Another Sky

A short story about misanthropic man who buys a strange painting that grants his wish...for a price.

  

            Henry Tullard had a tendency towards misanthropy. There was a reason he never liked to leave his apartment to entertain friends, as he had none. The noises from the walls often prompted an angry shouting and earplugs soon after. Even a friendly knock on the door could raise Henry’s ire at the wrong time or day. And why should I change, Henry would think, because that’s something hypocrites try to pull when they want you to see things their way. He believed that if he vested as little time in the outside world, it would eventually leave him be.

            But no. It insisted on existing. It prodded and poked and spat into Henry’s bitter, walled up little brain. If this was God’s plan, Henry thought, then God certainly has a sense of humor. And that punchline is me.

            Now, the kind of work Henry was compelled to do every week within the days of Monday to Thursday from 8 am to 7 pm would certainly reduce even the most blissfully stupid person to a gibbering mess. Henry did not fancy himself stupid: rather, everyone else was. He worked merely to remain in the city and away from home. Why would anyone else want to work in civil service, filing papers and issuing taxes or whatever was the duty of the day? Did they have dreams or aspirations? Probably not. Henry reminded himself not to ponder the thoughts of others. He wasn’t telepathic.

            And so the cycle turned like the intricate layers of clockwork in an insanely meticulous watchmaker’s design: Henry woke up alone, undressed, showered, dressed again, ate breakfast alone, packed briefcase, stepped out the door, caught the bus, sat at his desk, rolled his eyes at his manager, Heff and his stupid eyebrows, went for lunch, worked, went home, avoided all his neighbors, had dinner alone, maybe read, went to bed. All within the walls of his teal-painted, four room, single story apartment with the blinds drawn. The only sounds Henry would hear for most (if not all) of his days were the sounds of his own feet slapping against the wood. Sure, there were the sounds of the city outside and his apartment neighbors almost always pierced the walls with their noise, but otherwise his nights in his four room apartment were draped with a veil of silence. His ceiling became the love of his life, his first and last sight of the day. No one else’s footsteps dirtied the wood, no one else brewed coffee. One person walked in, and one person walked out.

            But while Henry was solitary physically, he believed that he was never alone. Every morning, he woke to the sight of Hieronymus Bosch and Rembrandt framed on the left wall of his bedroom. As he walked into his living room, he saw Magritte’s apple-faced man over his couch. Even his nightstand had Mona Lisa smiling at him, nestled beside his alarm clock. To him, these were the only companions worth having. These frames were his preferred windows, no matter how strange or unsettling they would appear to the uncultured eye.

Henry spent little money on anything else as it displeased him. A TV was impractical; he felt shows everyone else watched were not worth watching in their banality. The shows he enjoyed in his youth had all but disappeared. Now they were replaced, to him, by shallow imitators. He had no home phone as his family wanted nothing to do with him ever since he’d moved to the city, and his coworkers never talked to him anyway. His computer was only for work or the occasional browsing when Henry was really bored. What other things could he need other than his paintings? He had considered taking up painting himself, but he felt that his work could never compare to what he believed to be the “masters”. Who would bear to see his work of all people up hanging, what world his mind could conjure up? Henry often wondered if people he happened to occupy time with believed that he was boring. Of course, he immediately scolded himself for this, as he chose to not bother his time with other people’s thoughts.

            It wasn’t until a quiet week in September that Henry decided to break his self-imposed exile from the human race when he made his annual trip to sniff out new pieces to hang in his house. Of course, this meant avoiding his neighbors and eye contact with essentially everyone on the train or bus.

This trip was familiar to him to be sure. This was the bus route to the mall, which was holding its fall open market. The market was held just outside, the tents propped up and glinting in the sunlight. The show was just about the only thing that would’ve prompted Henry to crawl out of his hole to the mall, of all places. He had no need for trendy clothes nor did he care for the latest styles. He never could understand what all the fuss over buying something that costs more than the salary of a waiter over at Belle Nona, a restaurant Henry visited, then just buying something that’s functional. Further evidence to him that humans were a strange species.

            Jumping off the bus, he came to the impromptu bazaar. Even within the mundaneness of the mall, its odds and ends were as exotic as any other. From stalks of dried fruit temptingly dangling in view to rows upon rows of yellowing books spilling out of one of the tents, the bazaar was truly a place where the true wonders of the world came to seed. The notion of unfamiliarity was nothing new to Henry, that much was true. He desired otherness. He’d rather be among things he felt he had in common rather than people he felt he had nothing to give to.

            Hungrily, indiscriminately, Henry searched through the market’s selection, finding anything that would suit his tastes. Some dried herbs here, an old Bible there, and so on. He happened upon a fruit vendor with the most unusual wares: Suspended by frayed twine above the shopkeeper were skinned apples with curious carvings in the white flesh. At first, Henry paid it little mind, but he saw the carvings were of a face. Even Henry admitted to himself how the world surprised him despite his disillusionment.

