asked her to take him by his house, but to stay in the car while he went inside. He wanted her to wait while he could grab some clothes.


    The artist¡¯s room mate wasn¡¯t home. He went to his room to gather a few items. Inside his bedroom, his heart sunk. All of his works were gone. There was nothing left. It was the only thing out of place. ¡°Fucking son of a bitch!¡±, he thought to himself. Wanting to leave even sooner now, he grabbed just the essentials, and was headed out the door. He stopped at the doorway, and ran back inside. Rustling through a basket in the main room, he found a notepad and a pen. He jotted a quick note to his roommate:


    ¡°If anyone comes looking for me here, just tell them I moved and you don¡¯t know where. Thx.¡±


    Back in the car, he asked Isabel to drive him to her place. Once there, he took a shower and cleaned up. He put on his own clothes and laid down next to her. He was asleep within minutes.

 Look forward, not back

    A little more than a month later. He hadn¡¯t heard the voice in a while.


    ¡ª¡ª


    The artist had spent the several weeks staying with Isabel, getting himself back together. He had seen Flo only once during that time, and it was a brief and awkward encounter. Neither of them said much. Flo simply hugged him.


    Isabel had been gracious in providing for him; but he felt he was beginning to take advantage. He needed money to move out, and so he began his journey to find something. He eventually landed a job with a local printing company. His job was to run the printing and cutting. It was boring as fuck, but it allowed him to put together enough money to move out and into his own place.


    He found a guest house that was only a few blocks from the print shop. It was extremely cheap, and was already furnished - making his move in much easier. There was no kitchen, but that was ok since he didn¡¯t really feel like preparing any meals anyway.


    The guest house did have a bedroom, a bathroom, and a small ¡°sitting¡± room where guests could socialize. The bedroom had a window that looked out to an old Poplar tree. In the mornings, he could hear the birds in the tree making their own plans for the day. The bedroom had come with a bed, a dresser, a closet, and a desk and chair. The artist felt overwhelmed by the crowded room. He asked the landlord to remove the dresser and desk and chair, as he wouldn¡¯t need them.


    Each morning he would get up, clean up, and go to the print shop. He would help print and cut the orders for the day. He had 45 minutes for lunch, but usually just stayed around the shop. During that time, he would stand on the sidewalk outside smoking cigarettes. He would watch the people go by. He would give them names, but nothing else. He didn¡¯t give them backstories or dramas. He didn¡¯t imagine their parents or their passions. He simply watched them and named them:


    ¡°Jason¡±


    ¡°Homer¡±


    ¡°Sybil¡±


    ¡°Virgil¡±


    And when the time was up, he¡¯d extinguish his cigarette and return to printing and cutting.


    Several weeks into the print shop job, he happened to notice a newspaper in the landlords driveway. It wasn¡¯t the first time he noticed this. His landlord was an older couple who got their news the ¡°old fashioned¡± way. This one was like any other, except for one thing - the headline. It read: ¡±Arson suspects in Sanitarium fire apprehended!¡±


    Below the headline was a picture of 2 asian women in front of a few motorcycles. The familiar motorcycles. The same motorcycles he had seen in the garage, that he had seen leaving the ferry. Although he couldn¡¯t see the tattoo, he instantly recognized one of the asian women.


    During his break at work, he read the article.


    Local police have arrested two women of asian descent in connection with a suspected arson fire at Reif Stimborne Sanitarium, near Grimeville. The women do not speak any English, but have expressed their innocence through an interpreter.


    The fire, which occurred about two months ago, destroyed most of the former Sanitarium and a nearby resident¡¯s house. The unnamed resident was said to be a collector of fine art, all of which was also destroyed in the fire.


    Neighbors had reported seeing several motorcycles coming and going from the area on a regular basis. This tip led police to keep a look out for a matching group of motorcycles. Officer Slainte Peter had spotted the group making their way east on what the locals call ¡®Devil¡¯s Highway¡¯ (due to the large number of accidents on the strip). After chasing them down, he pulled the group over. As he attempted to interview two of the riders, the other four surprised him by jumping on their motorcycles and escaping into the night. The remaining two were arrested and brought in for interrogation.


    The pair of asian women have not been properly identified as of yet. They have no government issued identification and their dental and DNA records have turned up nothing in nationwide searches. What is known is that the two women speak both Mandarin and a dialect of Russian that is heavily influenced by Ukrainian. A Mandarin interpreter has been the main go-between for the accused women and authorities.


    Other than the tip from neighbors and the behavior of their colleagues during the stop by Officer Peter, there is no evidence linking the women to the fire. The women have declined to answer most questions, and have disavowed any knowledge of the Sanitarium.


    The Reif Stimborne Sanitarium was built in the mid 1920¡¯s and was used to house mentally ill patients who were deemed dangerous to society. Hysterical women, psychopaths, and schizophrenics were all residents at the Sanitarium at various points in its history.


    The facility was shuttered in the 1970¡¯s. It sat for several decades before it was purchased by a private investment group. The group had intended to fix it up and make it a hotel for ghost hunters and thrill seekers. But the cost to update the facility must have been more than they expected, and it never reopened.


    ***


    A few weeks later, the artist was working on cutting a print, and got his fingers caught. He slashed through three knuckles on his right hand. They didn¡¯t need to be amputated, but they were put into a cast. The doctors told him he was unlikely to regain flexibility in them.


    After that, he would spend the mornings in bed thinking about what he should do. He had two weeks off work to recover. But he found himself unmotivated to return. He would stay in his room and not leave.


    When he was hungry, he would order wonton or egg drop soup from a local chinese restaurant. Usually a teenage chinese boy would deliver the order, but occasionally the owner would send her daughter. He would ask her to come in and place the delivery on the floor, then hand her cash and tell her to leave. He would sit alone on the floor, eating the soup.


    When the soup was gone, the artist would contemplate various ways to kill himself. He had tested a belt by wrapping it around the Poplar tree. He had researched what kind of over the counter pills would do it. He kept a healthy amount of acetaminophen on hand, as well as benadryl. And he was rarely without a fair amount of whiskey. A gun seemed like an obvious and fool proof method, but he didn¡¯t have money for a gun. Carbon monoxide poisoning was another popular option, but he didn¡¯t own a car.


    This day, he looked out at the Poplar. There was already a chair below the tree. He had stood atop the chair before and measured out his belt. It was a little further than he wanted, but he could make it work.


    He also had painkillers for his hand, but there were only a few pills left. In the early days of his hand injury, he had to use them consistently just to be awake without the sharp and throbbing pain.


    When his two weeks were up, he returned to work. His anxiety, however, was overwhelming. Every time the cutting machine made its work, he would have a flashback of it scalping his knuckles. Within that first week, he turned in his immediate resignation.


    The tree and belt looked especially attractive that night.


    The emotional pain and depression of his current situation was frequently too much for him. But why? Certainly there were people who had it way worse than he did. Why didn¡¯t they all just hang themselves? Even a homeless man can find a tree and some makeshift rope.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    Something about his beliefs kept him in this hole he had dug for himself. He believed things were bad, and certain to a get worse, and definitely not better. This had been his life¡¯s direction lately, and it¡¯s what seemed most normal to him. Loss and depression, coupled with a pessimistic outlook rarely leads to positive emotions. The artist viewed himself as little more than an animatronic skeleton being controlled by some unseen daemon. This was part of his belief, that this daemon was the source of his misery, and killing himself would silence he daemon as well.


    ***


    He had heard about a friend of a friend who started a landscaping business. They were always looking for people because most of their employees ended up being fly-by-night workers. Between the manual work, the outside and dirt, and the heat in the summer - most didn¡¯t last more than a month.


    The artist¡¯s rent would be due soon, and he didn¡¯t want to have to move out.


    ¡ª¡ª


    He didn¡¯t make it out to the club much anymore. Whatever force had driven him there previously was diminished. He had gone recently, though. The bathroom at the club always had informal ads for a variety of ¡°services¡±, if you know what I mean. One particular one caught his eye: ¡±I will dominate and humiliate you. And you will like it!¡±.


    Back home, he called the number. A man answered with a kind and sincere voice. The artist explained that he had seen the ad and wanted to know what was involved. The kind man explained how the service worked. He would come to you, or you could come to him. You would define the parameters, and he would stay within them. It was a fetish that many people had, and he saw himself as a purveyor and master of this service.


    Two nights later, there was a knock at his door. The artist was nervous, but excited.


    He unlocked the door. The man entered. He was wearing a dark, striped, double breasted suit. He had a cigar in his mouth. ¡°What the fuck are you doing here?¡±, the man demanded.


    The artist cowered.


    ¡°Where¡¯s my fucking chair?¡±. The artist pointed towards the only available chair.


    ¡°You call this a chair? This thing is for pussies. Next time you better have a proper fucking chair - wood and leather. You got me?¡±


    The artist shrunk more.


    The man continued to berate and verbally abuse the artist for half an hour. At the end, the artist¡¯s nerves were so activated, he couldn¡¯t move without shaking. The man apologized and told him that he made a mistake and should have asked for the money up front, because it was always way more awkward at the end.


    The artist, looking shyly, pointed to an envelope labeled ¡°big man¡±. The man grabbed the envelope, peeked inside, then shoved the envelope into his interior suit pocket. Then he left.


    ¡ª¡ª


    The next day the artist did nothing. He laid in bed. He didn¡¯t eat. He didn¡¯t do anything.


    The day after he considered his options in the morning. He decided to call the landscaping company. He explained his disability. They told him to come out the next day to see how things would go.


    He arrived at the job site about 20 minutes late.


    ***


    He had been unemployed for two weeks. Money and food were becoming scarce. Things were low, so low. And that¡¯s when Flo called. She had ¡°the cancer¡±. It was in her lungs, and the outlook wasn¡¯t good. The cancer was stage four, and she had only gone to the doctor as a last resort.


    People like Flo didn¡¯t have normal insurance like you and me. She didn¡¯t go to the doctor; at least, not unless it seemed life threatening.


    The news was hard to take. Flo had been a life companion, of sorts. A commiserator. A soft ear. A romantic partner. A steady beacon of light in the darkness that was his life. She couldn¡¯t go away. She couldn¡¯t die.


    But she was going to. She told him that the doctors gave her six months, at best. The artist didn¡¯t know what to do. He didn¡¯t know how to console her. She didn¡¯t want consolation. She wanted time. More time. Time to be alive, to explore the world, to explore all the ways she was human. More music. More art. More places to see. More people to meet.


    All that was going to be cut short.


    They met at Lenny¡¯s later that night. The club was too crowded, and for her, too passe. Clubbing was cool and fun, but meant nothing now that the clock was ticking. Impending death does something to your priorities. You seek out love and lovers. You seek out understanding. You don¡¯t seek loud music, shitty drinks, and an abundance of shitty people.


    Flo sought him. The artist. He was a grounding strap, a gravity that brought her back to earth. Despite her superficial eccentricities, he always understood the real Flo. The real Florence. He always had. That was the foundation of their relationship.


