An Artist's Ears

She spent her nights going to different art classes. The one on the corner on Monday, the one up the stairs on Thursday. Each night there was another place to go, all except Sunday. Sunday was the day people didn’t want to pick up the brush. She had sought hard to find a place to go, somewhere that would let her voice mingle as her paint did. There was never anywhere. She had a revolve of friends, different ones at each place. The blonde girl on Wednesday, the brunette man on Friday. She liked knowing that there was another set of company waiting the next night.

Gradually, her talent began to increase. She had begun as an amateur; straight line as splotches. She hadn’t gone to any of the classes though to improve, she only went because she could not paint in silence. They were told to paint still life, but she would paint the noise around her.

Someone nearby was talking about their niece’s new daughter. She dabbed on a dash of blue. Her eyes were focussed on the pot, but there ears and hand were elsewhere.

There was an argument about where to go for dinner the next night. She put on some red, then didn’t notice her next colour choice matched the air of Christmas.

A hopeful lottery ticket. Some gold, or perhaps yellow. But she didn’t contemplate it.

At the end of the night, her picture would look nothing like the clay dog they were meant to copy. The instructor’s had long since realised she wasn’t there to imitate. They thought she was there to create, but she was there to listen.

There was a shed, emptied of tools long ago. Now she filled it with her paintings, hooks upon hooks as the time passed. She’d sit and look at the canvases, and remember the conversations around her. There was whisperings of a divorce, a new haircut needed.

Each one was different. Whilst others had managed to create a duplicate of a view, she had created something that could never be done again. Alone in the room, she’d listen. There’d be the wind, the birds, the bats at night. She wouldn’t paint, these were the sounds that could only be remembered once. The next day she’s do the same, each night different, just as her paintings were.

There came the night, after so many nights, when her brush stood still. The nib poised above the paint, her mind twisting around the colour to use. Her hand had taken too long, the moment was lost. The canvas was empty.  

“They say it was murder.”

Black, orange, navy?

“How do they know?”

Red, green, purple?

“Slit in the throat I heard.”

Yellow, grey, brown?

“How horrible.”

What colour is there to put to such an act? To describe the blood that would no longer course, the face that would grow sickly pale. The heart that would no longer beat. Nothing left in the body, no mind, no soul. No good, nor evil; purity. She knew what to do.

That night, she hung her canvas upon the wall; hearing the sounds of the wind, and the flight of the bats. She stood for a moment with her eyes closed, just listening, then opened to see the newest addition. She knew there was no better way to put it.

She closed the door, stepping out to the wind and the bats who carried the stories past her.

As the time passed and the room filled up, she covered the canvases, replacing the old stories with the new. But there was always one she kept, exposed to sight. She let her eyes listen again.

“They say it was murder.”

“How do they know?”

“Slit in the throat I heard.”

“How horrible.”

The last words would always make her eyes grimace. She did not want to look away. There was something transfixing about an empty canvas.

 

Author's Note

I'm not sure what I think of this one, so what do you think?

Reviews

[spiritwind]

I know what I think! You have imagination and your own element of style. I shall read this one over and over. It cries out for examining and delving into its depths. Yes, the end raises questions. I like that. So little in life has an end, so why should every story?

[Marie]

I'm not sure what to think. I like reading about artists; about what they paint and how they paint it. And I liked reading about this one. But I'm not sure of the end.