            A quick lunch later Henry gravitated into the art section of the bazaar. A procession of twisted configurations of metal and clay greeted him with arms outstretched, welcoming their long-lost king back to his domain. There were landscapers, surrealists, neo-realists, impressionists, futurists, classicists, and just about every other -ist that the art world could throw at the lowly man. But it’d been four whole hours, and not one piece interested him.

Pain pierced Henry’s heart, as it did sometimes. He screamed wordlessly at his mind to banish the thought that now clung to him. He should not, could not tire of this. He did not wish to be bored of his own desires. That was all he had left. Only that desire for that which never spoke or criticized. That which never hated or spited or deserted or abused. He stopped dead in his tracks. His fists wrapped into knots like chains, beads of moisture began welling in his eyes. No, he tried to tell himself, stop acting this way, you fool, you baby! I don’t want to be alone again! Stop crying, you idiot! You disgusting person! Again and again the verbal blows came, merciless in their persistence and horribly accurate in their aim. He wanted to leave, to escape, but his legs didn’t comply. The world closed in on him.

            Then he saw it.

            The most beautiful thing. It seemed to levitate, waiting for him to see it all this time, a vast panoramic view of gilded frame and impeccable skill.

An impossibly rendered coastline stretched out before him, with tiny shoals washed by the surf and sand collecting in mounds. Distant rocks stood sentinel against the azure sky with a strange deliberate placement, as if marking a location. Spare forests marked the inner coastline, with more stone formations sitting, slowly wearing from the wind and water. Henry was so utterly transfixed by the beauty of the piece that he nearly missed noticing a something off within it. What that something was he could not quite know. He cautiously approached the vendor, eyes still trained on the picture.

The man behind the counter appeared normal enough. Behind him lay a myriad of paintings and drawings of similar beauty and strangeness, with a trunk decorated with polished locks. He’d never seen this stranger before, not at any of the exhibitions beforehand. Most of the people here were regulars; Henry had more or less known what to expect.

            “Sir?” Henry asked tentatively. The man looked up to face him. He smiled with a serenity that made Henry uneasy.

            “What can I help you with?” The man replied. His voice was breathy.

            “I want to purchase one of your paintings.” Henry gave his most welcoming smile, the one he chose specifically for shopkeepers.

            “Wonderful! Just say which one!” The man clapped his hands together. They were oddly spotless and white, like porcelain. “My collection is open to any curious buyer.” He let out a nervous chuckle as he leaned back. The man’s face was exactly like his hands; spotless and pale.

            Henry didn’t quite know what to make of this. Nevertheless, he continued. “I’d like to buy that piece. The one hanging up.” He gestured to the panorama.

            “Mmmm. That one’s called Without.” The man shot the price at Henry like a sniper: “$150”.

            Henry promptly produced his wallet and placed the amount in the man’s unblemished hands. The man placed the money underneath his desk as he ventured into the back of his tent to wrap the painting up. All the rest was but a blur for Mr. Tullard as the man handed the wrapped art to him and waved him away, a kind smile stretched across that featureless, perfectly clean face.

            On the bus ride home, Henry embraced the painting like a lost friend. The paper was coarse, its wooden smell filling his nose.

            Once home, Henry cleared away the pictures on his living room wall to make way for the new arrival. Opening that paper was like breaking bread, and the sound was just as enticing for him as he saw that gorgeous coastline and sky again. Up it went onto his wall with little effort, as if the painting itself had known that this was its resting place. It was strangely light, considering the size of it. The space it took up stretched from the left window across to his bookcase, covering a decent part of the wall. Henry chose his bedroom as the new home for his other paintings. But that didn’t matter to him. All he wanted was to gaze upon the shore again, to drink in the painted stones once again. He was convinced he had finally found the one thing better than television. Yes, he thought. I never needed that stupid thing anyway. All he needed was something as beautiful and as fulfilling as Without. Truly there was no equal such as to him.

Sure, there was still the street and his insufferable neighbors knocking on each other’s doors. Outside still existed beyond his walls, and only his paintings stood to keep it out for a little while longer. As his mind began to drift away into unconsciousness, he thought that maybe he ought to create something of his own. But he knew no one would care, as was the cruelty of the world.

 

The man was in his dreams. His cold, perfect face smiling at him in his mind’s eye.

A large crack splintered across his face. Still, his smile held. He held out his hands to Henry, teeth falling away as the crack continued its destruction.

            A finger cracked, then fell. Then another. Then another.

            The man’s cheeks fractured into powder like dropped pottery. The man’s face swiftly crumbled, falling in a heap of dust to the ground A perfect, ovular hole with nothing in it stared back, yawning at him.

Henry averted his eyes.

He heard waves crashing…

 

Henry’s eyes burst open. Much to his relief, he saw his bedroom ceiling.