    She had always understood him as well. It was a mutual, unspoken way they related to each other. She never had to say she respected his artistry. He never had to say he respected her courage to be herself. These were things that were so self evident, they never need to be said aloud. Although they never really talked about it, they understood each other¡¯s pain in life.


    At Lenny¡¯s, the artist wanted to say something. He wanted to let her know, explicitly, what she meant to him. How he related to her. He tried to begin:


    ¡°Flo... listen ...¡±


    She looked at him with her mascara fading down her cheek.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what to say. But...¡±


    She leaned in to listen more carefully, to pull herself further into the moment.


    ¡°... but, I want you to know. You are such a love. A love of my life. A love of friendship. A love of people. There aren¡¯t many like you.¡±


    He laughed lightly.


    ¡°Hell, there aren¡¯t any like you.¡±


    Flo blushed. She grabbed a tissue from her purse, and wiped the tear beginning to slide down her cheek.


    ¡°I wish there were more like you. Or maybe I don¡¯t, I don¡¯t know. There could never be more ¡®like¡¯ you. You are one of a kind. Any other would be a bad copy, a fake, a facsimile. An approximation that misses the essential details.¡±


    As he spoke, Flo tried to look at his eyes. But he couldn¡¯t bear to look her in the eye for more than a few seconds. Because he knew. He wanted to provide her peace. And hope. But there was no hope. And he couldn¡¯t lie to those eyes. He couldn¡¯t cover his own emotions enough.


    And the tears began in his eyes as well. The dam was broken. The levee was leaking salty tears down his face. She watched this moment, and pulled him in. It was now her turn to console him.


    But what could she even say? She chose not to say anything. She just held him. With her tissue, she wiped the tears rolling down his face.


    In his mind, he felt the injustice of the world. Why her? Why now? Things were settling into something stable, something good, weren¡¯t they? This was a moment when things should proceed ... into something more. Yet, he couldn¡¯t help but feel the earth below him shifting. Like a giant sinkhole was opening, and he was falling into it.


    The voice suddenly came back: ¡°Remember, my son. Look forward. Don¡¯t look back¡±.


    The artist was annoyed by the voice this time. He wanted to reply, but didn¡¯t. He simply ignored it.


    He met with Flo every week. Usually at Lenny¡¯s, but occasionally at his place or her place. Sometimes they would have dinner somewhere good. But the experience was always the same. She would arrive, he would feel loss. He would feel less of her each time.


    Eventually, she was too sick to go out. And he would visit her at her home. He would sit with her. Hold her hand. Recall and tell stories of their varied adventures, careful to avoid the Dark Machine Market episodes. He knew she felt guilty about that.


    ¡ª¡ª


    It was a Friday when she passed. The artist wasn¡¯t there when it happened. She passed in the mid-morning around 9:00am. Flo had been in the hospital for two days. He usually visited in the early afternoon or evening. That Friday he walked in a little before 1:00pm. The nurses on the floor all knew him by now. After he got off the elevator, the artist walked through the large doors which opened to the nurse¡¯s station. One of the nurses immediately approached him. She said something, but he didn¡¯t hear. He knew right away. His breath went away for a moment. Maybe two. His body felt light and numb. His head was dizzy, and he didn¡¯t move. Somewhere in that moment, the nurse had given him a hug. It wasn¡¯t part of protocol to engage visitors in that way, but she couldn¡¯t help but feel for him. Her personal morals were overriding hospital protocol.


    Back at his place, the artist collapsed onto his bed. He laid atop the covers, on his side in a fetal position. He gathered a section of a sheet in his hands and held it tight near his face. His body shook severely a few times, like the lightning you hear in the moments before the storm arrives.


    Then the storm arrived. His body convulsed as his lung erupted, and a deep howl emerged. His eyes immediately began the waterworks. He laid in that position for some time, not just cyring - but balling. Completely unconsolable. Not that he wanted to be consoled. He wanted to feel the pain, the sadness. He had known it was coming for so long, and now it had arrived as if some kind of terrible Christmas present. There in that bed, the sheet now dripping with tears and snot - physical evidence of this sad moment.


    His emotions were scattered and raw. His thoughts were all over the place... he thought about Flo and her suffering, and his losing her. The emotion of loss brought him back to when he lost his brother and his dad. This seemed to be a common motif in his life. It fed his internal belief that those you are close to, eventually go away, and there¡¯s nothing you can do. So, be cautious who you open up to, because they are bound to leave you in the worst way. And you will suffer. You will pay for having such a relationship.


    In the morning his sheet would be crusty with remaining dampness. But he would continue to lay there, still holding it close. To let go was to recognize the end of the moment. The moment when next would have to happen. There would be the time before this moment, and the time after this moment. It was a divider that he had no control over. After this, the moment would remain blurry, like one of those moments when you pause a video tape. A moment forever lost to ambiguity, to uncertainty. A moment he would always remember, but never want to relive.

 The Long Tail

    And so it was.


    Our beloved artist. Broken. Miserable. Devoid of creativity and expression. Devoid of feeling. A so-called shell of a man. That was all that remained.


    Flo¡¯s death had deeply affected him. The relationship was one of the few remaining authentic things in his life. And God, or the universe, or whatever had taken that away. Just like it had taken his art away. Just like it had taken his family. A deafening lesson in love. They set the things you love free. But that¡¯s just a test. Just a trial of your love. For when you are, maybe, in doubt. But what about when you are sure, when you are certain. Setting those loves free is like rejection. Like abandonment. And here the artist was. Alone. Abandoned. Rejected by the universe. Rejected by himself.


    And so it was.


    And so what now?


    This shell, this automaton. This singleton. It was never much more than going through the motions of each day. Of trying to fit into a mold that was so foreign. But what else could be done? What else could he do?


    His loves had evaporated. True, he could seek new loves. But the energy. The attention it would require. The risk. The disappointment. Was the inevitable worth the investment. Not so much of time, but of emotion, of himself. These were the questions each night. Alone, in bed.


    He had since washed the sheet he held for that one night. It¡¯s stench of sweat and tears. It¡¯s crusty residue. He didn¡¯t wash it immediately, of course. It took some time. A week at least. To do so felt like abandonment. To admit, to recognize this new era in his life. To step across a threshold from richness, into a vacuum of emptiness, a space with sterile air. He could still breathe, but there was no nourishment in his breath. No awareness of, no gratitude for his remaining breath. How could such a sentiment exist?


    His name had been forgotten in the halls of the other artists. The ones who hadn¡¯t experienced what he had. The ones whose stars were still rising, or maybe declining. But there they were. There will still in it. There would be the occasional reference to him. Things like ¡°Remember that one guy...¡±, ¡°What was his name?¡±. But the nameless remain in the shadows. The nameless exist in the void. Just their essence would inflict the consciousness of those who were there, in the thick, on the periphery. And still, out of reach, intangible. Like an idea that¡¯s there in your head, but can¡¯t find the words to express. It¡¯s like seeing a shape in the clouds, and then the wind blows, and it¡¯s gone. A richness beaten to a pulp and then crumbs. And you can¡¯t resurrect a slice of bread from crumbs. What¡¯s left is just the impression, the idea, that once there might have been something, there might have been a slice of bread. You might have once used it for nourishment. But now, you can only scrape the crumbs into your hands, or a napkin, or a dust pan, and dump them into the trash. Their value long gone, and long forgotten.


    But he didn¡¯t regret it. No. It was acceptance. It was even acceptable. With no expectations, anything can become acceptable. And our artist, loved and tormented as he is, lived in that realm. Sure, he could have reveled in his past. Could have continued to mourn his loves. But to what end, he thought. It would only serve to prolong or emphasize his misery. To highlight the contrast between the before and the after. He was now firmly in the after, the next. Firmly into a new chapter. Firmly into that stage where you transcend your potential, and live in where you are.


    And here he was. Where he was. In the now. In the after.


    He missed the voice. He wondered when (but not if), it would come back.


    ***


    For anyone else, each day would have seemed a chore. Each day would have seemed a lost opportunity. ¡°Boy, if I¡¯d had your talent...¡±


    But the artist paid no mind.


    They didn¡¯t have his talent. More importantly, they hadn¡¯t lived his life. What were they thinking? That they could capitalize on that talent? That they could be high on the hog? He¡¯d already had that experience, and had decided having a patron wasn¡¯t really his jam.


    On his way home, the artist would think to himself, amusingly: ¡±Ha!¡±


    These pedestrians, with their limited understanding of the fascia of art. They didn¡¯t know that to exercise that talent meant something very different from what they expected. In their minds, an artist with talent could create something of genius, and then sell it for a ransom. The whole idea was humorous to him. Quite by definition, an artist could not construct what he had, and handsomely profit from it. Not for very long, anyway. The way such things chipped at your soul. Like the universe was some great sculptor reducing you to dust for such an attitude. It wasn¡¯t sustainable for the greatest artists; for the modest adept at translating expression into some artistic thing. And these mortals, these idiots, these gamblers and financial dreamers, these pedestrians of experience. They thought they could translate their mundane perspective into something great; into something of value.


    At times, he wanted to lease his talents to them. Maybe even retain the talents but execute the ideas. But what ideas did they have? How commonplace and obscene were their experiences? What could anyone, much less a talented artist, do with such mediocrity. No. The purpose, the modus operandi of an artist, was to show them something different, maybe something new. Something they hadn¡¯t noticed. Something they weren¡¯t already aware of. Definitely not something common.


    What could possibly be the point of expressing something everyone already knew, or was already familiar with?


    The artist would sometimes go to bed with such a perspective on his mind. And these thoughts, on such nights, would often excite his dreams. In his slumber, he would experience worlds of everyday people. So many trying to hock their art. And while he never wanted to extract that art from them; he could only see how regular it was. There was no insight. There was no unique perspective. There was no imagination. It was frequently just either: life is great, or life sucks. Blah. Duh. Who doesn¡¯t know that?


    So what. So what, indeed. And that was where the artist was. So what. So fucking what.


    Blah blah blah and I made a painting. Blah blah blah and I wrote a poem. Blah blah blah and I made a sculpture. And if it wasn¡¯t some pathetic abstract (at this the artist always laughed to himself) expression, it was something dull. And these so-called abstract artists. Give me a fucking break. Here are some squares and circles and triangles and lines. And some colors. And it represents blah blah fucking blah. How did others not laugh at it? How did they muster the constitution to say things like: ¡±Oh, they way he layered the geometry is astounding!¡±, ¡°The blues and greens and grays really capture the spirit of the piece¡±, ¡°The meaning behind these materials is mesmerizing!¡±. No. No. No. It¡¯s shit. It¡¯s crap. It¡¯s terrible. These so-called artists have no sense of composition, no sense of emotion, no sense of story, no sense of identity. They put a dot or a circle or a filled rectangle and call it something pretentious like ¡°Untitled Number 3¡±, or ¡°Oscar Wilde in a field of poppies and dreams¡±. Such bullshit.


    And yet, there could be money and success with such entrapments. And those who saw the artist¡¯s talent as something left undeveloped, something they wish they had, looked upon these art as something they could do. They could guess the right lottery numbers, after all, the artist knew all the numbers. And why didn¡¯t he play them? I would play them. I would be a millionaire after playing them.


    These attitudes only enraged the artist and enflamed his disdain for such people. ¡°You just don¡¯t get it. You don¡¯t fucking understand!¡±


    There was no savior in him. He wasn¡¯t some artistic messiah. Yet, he could recognize. And these people, these fuckers. (Sigh). These opportunists. There was no place for them in this world. They were the monsters, the defeaters. The thieves. The criminals. The insane. The infirm. The unlicensed. The unabsolved. The weak of mind. The thoughtless. The imitators. The approximate. The uneducated. The un-understanding. The flies. The fleas. The insects. The parasites. Out for their own. Out to gain what they didn¡¯t earn. Out to receive without risking. Without exposing. Without trusting. Without jumping.


    ***


    During the daytime, his obligations mattered. So much that they occupied his time and his mind.


    But nighttime. Oh nighttime. Those evil hours. Those tick-tock moments when obligation wanes, when expectations retire. And he was left alone. Alone to himself, and his thoughts.


    What is it they say? ¡±Idle hands are the devil¡¯s workshop.¡±


    In his bed, with his sheet that had become a talisman. And his mind released. The shackles he held during the day, gone. The oozing of his own thoughts and emotions from behind the constraints he had enabled to get by. They came out. In force. Not one at a time, but altogether. And they came without fear. Without concern for retribution. Without care for judgement. These essential oils of his being, oozing from every crack, every pore.


    It felt like exposing the inner garbage of ones self to the world. And, there it was. His garbage. His letting go. Not someone else¡¯s problem to sweep up, but his own accumulation of deadness, of obesity and flatulence, of discoloration, of social anxiety, of abandonment, of isolation. All such familiar and comforting bedfellows.


    Oh, he could eliminate them if he wanted. But, again - to what end. It was just himself. It was just his own embarrassment, his own shame, his own coup de grave, if others were in his head. But they weren¡¯t. They were out there, seeing him, judging him, envying him. From their tiny ivory towers. From their comfortable suburban homes. From their Laz-E-Boys, and their leather couches, their fire pits, their deck furniture. With their cigars and glasses of expensive whiskey.


    He would think of these things at night. In his bed.


    In place of his sheet, he would fondle his belt. The metal D rings, and the strong nylon weaves gave him a sort of comfort. Such designs wouldn¡¯t fail him, if desired to employ their talents.


    But, day after day, considering these cheats, day after day considering these outs. He would admire their brilliance, or their ingenuity. But none were ever sufficient. They always fell short. Just like the mundane people he now knew. None were good enough for relationships, and no solution was worthy of his own invention. And so he persisted. He existed. On and on.


    Each night a vision of both the next day, and of termination.


    That very night, just as he was falling, he heard the voice again: ¡°Oh, my son. You have descended, and ascended. And now you are free.¡±


    Stolen novel; please report.


    ¡°Free from what?¡±


    ¡°Free from yourself. From the world. You are no longer bound.¡±


    ¡°Bound by what?¡±


    ¡°The world. Life. Your life. You are eternal, my son. You persist through eternity.¡±


    He had so many more questions. ¡°Who are you?¡±


    But there was no response.


    ***


    He would wake up each day with the belt in or near his hands, a reminder of his fate. Whatever that meant. He wished for absolution. But it was never coming. There was no one who could absolve him. It was only within himself, and to absolve himself meant he would have to revisit his nightmares. He would have to slog through the swamp of his emotions. There were no waders high enough to protect him from the water. And to defeat the beasts and demons that dwelled within required skills he didn¡¯t have.


    But the nightmares never went away, the swamp always there. They were like a moat around his protected emotional castle. He could only come and go through the gate that overran them. But they were always there. Like ghosts waiting until you fall asleep to haunt you.


    It had now been so long since Flo had died. People often say that when someone dies, it takes a piece of them. The artist believed this. But more. It wasn¡¯t just a piece, it was a huge chunk.


    He had held several different jobs in that time; none he could hold for long before he either felt too flat to continue or too sad to report in for days at a time. The artist was working at the library for a few weeks, helping restock the returned books. He had always loved the library, but now it was more than that.


    The aisles and aisles of books felt to him like trapped stories. Like in that Ghostbusters movie, where they trap the ghosts in a little box. In this case, it was stories trapped on the pages. The artist felt like he could relate to these books. He had his own stories trapped within himself.


    And the act of placing them back on the shelves, in their place was almost cathartic. It was a way to lock the stories away, a way to gain control over them. They couldn¡¯t escape and haunt him like his own stories did, but he imagined his stories being put into books and placed on these shelves. He imagined an exorcism that extracted his nightmares and captured them in text. The shelves would hold his nightmares. And the only release of them would be to others. Others would let loose his demons for their own amusement and entertainment. And when they were done, the demons would slither back to their pages, locked away behind hard covers.


    The library closed at nine o¡¯clock at night, though his shift went until half past allowing him to restock with less interference from patrons. After his shift, his walk home took him by several art galleries. Most nights, the artist would improve his pace, keeping his eyes forward. He knew they were there, but didn¡¯t want to see them. At a faster pace, with his intense forward stare, he could be beyond them quickly.


    This particular night, however, he was lost in thought. He was thinking about a book that he had restocked earlier that day. The book was called The Olive Branch. He thought nothing of it when it appeared on his cart.


    However, the moment he picked it up to examine where it should go, something happened. It wasn¡¯t like a physical shock exactly, but in his memory, it had the same essence. It was a moment of electrification - but it reached into his soul rather than his body or his mind. It struck him in a way that he took notice of the book, reading the jacket, and flipping through it.


    There¡¯s that notion that Christians can randomly select a page in the bible and find a passage that applies to their current situation. The artist had limited experience with that, but with this book, it felt true. When he first opened it, somewhere in the first quarter of the pages, he read:


    ¡°It is with compassion and understanding from whence one must start. A compassion for one¡¯s self is the starting point, and he must extend it to the others around him. Like a positive infection, it must spread throughout his acquaintances, and then to theirs. Through this fractal expansion, compassion encompasses the whole world.¡±


    It was not that he didn¡¯t know compassion. At times he might be in contest for most compassionate in the world. Yet. Yet. Yet. (These were the thoughts in his head).


    Yet, this was always to others. He always felt this for those around him. He always put them and their needs first. He was nothing if not compassionate. But only to others.


    To himself? He was a demon. A beast. Maybe not even such. Maybe less than that. Maybe just a nothing, a cloud, a numbness. What compassion can there be for a nothing. Nothing has no existence, and therefore can¡¯t be susceptible to compassion.


    But there was something about that passage that range a bell inside his soul, and it continued to resonate. He could still hear the frequency in his head. Like a beautiful melody of a single note. And it¡¯s sound was beauty.


    That night, the artist went to sleep with that melody in his ears. And he forgot the belt, which slunk at the foot of the bed. The singular melody had taken over. Made itself primary in his mind. He probably could ignore it, but he didn¡¯t really want to. He wanted to hear it. He wanted to sing it.


    ***


    Through most of his life, the artist had run mostly in the same social circles. His friends and colleagues had the same basic values and perspectives on the world. Like any group, they had their differences, but they were slight. Like the peculiarities of different bottled waters. But who gives a fuck? Really, aren¡¯t they all still water?


    In so many ways, this history made him strong and sure of himself. In other ways, however, it made him fantastically naive about the piece of the pie he wasn¡¯t entrenched in. He had made some naive assumptions about others being in the realm of his experience, perhaps on the fringes. Yet, he didn¡¯t place them in completely different realms. He knew people were evil, opportunists, bullies, narcissists, addicts, control freaks, and so on. But it had largely been a mental exercise to imagine them, or a slight drifting of an existing archetype into something new.


    There were a couple of library patrons who had caught his eye. Through some clever espionage, he was able to learn their names, and their selected reading history. He was particularly interested in who had checked out ¡°The Olive Branch¡±, as he had an intuition that it was one of the patrons he felt a connection to. And he was right.


    Clementine was a relatively plain jane looking woman. She wasn¡¯t exactly young or old. But she had an aura about her. She always wore a long dress when she visited the library. This seemed to exclaim something about her old soul. Her slim glasses suggested something more than just near- or far- sightedness. Her well coiffed, but simple hair also portrayed a person of simplicity, or closer to earth-ness.


    His first attempt at flattery was to walk by her with ¡°The Olive Tree¡± in his hand. He thought if she saw him with the book, she might say something. It was a silly and stupid move he told himself later. She did not notice at all.


    His next move was to manipulate his restock plan to coincide with her browsing. This would place him in close proximity for some extended period of time. Maybe five or ten minutes. He didn¡¯t have a plan for his next step. To make eye contact would be enough; though he had hoped for a brief conversation.


    His luck turned positive. He had noticed that she had a habit of always checking the true-crime section. There were only a few true-crime selections on his cart, but he felt it was enough to give it a shot.


    He allowed her to approach the shelves first. She was scanning a variety of titles about the mob, a few about serial killers. He took a brief inventory of his restock work. There were no mob books. There was one book about Ed Gein, which he selected from the cart. He approached her with the book in his hand, scanning the shelves for the proper location.


    She had glanced at him once or twice, given his general proximity. As he found the empty slot where the book belonged, he begged her pardon, and leaned in to place it on the shelf. He looked at her as he retreated to his cart. She gave him a slight smile. Curiously, she grabbed straight for the Ed Gein book.


    In a slight misunderstanding of his job, she asked him if he¡¯d read it.


    ¡°No... I¡¯m just here to restock the returns.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Hm.¡±, she replied.


    He did his best to smile at her. But the attempt embarrassed him, and his face turned red.


    She spoke up: ¡±I didn¡¯t mean ... uhm ... ¡°.


    ¡°No. It¡¯s ok. Sorry about that, it¡¯s just ...¡±


    And the awkward silence followed.


    ¡°I mean, I find him interesting ... Gein. What would drive a man to such ... uh ... things?¡±


    She retorted: ¡±Careful... maybe I¡¯ll make a skin suit out of you...¡±


    This statement stunned the artist. He wasn¡¯t sure what to make of it. But then her serious affect melted into a smile and slight laughter.


    And that was how it began. Soon there were drinks, and conversation. Soon there was kissing and seduction. Soon there were all the things that naturally lead to relationship. The artist¡¯s reluctant nature had been overcome by the olive branch she had extended.


    Her compassion was overwhelming to him. He felt it was a lesson he could learn from her. How could she master her emotions so well, so easily, so effortlessly. It felt like it was a natural extension of her personality.


    It wasn¡¯t long before they moved in together. It would be the first time he had ever cohabitated with a lover. But it felt right. Sidney, that was her name, had felt like a natural companion from the beginning. Something about her had disarmed him, pulled him into her world, and made him feel comfortable.


    When they went out, she would play the lead socially. She seemed to know everyone. Although the artist felt a bit out of his element at times, he enjoyed feeling like he was part of a social environment.


    Remember how, in the movie Ghostbusters, they captured all the ghosts and stored them in some tank or containment contraption? And remember how, when the city officials came in and shut down the operation? That¡¯s basically what happened next.


    Sidney had been living with the artist for several months now. Most months, she provided a share of the rent. She didn¡¯t really work, but had a small trust from her family she was living off of. It allowed her to continue surfing through life without making a commitment to anything. Still, though - she was so compassionate toward him. Still, he was trying to learn from that.


    The trust continued to build. It was about five months when the artist came home... on the day that the rent was due. Sidney hadn¡¯t offered her share yet. He walked into their place.... and immediately he knew. It wasn¡¯t just her stuff that was gone. It was that plus many of his things. There were four or five paintings he had started, mostly done. Gone. Completely.


    He tried calling her. No answer. He went to her previous place, no one there.


    There were a few regular places they went to, the library, and a few places he knew her friends liked. All were failures. She wasn¡¯t anywhere. They hadn¡¯t seen her. She had disappeared, like a ghost. Nothing left but the intuition that she had been there, just a moment ago.


    And that night, in his room, on his bed. The covers were close. The feeling was like falling from a cloud in the sky to the hard surface of the earth. But he didn¡¯t feel the hit. He only felt the after-effect. Which was his mood. His self in his bed. He wanted to pull the sheet up. He wanted to pull the belt up. But everything was off the bed...


    And he fell asleep, the belt out of reach, but well within his mind...


    ***


    The following week, the artist purchased a sketch pad. He reasoned that he might be able to reignite his former passion if he only applied himself. That forever shaming phrase: ¡±If you would just apply yourself!¡±


    He sat upright in his bed with the sketch pad in his lap. The slim pencil in his hand felt familiar and comforting. The blank page - the land of discovery, the place were his soul could spill out.


    As he stared at the page, it seemed incongruous with his current state of mind. He hadn¡¯t been in this moment for a while. The page stared back, challenging him, asking him what it was he felt. Telling him it would continue to be a blank page until he felt something, until he took action.


    He had just recently changed up his look a bit. His hair was now a sandy blond, shaggy but not too long. He wore it a bit messy in his nonchalant, I-don¡¯t-give-a-fuck style. He could see a reflection of it in his bedroom window. He could see himself, the way his bland and empty look had no inspiration. The scattered locks falling across his forehead. He was trying to look into his own eyes to see what might be behind them. But it was nothing. Nothing at all.


    He placed the sketch pad on the bed, got up, and walked to the window. He opened it to feel the outside air. From his pocket, he drew his pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He placed the butt of the cigarette between his teeth to steady it, and lit it. He drew in the smoke, holding it in his lungs for a moment before releasing it into the outside world.


    He watched the smoke rise up into the sky. It¡¯s stochastic flurries and eddies amused him. His eyes continued upwards to the clouds. He was reminded how, as a child, he had studied them. Finding all manner of images. Dragons and other animals. Hearts and trees. The nostalgia reminded him of the early roots of his creativity, his need to express himself. He remembered how, after seeing something obvious, like a turtle, he would continue to watch the cloud, watch it evolve. What was a turtle was now an airplane. What was an airplane was now a rocket. The rocket was now a cross. Maybe it was the cross, he had once wondered to himself. A sign from God. But then the cross would slip into a dagger, then a sword, and then it would thin and float away into nothing.


    Now he saw this as a metaphor for his life. He had changed, evolved. From one thing, to another, and then another. And now, he was floating away. Thin. Into nothing.


    As his cigarette expired, he shuttered the window and walked back to the bed. He picked up the sketch pad, again staring at the blank page. And thought to himself, the sketch is complete. He is thin. He is nothing. The page was his mirror.

 Where the clouds go

    The months continued to pass. Time was accelerating, or at least his sense of it. He had placed the sketch pad, open to the blank page, on a small stand in his bedroom. It reminded him of who he was now. It was a reflection of the soul currently inhabiting his body.


    Though he physically saw the blank page every day, he rarely gave it much consideration. Occasionally, he would catch himself sneaking second looks at it - both in the morning, and in the evenings.


    Every so often an energy would pass through him, even sometimes an idea. The brief smile across his face was subtle in these moments. He knew it was fruitless. Perhaps even an illusion, a psychic artifact of nostalgia. And then, like the clouds, it would thin and disappear. The sensation gone as soon as it had appeared. The smile rescinding back to his now normal, content, scowl. It was very like a deja vu experience, where it comes on strong at first, then you are in the moment, then the moment fades in a way that you can¡¯t hold on to it. He thought about the voice in these moments. But there was no booming whisper. No sage advise. No questioning authority. Nothing.


    ***


    Day after day continued in this same way. Occasionally considering the blank page, always leaving it where it was.


    At night, he would sometimes have dreams of creating. They would always start with what, upon wakening, was some very weird and abstract idea. He was never able to comprehend the idea in the morning. And the idea was always different. Different things he wished to express. Different ways to express it. Different mediums. And they always ended essentially the same - with failure.


    The most common ending was one in which his creation became animated, and attacked him. An object or person or thing would escape the medium and become real. And they were never benevolent. Like the clouds, they would morph, into antagonistic evil presences. And though they wanted to kill him, what they really wanted was to consume his soul.


    The other common ending was enslavement. The process of creating would become compulsive, and he would create work after work. He might be enslaved in a dungeon, shackled to walls, and ordered to create by roman warriors, vikings, or some other long-gone violent aggressor. Whipped or beaten into submission to make new on demand.


    Every so often, the endings would intertwine themselves into a strange experience where his creations would take over him. His appendages would be formed into theirs, and he would become their puppet, like a rag doll dance partner. And they would force him to create, laughing at him, mocking him, mocking his creations.


    The shame, guilt, and terror would eventually waken him. The realism of the experience would leave him scared and cynical, as the lingering sensation of doom and dread carried over into the real world.


    And worse, on those nights - in those mornings - there was the sketch pad. Its power a threat to his soul. He would look at it, feeling its stare. Feeling its desire to consume him. Feelings deep in himself that had died long ago, and were incapable of resurrection.


    And so it was.


    These time-lapsed, but lingering days. Those sprints from morning to evening, and then those long marathon evenings of being alone. He could imagine a million things in a single tick of a clock. But those things he would imagine were trite and mundane. Obscene and worthless. Derivative and stock and mediocre and cowardly. His thoughts the dullest butter knife, having once been a samurai¡¯s blade.


    Everyday haunted him. Every hour was a molting. His former self, his former life, the essence of it fading in the dead skin cells exfoliating from his person.


    It had been so long since he not only created, but since he had even appreciated others¡¯ creations. Galleries had become like churches for former catholics who were now atheists. Buildings of faith for the faithful, and meaningless for the faithless.


    He had gone from artist, to supporter, to apathetic. He had no care to see what anyone else had created. No concern for their vision or point of view. He couldn¡¯t care less what they had to say. Their naive impressions of the world. Their curmudgeonly, cynical, aggressive discontent with how their lives had turned out. Their misplaced anger and rage. Their confused sexuality and spiritualism.


    He didn¡¯t want any of that. It would only leave him disappointed. It never invigorated him or inspired him. It was always no better than his own mediocrity. So, what point was there? All of their blades had been dulled as well.


    ***


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    There were days when he would look up to the sky and see nothing. No clouds, just the blue atmosphere. The empty canvas. The blank page in the sketch pad.


    In a way, it was comforting. He wasn¡¯t the only one devoid of inspiration. Apparently, God had felt nothing that day too.


    It made him wonder where the clouds go. They were things in the sky, then they weren¡¯t. They were there some days, others they were absent. Where did they go? Where were they when he couldn¡¯t see them?


    He imagined some great vault of ideas, of concepts, of abstractions. A vast collection of shapes and forms, stored away. He considered how they might be catalogued. By initial shape? By density? By evolution? How was it decided which ones would be released, and which would be kept warehoused? He wondered how delighted Plato would be to know of such a library.


    Again, he considered it like a metaphor for himself. How had he decided which ideas to pursue and which to ignore, or file away for some future potential?


    It felt like a mechanism that once operated with efficiency within himself, but was now dilapidated, run down, rusted for years. The gears no longer moved, the engine inoperable. It wasn¡¯t simply out of fuel. It was defunct. Unrepairable. Parts no longer available.


    And that was why the the sketch pad remained empty. The machinery was gone. Or at least, unusable. Too many stuck gears. Too many parts broken. He was now just a person. A regular fucking person. No aspiration. No inspiration. No creative spark. No emotive factory. Just a regular, mundane, day to day human.


    He wanted to feel inspired. To feel the rush, the intensity, the focus. He wanted to waste the hours planning, and sketching. Studying and creating. He wanted to be the one who showed at galleries and was fawned over by the crowd, and the critics. He longed for the recognition. The adulation. In ways he never did before. Previously, he had written off the critics and buyers as accomplices to a worsening world. He had thought the pretentious patrons and surveyors toothless puppets, thoughtless clones.


    But now, he thought such attention might be wonderful. It might be momentary or false love, but he would still feel the affection. It would still feel like love to him. And who doesn¡¯t want to be loved?


    His love for others had evaporated long ago now. When Flo died, he wanted to blame someone or something. God, if he had ever had faith. The universe, if he had felt something spiritual. Himself, if he could make a connection. But there was no one and nothing he could point a finger at. It was something that just was. And it was so was that he could do nothing about it, nothing to influence it. He had become human apathy.


    And so it was. With no outlet, his anger turned inward. He partitioned it throughout his being. Some here, some there. Everywhere it went, it consumed his spirit. He was left as a shell, with a soul, but his spirit had thinned and turned to nothing, like the clouds. A shell containing fragments of depression.


    There was no hope of regaining his spirit. Once it leaves you, it¡¯s gone. You cannot capture another spirit, or a spirit from someone else. If he thought it was possible, he would have tried. He wasn¡¯t too proud to steal someone else¡¯s vigor. But, alas, it was impossible.


    So he continued in this existence. He continued in his shell. His continuous molting, leaving behind more and more of his former skin. More and more of his former self. His new shell, his new skin, lighter and less potent than the last. More and more transparent.


    The only good thing was that he was also shedding his own shame. His own guilt. His own remorse. His own past. It was a volume, complete. No more words to be written for that life. That life was now in a mausoleum. It was in the ground. Cremated. No resurrection. No Easter. No headstone. No flowers. No epitaph.


    It was simply all gone. Like the clouds. And there was no vault, stocked with reserves.


    ***


    And so it was. The long tail of the artist¡¯s life.


    The final years of his suffering.


    Each night would culminate in a new idea. Not a creative idea. A destructive one.


    How to end it?


    How to escape?


    How to thin and disappear?


    No one was watching his shape evolve anymore. And his shape was nothing. A thinning approximation of a life. A disappearing collection of molecules. With no connections. No strands of neurons. No synapses firing in others when his name was brought up. Or when he met others face to face. It was all empty. It was all vague and blurry.


    Despite all his life¡¯s tragedies, he was left with a lonely story.


    And so it was. Each night, the sheet, the belt. Taunting him.


    Take me. Use me. What could be worth this suffering?


    A small hint of the voice could be heard faintly saying something. But he could not make it out.


    And night after night, he would relent. He would form the belt into its fatal shape. He would create the knot, and secure it in the door way. He would test the circumference to make sure it could slip over his head. He would consider whether to just hang there himself, or fashion a step stool he would eventually kick out from under himself. And he would take it to the edge. He would wander into the darkness, enough to sense the finality of the final step. And his courage would always falter.


    It always felt like a final creation. A last expression. But he knew he was incapable of such things. He knew he couldn¡¯t give the world such a finale. Partly because he felt expressionless, emotionless, and uncreative, and partly because the world did not deserve it. They didn¡¯t deserve to make comments about the when, why, and where. They hadn¡¯t earned the right to comment on his life, on his death.


    And though his name was never on their lips, they wanted to. They didn¡¯t know it, but they wanted to. It would spread like wildfire, like an epidemic virus. Every mention of his name would generate discussion and debate. Had he really been that great? What had happened to him. Remember that time at blah blah blah gallery? Remember that particular work?


    But like the clouds, he had changed. And thinned. And now. Now, he was nothing. Lost to the sky and wind. No remnants of the man, the person, the artist he had once been. He was no longer the artist, but now just another person. He was just indiscernible water droplets in an empty blue sky. Or possibly in some random name brand bottle of water.

 Last

    All of these realizations had hit him before. It wasn¡¯t new. It had been in his experience for some time. But still, focusing on it made it more real.


    He would still go out, now and again. But the people, their conversations, annoyed him. What were they on about? These young people, with their aspirations. They saw a ladder they could climb. And they would attempt it. Only for moments later to wake up on the ground. Their grip, never sufficient. Their grasp of their phobias, misguided, misunderstood. Something always overcame them. Something always put them back on the ground.


    The times were different. Could anyone legitimately climb the ladder still, he would think to himself. But they never could. He would always amuse himself with their fall. Their short descent from rise to earth. They would never know the dynamic of falling from king of the ladder, to slave of the underworld. They would always consider their three or four rung ascent as success. As something to brag about. Something to strengthen their king complex, to build up their resolve. But they never tested their limits. They always became complacent at the first scent of adulation. And they stayed there, as long as they would. Until the rungs melted to pasta, to rubber. And they would be forced into a decision. And they always chose the safe path. The descent. They always ended up back on earth, one way or another.


    And he always found it amusing. Just once, he wanted to see one of them ascend beyond the affects of the world. The affects of their fears. And they never did. Just once to see one abandon the rules, reject the appearances. To see one leap up beyond the spongy rungs. And still they never did.


    The artist was then thinking of himself. Not in some selfish or self-righteous way. Rather, he put a mirror to himself to see what he thought of his own affects. Could he climb any ladder? Would he be unsteady? Lack the strength to climb more than a few rungs? Did he have the will to test his own limits?


    But were they even limits? Weren¡¯t they really just the experiences and phenomena of the world around him? The world he existed in made the walls around him. Or did it? Did he build the walls himself? Why did he build the walls? Why did he limit himself?


    In those moments of introspection, one thing started to become clearer to him. He may have created the walls, but he had become powerless against the urge. He never wanted to be the slave to himself, or to the world. But here he was. Shackles and all.


    The next morning, when the artist awoke, he stared at the sketch pad. It stared back, challenging him. Asking him who was in control. He picked up the sketch pad and a pencil. Instead of a drawing, he wrote:


    ¡°You are not in control. This is not your fault.¡±


    ***


    And so it was. What could he do?


    He would run into people, here and there. A brief conversation. A subtle eavesdropping. Their endless, meaningless, uninteresting conversation. Their mundane and simplistic ideas. Their unexperienced, uneducated noise. It was always too much for him. He could never take it. And he could never engage.


    He would hear such shit.


    And so and so, blah blah blah college.


    And so and so, blah blah blah politician.


    And my wife.


    And my husband.


    Any my lifelong friend.


    And hooey crap, nothingness, blah.


    And reality television.


    And money money money.


    And wishes, wants, desires.


    And apathy, and needs.


    And lotteries.


    And drivel, drivel, trash.


    And life. And hardness. And suffering.


    My poor suffering self. My poor suffering life.


    And drinks. And shots.


    And drugs. And sex.


    And addiction. And loss of control.


    It was all just such fucking noise. Such waste.


    Young and old. Introverts, extroverts. Straights, and gays, and trans. All the same bullshit. The same mindlessness. The educated. The uneducated. The rich, the riche, the poor.


    They were all the same.


    Clone after clone.


    Duplicate after duplicate.


    Non-thinker after non-thinker.


    A new generation of deep apathetics.


    The future generations of fare-the-wells, of go-a-longers, of radicals within the boundaries, of protesters for the sake of having protesters. But the essence. The core. The soul. Always missing.


    And that was the thing. His soul, his spirit, was dormant. Wanting desperately to be awakened. Carried endlessly by his shell, but constantly sleeping.


    Anything. Any evidence of another¡¯s soul or spirit would have breathed life into his own. But it never happened. Their self consumed self love. Their self consumed self absorption. They had become now consciousness of other, of others. Their love and focus had become so personally directed toward themselves, that there was nothing left for others.


    And so it was. What was left? What remained?


    Only himself. Now a relic. A museum piece. A souvenir of a recent time. A time not interesting to anyone. Not elevated beyond their personal involvement. He thought that there must be others like him. And maybe there were. But they had succumbed to their lives. They had retreated to their hermitages. Their escapes. Their hollows. Their own contentments.


    Places he was never invited. People who would never claim him.


    And so there was only the pretending public. Their proclaimed, but unfounded, innocence. Their willful ignorance. Their betrayal. Their coupling. Their defiance. Their ineptness. They were living some life. They were traveling some safe balance beam, wide, and netted. Their risk was so long gone and forgotten. Their fears were so overwhelming. Their lives, so limiting, but safe. These former painters, and writers. These former sculptors and songwriters. These former unique souls, now sold out for jeans and t-shirts. Now just everyman. Everywoman. Everyperson. Just regular fucking people. Their strollered kids. Their leashed dogs. Their fenced yards. Locked doors and processed dinners. Their short-sighted investments and influenced votes. Their young naivete. Their old, stick in the mud, attitudes. Their mid-life aspirations, governed by cowardice, fear, and incompetence. This was his world. A lone soul lost in a sea. An amphibian amongst land dwellers and sea life. His beauty evident for anyone willing to look, but on this colorblind island, he was the bright red no one could perceive.


    He would arrive home after such days, and see the sketch pad and its message. His message to himself. But where to go from here?


    If he wasn¡¯t in control, who was? Was anyone? His mind took a moment to consider the epic size of the universe. Was there anything in that great and vast expanse that he could appeal to?


    Some god, some ethereal existence, a spirit, an alien being. Nothing the thought of felt real or substantial enough. He wanted - needed - something that felt real. That felt reliable. That felt powerful.


    He sensed a feeling, almost like an emotion, that felt both familiar and strange at the same time. It took a few seconds before he recognized what it was. He would feel the same in the moments, the seconds, before some grand artistic idea would form in his mind. And then there was the idea.


    It was like a meta-experience. The idea that the source of his artistic ideas was something like his God. While there was usually some real experience that would usher in the ideas, there was also this channel from elsewhere that would inject him with perspective.


    He let the idea simmer in his frontal cortex, to labor itself into his consciousness. The idea flowed like slime from his head, down his body. As it reached his legs, he felt his body lifting up, numb and separate from the world. His head felt like it was a helium balloon, pulling him up into the sky.


    Then as quickly as he felt the elation, he was back on the ground, in his physical body.


    And he knew what he had to do next.


    He grabbed the sketch pad, quickly writing:


    ¡°Your god is within you¡±


    ***


    And so it was. His life continued. On autopilot. Waiting for the rest of the machinery to devolve. He was not a repairman, and had little interest in it anyway.


    Each night was an opportunity. The page on the sketch pad always staring at him. Always challenging him. Always mocking him. It was like an amalgam, a concentration of all those people. The ones he despised, he hated. Their put-on smiles. Their portending to be something. And so focused, their pretension, their character. Each one a stereotype, a cliched approximation.


    He wanted to sketch them all. Not as they presented, but as they were. Their ugly, real problems. Their psychosis. Their heart murmurs. Their obsessions. Their faults. Their weaknesses. He wanted to strip away their shells and expose their fixed, inner selves. Their cloud formations that would swim across the sky unchanged.


    He could always see it. It was one of his innate gifts. He could always see beyond their veneer. Their make-up faces, their false smiles, their summoned confidence, their perfumed exteriors. He could always inject himself into their lives and experience their pains. Their exultations. Their desires. Their fears.


    These people. These everyday people. These anyone people. These everyone people.


    Their chatter was like dogs barking. He could hear it, but it was not decipherable. And it¡¯s loudness carried and carried. It¡¯s loudness buried him, like blankets on a fire. Their hollow promises, like clouds thinning into nothing. And their trust and belief. The sad reality of their gullible sensibilities. Their indulgent sexiness, like the packing materials in a present. Pop. Pop. Pop. The bubble wrap has lost it¡¯s entertainment. The flat remaining material, just thin plastic. And now nothing.


    And his own failing. His own falling. His own ground floor existence. He was still human, but just barely. A flamethrower in his arsenal would have been useful. Rid the earth of their mundane renderings. Ashes of bone and flesh for those who had nothing to contribute. No progression. No confidence. Just sterile abilities, fit for the machine which preceded them.


    ***


    And so it was.


    That familiar feeling - he had been ignoring or suppressing it, he realized. Over time, he had become practiced at it, hardly giving it a thought when it happened. Mostly out of some sense of fear. Fear that he wasn¡¯t good enough. Fear of facing the pains of the past. Fear of diving back into that life and those experiences.


    But he didn¡¯t need to be afraid. He wasn¡¯t in control, anyway. It wasn¡¯t his fault, anyway. There was something else feeding him these ideas. And so now, instead of ignoring or rejecting them, he would simply accept them. That didn¡¯t mean he had to take action on them, but he needed to receive them. Like gifts from a ghostly dimension. Each one wrapped as pretty as the next, despite the beauty or ugliness found inside the present. But it was always something. It was never mundane.


    Almost immediately, the ideas began coming in. His first instinct was to write them down, maybe on the sketch pad. He didn¡¯t. Instead, he kept them in his head. He filed each one away, like a book in a library.


    When he had free moments, his mind would wander the library, inspecting each idea. Considering what he might do with it. How it would make him feel to explore it. He would then pull one of these ideas out of the library and into a kind of virtual studio in his mind. He had started to just imagine the finished product, but it lacked an essential part of the process. His work needed to start, and evolve. It couldn¡¯t just appear - already complete. He could appreciate the finished product, but he couldn¡¯t feel the journey he went on to start, and evolve it. And those were the key moments. It only takes a few moments to appreciate a finished work. It takes hours, days, weeks, months to evolve a work.


    The he did grab the sketch pad, methodically writing:


    ¡°Your internal God will enslave you"


    ***


    And so it was.


    He would regularly accept the incoming stream of ideas and file them away.


    The artist would then later browse and find one that interested him. And begin to work on it.


    As each work approached its finished state, he would begin to think of where it would go. In addition to his library, he had also created a virtual gallery in his mind. This was a place where he could show and explore his finished works. It would be like a tour of his own emotions when he walked the rooms of the gallery.


    The walls of the gallery were generally black, creating an appropriate negative space for his patrons to consider each work. But as he walked the gallery, there was something else. The floor was made of tiles, which generally appeared black as well. However, as he stepped on them, they would light up - usually displaying a word or phrase.


    As he placed the works in the gallery, over time, he began to see some patterns. At night, he would lay in bed, and tour his own virtual gallery. Most were personal in a way that had little to do with anyone else.


    There were several, though, which embodied some element of relationships from the artist¡¯s past. There was one with EB sitting pensively on the edge of a cliff, his legs dangling. Another showed the back of an artist, with a large wooden stake, burying it into the heart of a large man sitting in a leather chair. Another portrayed the artist and Flo, in a club. And though it was a painting, it featured sharp focus on himself and Flo, with painted bokeh behind them - making them appear even more alone in the scene.


    Throughout this tour, the floor continued to light up. He recalled the following words and phrases:


    Alone


    Selfish


    Faked Empathy


    Loveless


    User


    Lacks Direction


    Promiscuous


    Socially Blind


    As he continued to survey his collection, he grabbed the sketch pad again. This time, scrawling:


    ¡°I am the good and bad things which I have done¡±


    ***


    The phrases and words he had seen had been burned into his memory somehow. They became baggage he needed to figure out how to lose. The artist recognized, of course, that all of these items had to do with not just himself, but himself and other people.


    He sighed. Other people, that didn¡¯t sound very motivating.


    But maybe that was it. Maybe he needed to find instances of these moral transgressions, and try to remedy them. Why was he alone and selfish? Did he really fake empathy? With who? Did he love anyone or anything besides himself? He would need some time to sort all of this out.


    Laying in bed, he tried to identify key experiences that he might be able to remember, that he might be able to repair in some way.


    His first call was to EB. It had been so long - years? - since he last saw EB. As the artist had fallen into obscurity and mundane life, EB had maintained a status at the clubs around town. No longer a nightly regular, he did still manage to make regular appearances.


    EB was surprised to hear from the artist. He had figured their falling out was final, and had moved on. The last time they were together was several weeks after Flo passed. EB had called him to see how he was doing, and invited him out for a beer. The artist maintained a quiet and sullen mood throughout that evening. And while he was obviously sad that Flo was gone, his sadness came across more as pity for himself, than sadness for the actual loss of Flo. EB had felt it important to bring this up with the artist, who not only denied it, but erupted in a fit of rage. He cursed EB, making gestures, and leveling an onslaught of terrible crimes upon him. EB took it all in measured stride. EB let the artist finish, at which point the artist looked mad, sweaty, exhausted. Then, EB simply looked at the artist, and shook his head. And then EB simply left the bar. The artist was standing, but barely. Another patron helped him sink into a booth seat. Still covered in sweat, the artist appeared to have just come out of some kind of trance. He just looked blankly at the people around him, and said nothing.


    When EB picked up, the artist stumbled for a moment.


    ¡°Hey... uhm. Hey E. It¡¯s uh...¡±


    ¡°Yeah I know. What¡¯s up?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s me. Uhm... I¡¯ve been going through some stuff... and I wanted to see if you would, uh, maybe want to get a beer sometime?¡±


    EB laughed to himself, sarcastically. ¡°A beer sometime? Uhuh...¡±


    The artist started, but EB interrupted him:


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    ¡°A beer? Are you fucking kidding me?¡±


    The artist tried to explain, but again EB cut him off:


    ¡°Do you even fucking remember the last time we went for a beer? You went fucking crazy, blamed me for your fucking problems, and then disappeared. And now you think I would want to have fucking anything to do with you?¡±


    EB sighed heavily.


    ¡°Look....¡±, said the artist - fully expecting EB to cut him off again, but this time he didn¡¯t.


    ¡°Look, E. I know I owe you an apology, and I want to give you that. I¡¯m better now, and I won¡¯t go crazy or anything. I just need to see you... ¡°


    EB can hear the artist, but the essence of something else in his voice. It reduced his defenses, and he relented to the artist¡¯s suggestion for when and where to meet.


    At an empty dive bar, EB walks in to find the artist sitting alone. When the artist sees EB, his face lights up, and a big smile spreads. EB is a little surprised, since he looked so different now. EB''s hair was longer, and dark. A light stubble covered his face. He told the artist he hadn¡¯t gone by EB in a while. Now he was just Evan.


    It took a couple of beers before the artist felt his inhibitions melt away, and then he began:


    ¡°Look, E. Evan. I was .... I was wrong. Back then. The way I treated you, and Flo, and others.¡±


    EB was immediately focused on what the artist was saying.


    ¡°I was selfish. I only cared for myself and my gratification. I didn¡¯t care about others. I saw them as things in a world I could manipulate for my own desires.¡±


    With the word, ¡°desires¡±, Evan blushed - remembering some long lost night with the artist.


    ¡°Look, I get it...¡±, started Evan. But the artist immediately cut him off again:


    ¡°Please. Let me finish what I need so say. I may not always be very good about expressing my feelings to other people, and with you I know I wasn¡¯t very good at it. But...¡±


    The artist took a moment.


    ¡°... but, with Flo it was different. I really did, really do, love her. And having to move forward without her has been one of the worst things I¡¯ve ever had to do. But moving forward means more than just Flo. It means almost my entire past. There¡¯s a wall to my progress, and I can¡¯t get beyond it unless I really reconcile who I used to be with who I am now.¡±


    ¡°Ok, Ok.¡±, said Evan. ¡°I get it. No worries. I am hear to listen...¡±


    The artist made eye contact with Evan for just a second, before dropping his gaze back at the floor. ¡°Yeah. Thanks ... I ... I uhm, appreciate that.¡±, he said choppily.


    ¡°The way I treated you was wrong. I don¡¯t know why you kept hanging around with me, but I was just using you, in a way. I though you were so sexy and adorable, and I couldn¡¯t help but find ways to be near you. Ways to get naked next to you...¡±


    Evan listened, smiling somewhat.


    ¡°But that¡¯s thing. I made it all about me. Which was wrong. It should have been about me and you.¡±


    Evan looked up at the artist quietly. Looking him into the eyes...


    ¡°Hey, can I say something?¡±


    (The artist remained quiet looking back into Evan¡¯s eyes)


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t just you. It was a very sexually tense atmosphere, and certainly I was also looking for someone to romp with to help ME get off.¡±


    The artist smiled ever so small and slightly.


    ¡°So if this is about confessing that you can be sexually selfish, then count me in too!¡±


    The artist¡¯s smile broadened.


    ¡°Evan, it¡¯s not just that. It¡¯s that I have a pattern of this type of behavior. I have regular thoughts about how I can use others for my own benefits. I regularly consider my own needs above others. These are clear character flaws, Evan. They aren¡¯t just run-of-the-mill human-ness. These are rare and curious flaws that I have to spend time with to even recognize them, much less adjust.¡±


    ¡°How can I help?¡±, asked Evan.


    ¡°You already have. Just responding, just listening is really what I need right now.¡±


    That night, at home. The artist again grabbed the sketch pad, and scribbled:


    The dark mirror reflects our dark souls


    ***


    When he awoke the next morning-ish, he could see the words on the sketch pad:


    The dark mirror reflects our dark souls


    He thought to himself - yes, that¡¯s right. All mirrors reflect us, what we see in our selves.


    Each page upon he had written in the sketch pad, the artist had removed, and was now taped up somewhere in his place. For the moment, this one went on the inside of the main exit door. He wanted this to be front of mind when he left the house. He thought it might be like pinball bumpers, keeping him from disappearing into the hole of oblivion.


    Still sitting in his bed, the artist crossed his legs. His hands were placed palms down on his knees. He assumed a relatively straight back, while tilting his head slightly forward. His mind focused on his breathing. He counted each breath - up to 10 or so, and then started again with 1. He then stopped counting, letting his mind wander. Then back to his breathing, and checking in with his physical body. Physically, he felt good.


    Actually, physically he felt okay. Not great, there was stress in areas he couldn¡¯t relax. More importantly, emotionally he felt scattered, like a gravel drive could make due for the nerves throughout his body.


    As he completed the exercise, he did feel better.


    He stayed in position with his eyes closed. As the meditation session ended, he found himself in his own virtual gallery, in his mind. He walked the aisles, explored the rooms. One main hallway, though not visible to him in the front of the gallery, seemed to connect all of the rooms and hallways. He glanced each way, finding a door at the terminal hallway to his left.


    Walking normally toward the door, the artist was conscious of what he was doing, but anxious about what might be behind that door. He expected the door to be heavy, to be locked, to be immobile. But it was none of those. His hand grasped the carved handle and pulled toward himself. A bright light exploded into the hall way as the door opened. The light continued down the hallway, and into every room. The artist took a step back from the door. He stared into the first room he came to. His works, strategically placed around the room had - come to life? Was that even the right way to put it? His works, were alive, animated.


    Time passed, and these works moved, self-animated. The animation helped provide context - a before and after to the now that was captured in each work. It helped the artist remember that there was some event captured in his work, not just a singular moment. A feeling - an emotion - that was more like a song than a single note.


    The light, currently saturating his gallery, had now escaped into his library. In his library, it didn¡¯t just illuminate, it became part of the space. The light injected itself into every shelf and every book. This would be his subconsciousness doing its own scan of the library.


    It was only a few days later, and he heard a voice in his head. It was a voice he hadn¡¯t heard in a long time - definitely years. The words were garbled or something. He couldn¡¯t understand what was being said.


    Ad lucem


    Ad locum


    Capex dei


    faber est suae quisque fortunae


    fiat voluntas Dei


    leges sine moribus vanae


    ¡°I am ready¡±


    --


    It was late when the artist decided to go see Sidney. Her departure had been unexpected - but only because he hadn¡¯t been paying attention. He was able to locate her without too much trouble. He wasn¡¯t sure if she¡¯d be home. She lived in a house that had been converted to apartments. Hopefully alone, but he didn¡¯t know.


    He assumed she would be asleep when he got there. It was almost midnight, but her lights were still on. He parked on the curb, directly in from of the steps that led to the walkway toward her front door.


    He stopped a few feet before the front porch. He picked up his phone and dialed. It rang twice before someone picked up:


    ¡°Hello¡±, said a tentative female voice.


    ¡°Hey¡±, the artist said. ¡°It¡¯s me.¡±


    Nothing. No response. Just quiet for nearly a minute.


    Sidney gave in first. ¡°How are you?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m good. I mean, yeah, I¡¯m ok. I just ...¡±, and his voice trailed off to nothing.


    Sidney had assumed this visit was some kind of desperate booty call. But now she realized it wasn¡¯t that at all. In her confusion, she decided to take a step back and listen.


    This time Sidney let the artist go first. It took a couple minutes.


    ¡°Look. I mean. *sigh*. Fuck. I¡¯m an asshole!¡±, that last phrase he said with his head down and clearly directed toward himself.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡±, Sidney asked. She knew he had occasional snaps or breaks, but this didn¡¯t seem like one of those moments.


    ¡°Fuck, Sid. I messed up. I fucked up.¡±, he waited 10 or 20 seconds...


    ¡°I fucked us up...¡±, and the clock ticked without measure for a while.


    ¡°What do you mean? We both fucked it up. It wasn¡¯t just you!¡±, Sidney offered.


    ¡°Please, just listen Sid. I know at least at one point you and I were great - fucking great together. And then something changed. And I think what changed was me. I lost my way, lost my grounding. And now that I know and recognize that, I can fix it. But I need help. I am all alone. I have pushed away every friend, burned most bridges. There aren¡¯t a lot of people left who think of me as something other than a laughing stock!¡±


    Sidney listened intently to his lament. She could hear the pain in his voice. She could sense the uneasiness of his whole existence. As a couple, this skill would emerge in the early seconds of some event, and it would allow Sidney to know that the need was real.


    But now, across distance; not able to see his face, not able to see her face. Sidney could sense it, but it was just a blurry picture. Still, the picture left her uneasy. A brief 10-second or so episode left her properly freaked out. It was just a strange , deep, voice in her head:


    ¡°Be his eyes¡±


    ¡°Be his compass¡±


    ¡°Be his backbone¡±


    ¡°Be his soul¡±


    ¡°I understand¡±, she offered.


    ¡°Tell me what you need. How can I help you?¡±


    ***


    ¡°I get by with a little help from my God¡±


    Sidney¡¯s response had gotten to him. Her supportive nature caught him off guard in a moment when he felt particularly vindictive.


    ¡°I understand¡±, she repeated. ¡°How can I help you?¡±


    Her tone was honest and sincere. He had no reason to doubt her. But his paranoia and skepticism persisted.


    ¡°I need to call you back¡±, the artist spoke into the telephone. And then hung up.


    In front of him, on the couch, was Evan. EB.


    He was just relaxing there. He had been watching the artist, in his manic state, calling everyone.


    Most of the calls, EB couldn¡¯t make out. The artist would mumble quietly, or not say anything. So there was nothing to report. Except that there was suspicion, but only because of the timing of the artist¡¯s calls. Each call was within 2 to 5 minutes to one of three prime suspects in the ongoing livestock destruction case.


    And several other calls where to people he thought could help.


    He called other artists. Trying to explain his history, his mindset. Trying to explain his compulsion, his isolation. For so long, they had written him off as eccentric, as an asshole, as someone with potential but who lacked the discipline to really become something. Hearing from him left them ... confused? They hadn''t really given him much credence, assuming he had simply fallen off the scene. His voice ignited forgotten memories, none particularly polarizing. But they were all taken by surprise.


    The artist had no idea what to say. It was always awkward. He would say hello, and then try to explain his circumstance. He would try to express what he was doing. Strangely, for a person who was so skilled at expressing himself via art, he was terrible at expressing himself directly to other humans.


    In the end, he would simply tell them he was reinventing his life, and needed to connect with people from his past to either close the door, or invite them into his next chapter. Most of them fit into the first category, door closed due to the strange phone interaction. But a few had made it past that weirdness, and engaged to understand what the artist was going through. They offered their support.


    But he didn''t necessarily want their support. He wanted their guidance, their forgiveness. It took time and effort to explain what he was doing. It wasn''t just apologizing for past behavior. He needed their input to help him. He needed their active perspective more than their passive acceptance.


    The artist continued down his list of colleagues, old lovers, managers, gallery owners, and casual acquaintances. Most conversations were still pretty short. They had written him off years ago, or essentially forgotten him.


    Each call improved his confidence. He wanted it to feel natural, but it was becoming an act. Becoming a caricature. He was falling into a predictable script, and as a result, it was losing its flavor. He was confident, but the results weren''t always coming.


    But it was ok. He was getting what he wanted - what he needed. Feedback that told him what he already knew to be true.


    ***


    ¡°Only you can make things right¡±


    Somewhere in his vast mind was a museum of sorts. If you''ve ever been to Madame Tussaud''s, with all the wax figures, this was similar to his museum. Except instead of recognizable celebrities, his museum was stocked with acquaintances.


    The rooms in the museum were arranged somewhat sparsely. Never too many people in a single space. And, strangely, not all of his acquaintances. These were all the people he had wronged in some way.


    He spent time in his mind, thinking of each person, approaching each in turn.


    His approach was basically the same. He would face each sculpture. He would admit his offense. He would look into their fake eyes, helping build his confidence. But, of course, they never blinked or responded. Their vacant expressions responded statically. No change.


    But still, he made his rounds. Each face, a new memory, a new injury. Each he would have to accept responsibility for. He would have to face his accountability for these pains he caused others. Each was a test. Each was harder, not easier. He thought it would become rote, like his calls. But it was never rote. The voices on the other end of the phone. The actual people were manifest on the phone, they were blood and oxygen and water. They were life and ideas and emotions. Their reaction to him was instability. They had never expected to hear from him again. They had written off his presence in their lives. If they had seen him out, they would have avoided him.


    But his humble account, and his exposed vulnerability took them by surprise, and played as authentic for their interpretation. Most of them accepted his exposition, accepted his taking of responsibility. In a way, it freed them from holding on to those emotions. They had wanted to see him as a demon who had caused those ice burgs in their emotions. But the reality was that he was just a person, just a human, just a boy. He never had intentions to haunt them.


    But the ghost in their lives had been him for so long. They wanted to let it go, and they tried. But giving up that ghost isn''t easy. So they held onto their perceptions. They held on to their demons. Sometimes demons can be reassuring. And these ghosts were no exception.


    Try as he might to resolve their fears and obsessions, he could only do what he could do.


    Any demons that remained became their own responsibility. After all, no person only interacted with the artist. They all had their own lives, and their own interactions and influences. He could only be responsible for his own doing; not for everyone''s own demons.


    ***


    ¡°I am sorry¡±


    For each person he called, he simply started with: "I''m sorry."


    It was a great ice breaker. For people who were really pissed at him, hearing that disarmed them. What can you say to someone who falls on the sword like that? He is prostrating himself, he is executing his own ego, to reflect his remorse. You could beat him down, but to what end? He''s already as down and flat as he can be. The only response was to accept his apology.


    The shame and guilt was like a giant snow hill that the artist needed to clear. At first, it was overwhelming. But overtime, he got the hang of it. Scooping up the snow, and ejecting it elsewhere, where it was no longer a burden.


    It was a completely solo effort. Each call, each conversation was independent. No one to coach him or direct him. The artist had to call each person on his own, give them each his confession, his acceptance. The pattern had become familiar, but the effort and anxiety was the same for each call. He dreaded everyone. He was certain that one or all of his targets would berate him, diminish him, and exclude him from their ranks.


    His experience, though, was quite different. They had mostly been calm, understanding. They had mostly been accepting of his apology, with many expressing their long-standing desire for such an expression from him.


    The process was extremely draining for the artist. Each conversation was like a withdrawal from a bank, and he was running out of cash. He took frequent breaks, and had to extend the conversations over several days.


    In the end, he was exhausted. His energy was gone. He could talk for forever, but he couldn''t continue living in that space of not just talking, but of emoting, of expressing, of humbling himself for very long. His nightly rest was essential to re-energize him.


    ***


    ¡°You are not perfect; but you can decide¡±


    After interacting with so many people, he was not just exhausted. He was reduced to his core. He was stripped of his failed opinions and perspectives.


    In his bed, he didn''t want to get up. He had no desire to get up and eat, to drink, to live. He just existed in that space for two days. When circumstance drove him to eat, he did so reluctantly. EB had left him days ago.


    He had certainly wronged a lot of people. But why had he done so? It wasn''t just about his perspective or attitude. It was deeper. Why had he been such an asshole - to so many - for so long?


    His list of people had run out. He had received all of their feedback; all of their perspective. Now, it was just himself, and the picture others painted of him. This strange mirror was not what he expected. He had thought of himself as something quite different. But now the evidence was clear. He was a cause of pain and misery in others. He never saw it that way. He had always assumed that he was enriching everyone''s lives with his brilliant insight. Reality was here to tell him that he was an asshole whose opinions had limited positive impact, and whose attitude has disenfranchised many of his so-called friends.


    From this experience, he began to make a list. Each person he had wronged, each bad idea he''d followed. Each one itemized in a notebook. Each with a notation about his own perspective on the event or idea. Each one approached with acceptance, rather than defensiveness.


    The first place he visited was Flo¡¯s grave. Though she had been cremated, there was a headstone and her ashes had been scattered here. As he approached the site, his body felt light, like he was ten feet tall and walking on air. Like his body was made of paper, all the blood drained into the ground around him. The gravestone itself was small and simple. It had only her birth and death dates. And her name. Well... a name. It had Flo¡¯s given name: Morris Errol Vandaver. The artist had heard this name only a few times. It seemed so foreign. Like this wasn¡¯t really Flo, but someone else entirely. Still, he lingered, staring at the grass around the stone. In this moment, all of their times together exploded in his mind. He wished there was something he could have done - to prevent her death, to love her more, to give her more time. He knew her cancer wasn¡¯t his fault. But he did feel responsible for not doing more to enrich her life during the time they did have together.


    The artist went to see Sidney again.


    He tried the buzzer, but there was no response. After a few more tries, he gave up. But now he was stuck. He stood, staring at her name next to the buzzer button. He took a notebook from his backpack, and a pen. He wrote Sidney a note, folded it, and stuck it next to the buzzer, with her name written on the outside.


    Dear Sidney:


    I¡¯m sorry you are not here. I wanted to talk with you in person. Since I last saw you.. the vacancy you left - in our place, and in my life. I don¡¯t blame you.


    It was never your fault. My view of the world was different and chaotic during that time, and I frequently couldn¡¯t see beyond my own emotions and selfishness. The needs that you had were there, but I neglected them when I should have been trying to understand and meet them. You were always so giving to me, but I took too much. And I am sure that when there was nothing left for me to take, that it was time for you to leave.


    I held on to such anger toward you for too long. I wanted to blame you for the pain I felt. All the while knowing, but unable to admit, my own contribution to the situation. Over time I have come to realize who I am, who I was, and who I need to be. I hope you can forgive my behaviors and actions, and I wish you well in your life.


    With love.


    ***


    ¡°There is God in the gray¡±


    It was several weeks later, the artist needed a break. The research into his past and wrongdoings had taken a toll on his body, mind, and spirit. It was healthy in the same way that exercising is healthy. But you can''t go out running a marathon day after day and not expect it to wear you down eventually. His sharpness was long worn. It was just his dull spirit and motivation now.


    During the break, he stopped pursuing those he had wronged. But his brain continued to find reasons to hate himself. It was constantly finding past memories or fragments, and linking them to his everyday. He would be mindfully eating his lunch, when the memory of a high school colleague would show its face. In the memory, there was the artist, at a table. His sketchbook open, with one hand constantly making gestures onto the paper. His other hand was used to collecting the edibles from his plate, and injecting them into his face. In some kind of movie, this scene would be shot showing just the artist, eating, and drawing, and it would be innocent. But pan slightly around the table, and you see the artist''s high school friend (colleague?), sitting across from him. His friend is saying something, looking for a response. But the artist, is lost in his sketch book. He doesn''t even know what he is eating.


    But here he sat. Trying to be mindful. Trying to ignore his memories.


    He found it somewhat natural to wrangle his errant thoughts, and return to a focus on his breathing. Every once in a while, though, the thought wasn¡¯t errant. It had a different flavor, a different character. He recognized these thoughts. They were simultaneously joyful and miserable. They were a mix of good and bad, black and white. Once synthesized, they were a dull grey.


    But that was ok. The artist could still taste the God in that grey. He could still sense the source of his dead love, and his nemesis.


    ***


    ¡°The carried is now the carrier¡±


    Having studied his own intentions and values; having finally recognized a purpose; having experienced life and death; love and loneliness; passion and pain. A new kind of thought came to him. It was from the grey, but it had a new kind of character. It wasn¡¯t a work of art, per se. Or perhaps it was. Perhaps it was the final work of art.


    The weather was chilly that day, but the skies were clear.


    The artist arrived at the park on the river around noon, just as the sun was overhead, and warming him. This section of the park had ample open space for grass, with trees sparsely planted. The was a small cluster of trees near the river, and the artist selected one of them.


    The tree was oriented such that when he sat at the base of the tree, the river was behind him, and in front of him was a paved path for runners. The sun was such that it shown directly onto his torso, and legs. His face shadowed by a branch.


    Sitting in this spot, the artist could hear his breathing. He could hear his heart. He could hear the grey ideas. He could also hear the river, and the birds. The occasional scurry of a squirrel or chipmunk. The foot falls of runners. The muddle conversation of friends walking by. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his leg and chest, and his hands in his lap. He could smell the figs ripening on the tree. He could taste the fig flavor. He could feel the ground beneath his body.


    He was present in his meditation, but also in the world around him. His breathing was relaxed.


    He heard footsteps on the path; not running, just casual walking. They had soft rubber souls, but his current mindfulness state heightened his hearing, and he could make out the squish of each foot fall. And then, they stopped.


    The artist continued in his meditation, not moving or opening his eyes. He did, however, concentrate more on his hearing for the moment. He heard the rubber shoed person shuffle around for a few seconds, then a sound he did not recognize. Then, no more foot sounds. Now, only breathing. But not just his own; he could also hear rubber shoed person¡¯s breathing.


    He continued in this way until he was satisfied that his meditation was complete. Then, he opened his eyes. On the path in front of him sat a non-descript person. From where he was, he couldn¡¯t tell their age, gender, or really anything. The person continued sitting, their eyes apparently closed. Their breath, easy with a regular rhythm.


    The artist sat, observing. Within a few minutes, the rubber-shoed person opened their eyes. The artist smiled, the person returned the smile. Neither person changed their posture.


    After sitting for a while, the artist closed his eyes and began to think. During this time, he heard the rubber-shoed person depart.


    The next day, the artist returned to the park. The rubber-shoed person also returned to the park, and the two repeated their experience of the previous day. This went on for a week or so. Then, one day, as both persons were meditating, they heard a pair of joggers - a man and woman, or maybe a heavier and a lighter person - based on the contrasting sounds of their foot falls - suddenly stop. They could hear some brief muddled talking. Then the rustle of the grass near the artist. A few more slight sounds, and then - just breathing.


    Another week passed, with the four persons meditating under the fig tree in the park near the river. Then, another couple joined them. Then a small group of female students. And soon, the group grew to as many as fifty persons, meditating mid-day.


    It had become his final work; his last artistic expression. The work was himself. The patrons and observers had to enter into the same expression to really understand it. And when they did, they stuck around. Because, they too, wanted to be like the artist.

 Epitaph

    Last sketch.


    ¡°I am me and they are them. They cannot use me as their shortcut, nor I they for my ignorance. But we are all imperfect, and all on our own journey. I can only guide.¡±


    Now, in his last chapter of life, the artist sits. Patiently waiting. For death.


    The days and weeks are mostly long and boring hours. His receded gray hairs still occasionally fall into his lap. Mostly as periodic reminders of the destination. The final destination.


    Those hairs were not the only reminders, however. Something had happened in these final years, final months. His work, largely forgotten or lost, was suddenly being rediscovered. This was fine for the hoards of fans and collectors. However, there was another - much smaller - group. Well, perhaps not a group. For convenience, we might call them a group, but it was really just a bunch of unassociated individuals. These were the students of his art.


    To his horror, he discovered that many of them had studied his works, and set out to duplicate them as part of their training. The idea of another person, recreating his own works. It made no sense to him. They could only ever hope to copy his technique or style. But they could never copy his intention, his inner need to create that particular work. It wasn''t something that could be taught, or even expressed in a way that made any sense to any other person.


    But now, here they were. Creating their own approximations, their own shells of his work. Some exhibited remarkable technique, and exquisite colors. But all suffered the same error of showing only the shell of his work. It was like looking at a snake skin or cicada shell. You could see the visual essence of the snake or the cicada, but there was no substance. A mild wind would send the skin or shell surfing over the grass and dirt.


    Seeing their works led to an array of emotions. He was always stricken by how technically competent many of them were. It embarrassed him that their technique was so much better than his own. Or their mastery of color. Their approaches to his three-dimensional works was also strange to witness. Each seemed to be attempting to "out do" his original piece. And they succeeded in this way, but missed the subtlety and innocence of what the artist had created.


    Oh. And they always wanted to meet him. They all wanted to praise his genius. They wanted to explain how his art had changed their lives. He wanted to tell them all that they should have just killed themselves long ago. But he didn''t. He retained that entertainment for himself, inside his imagination.


    The meeting was always a shit show. They could come in. Praise his color mixing, give their interpretations of his composition. The worst part was that they wanted to talk and talk and explain their process, and how they created the color, and how they began, and how much time it took, and on and on. They were all narcissistic, driven mad by their own compulsions.


    The artist would try his best to retain his own patience. And he would try his best to explain to them the approach or meaning, and how it had relatively little to do with actual painting or whatever. He was glad that they all experienced something in his art. But what he was trying to tell them is that they needed to experience something when creating their own art. And, as none of them were him, it was strange to see their interpretation, of his interpretation, of his own experience. He already knew that experience. He had already documented it in his art. He didn''t want to see their bland attempt at explaining his own life to him. Instead, he wanted to see what they wanted to say. He wanted to know what they had experienced themselves; originally.


    ***


    During his last days, he received a caller who he assumed to be another of his ripoff fans. He figured he could maybe last through this one today. He had psyched himself up a bit with a brief meditation. He told himself to let the narcissist talk as much as they wanted; it was a way to make them feel like he was really listening to them. If they asked a specific technical question, he would fake forgetfulness.


    Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    But this caller was different. He could see that when she walked in. She didn''t look the part, for starters. And she was calm, not overly excited.


    "I know you", she said.


    He tried to search his memory, but couldn''t identify this person.


    "You do?", he replied. Still trying to determine who she was. Maybe the daughter of a friend or something.


    "Yes, I know you.", she repeated.


    "Have we met? Do I know your parents or something?", the confused artist offered.


    The girl smiled and smirked and made a small happy sound.


    "Oh, I mean, it''s nothing like that. We''ve never met - at least not in person.", she said.


    "But you know me?"


    She had brought a large purse or bag in with her. It looked to be pretty stuffed. From inside the bag, she retrieved a fairly large 8" x 10" framed mirror. She held the mirror up to the artist.


    "What do you see?"


    The artist sighed. "I see me?"


    "Exactly. And you know yourself, right?"


    He didn''t reply to this.


    "When I see you, the artist, it is like looking into a mirror for me. Obviously, I''m not an aging white male - but that isn''t what I see when I look at you."


    The artist let his shoulders slump a bit. This was a new spin on the crazy fan episode. But he let it play on.


    "Ok. Mmm. What do you see?", he gave in to her leading statement.


    "I see myself. Just like when you see yourself in the mirror. Not the specific light reflecting your physical look; but something else, something deeper within you. Your existence, your essence, your being."


    "And so you think you know me because of that?", he asked.


    "It''s not like that. It''s not like a deja vu where you aren''t sure what''s happening, and the sensation goes away pretty quickly. No, this is more like having a special secret number, or phrase, or limerick - one that is unique to yourself, and then seeing someone else who has the exact same number, or phrase, or limerick."


    "Well, ok. Great. What can I do for you? Do you want an autograph or something?"


    She smiled and smirked again. And again let out a small happy sound.


    "It''s nothing like that at all. I don''t really want anything from you at all. I simply wanted - " ... she paused, looking shyly down at her shoes... - " I simply wanted to meet you. I wanted this experience right here."


    That seemed to soften him up a bit.


    "So you''re an artist?", he inquired.


    "Of sorts."


    He loathed and loved this response all at once. It was a way of expressing his own artistic intentions when he was much younger. He liked the way it separated him from the other "painters", and "sculptors", and so on. He suspected she did as well.


    "And you''ve seen my art, and are certain that you know me because of it?"


    "Well, yes. For most works, I can see the structure and composition, I can see the colors and the shapes and the techniques. For a few works, I can get an emotional sense of what the work is conveying. But the thing is, with your works, I don''t get much of that. Instead, I get a sense of who you are, or were, and why you made that particular work. It''s almost like a psychic ability to look deeper, or backward in time, to when you created the work, and being able to explicitly understand."


    "Well, I still don''t really understand why you are here. It''s a nice superstition you have, but you don''t know me. No one knows me. I hardly know myself. And as much as I would love for my expression to translate so seamlessly into your brain and your heart, that''s just not something that happens."


    "I know about the Jesus painting.", she said.


    This statement put him on edge, but also drew him in.


    "Haha", he laughed uncomfortably at this.


    "You may think you know, but you don''t". He laughed into a cough.


    "I have it.", she said.


    "What the... how the fuck could you have it? It was destroyed."


    In his laughter, he looked at the girl again. Who was she? Why was she here? What kind of game was this?


    "I have a present for you", she said with a grimace.


    The artist just looked at her. She pulled a gift-wrapped box from her bag and handed it to him.


    The wrapping paper was black with a pattern of lit cigarettes on it. Each lit tip had a small waft of smoke rising up.


    This paper did amuse him, even as he tore it from the box it enshrouded. He opened the box, and just stared for a moment.


    Inside was a belt. The kind with double D-rings for the buckle, and clearly made from premium materials. It looked like military grade nylon or something. When he looked up, her head was down.


    Several minutes seemed to pass as he looked at the belt, and at the girl, and at the room.


    "Uhm. Thank you.", he said, finally.


    The voice appeared briefly: ¡±Destiny. Uncle is waiting.¡±


    In his mind, the artist noted this comment.


    The girl stood up, gathering her bag. She made the few steps toward the door to leave. With one hand on the doorknob, she looked back at the artist.


    "You''re welcome...", she said, somewhat sheepishly this time. She hurried out the door, and was gone before he could say anything else. He did, however, notice as the door shut behind her... on the back of her left calf. A tattoo. Something familiar.


    THE END