He needed to pee. He noticed that he couldn’t hear the street. I must be up early, he thought as he checked his clock. No numbers. He remembered he’d just replaced the batteries. That was one thing that doesn’t work in my house, he thought. As he lurched out of bed, his feet hit the carpet with a squish. Henry put a hand to his foot and brought it up to his face, taking a quick sniff. Sewage?

Salt water.

Waves crashing again. Henry knew it was too insane to be true, yet there it was soaking into his carpet. Henry jumped up and threw his bedroom door open, squishing more of his carpet. He ran into his family room, his books and furniture now darkening with water as a great shake knocked him off his feet. He shakily got to his feet as he frantically scanned his drowning room.

His new painting was gone. The frame sat unmoving on the wall, untouched by the quake. Henry saw the strange rocks, the trees along the shore, the sand, the surf. Except that the waves crashed in upon themselves and receded back into the ocean. The trees were shaking by a slight sea breeze, a breeze that Henry could feel on his chest. He uttered a futile prayer that this was another dream that it would end and he would be back in bed.

His toes grew colder as water crawled its way through the cracked walls. He threw open his front door, but only found an ocean on the other side. He angrily slammed the door. The water now up to his heels, he looked around his books bobbed onto the surface before fragmenting, the paper swimming through his living room. His paintings had all fallen into the water, the canvases hanging limply from their frames. He could feel the ocean taking his feet as it rose up to his ankles. There’s no time to take anything, he thought. What about food? I can’t wear these clothes on the beach! I’ll starve, I’ll die and no one will help me! He walked over to the frame, his legs kicking up water as the ripples carried the loose elements through the pool in his living room. He reached an arm out through it. Sure enough, there was open air greeted it.

Heart pounding. he took a long step through the frame’s threshold, out into the sea. The water thankfully came up only to his knees, so he waded through the persistent surf, pajama pants clinging to his legs as he strode. Making onto the shore, he fell to his knees with sand coating his dripping legs and hands. He turned back as he saw his apartment room, or at least what was left of it disappear into the water, groaning and whining as the waves pulled it down into some cold hell. Chest heaving from exhaustion, he stood up on shaky legs. There were the rocks reaching into the sky, some mysterious architect leaving his craft for nature to reclaim. Looking closer, Henry saw them adorn with symbols of a language he couldn’t recognize. He saw the impossibly blue sky above him, nary a cloud. He could hear the rushing of the trees along the shoreline. There was the sea out before him. And in the sky he could see the light of a sun hanging just above him. Midday, he thought. He noticed another sun just beyond the one above, this one a faded blue.

For the first time in years, Henry Tullard wanted someone with him.

He felt weighed down, as if the sand below was about to suck him down. For once, he felt the need to go, but his mind protested. There’s nothing out there, you idiot! He thought. There’s no person, no animal, no civilization out there! Your only option in this is curl up and wait to die, alone and ignorant!

“No.” Henry said aloud. He took a single step onto the sand. It was cool, not searing like the sand on the beach. He took another step. Then another. Soon he disappeared down the horizon, leaving a trail of footprints to indicate his presence. The surf then washed over them, washing those leftover feet into the ocean. But still they persisted further down. And Henry Tullard continued to make more and more, so that anyone curious enough to look would find him.

Author's Note

An early short story I wrote in college. I don't know if it's as good as I once thought, but I worked hard on it.
General thoughts welcome.

Reviews

[JayG]

Well, you did ask, so you have only yourself to blame for this. 😆

First, the good news: You write well, better than most here. In fact, I looked at, Surviving Documents of the Refugees from the Innsmouth Cult, first, and was hooked for a time. The diary approach is a good fit for the approach you’re presently using, but the “Let me tell you the story in summation and overview was distancing. I was going to critique it, but since you said you were emulating Lovecraft, I came here to see if my suspicions were right. Unfortunately, they were.

As I said, you write well, but were you to submit this to a publisher or editor it would be rejected before the end of the first paragraph. Not because of your writing, or talent, though. It would be rejected because from start to finish this is a report, not a story.

You, the narrator, alone on stage, report and explain as a dispassionate outside observer. We’re never with the protagonist, we only hear about him, second-hand, mostly in overview and summation.

You say, for example, “Now, the kind of work Henry was compelled to do every week within the days of Monday to Thursday from 8 am to 7 pm would certainly reduce even the most blissfully stupid person to a gibbering mess.” You take the time to give the reader his working hours. You supply the information on the effect the job would have on OTHER people. But you never explain why, why it didn’t do that to him, or, what he does. So you told the reader what doesn’t happen? Why does the reader care? You also tell the reader, “He wasn’t telepathic.” Aside from the reader not assuming that he was, there are millions of things he isn’t. Why not focus on what he is, and does?

You’re focused on educating the reader on him and what happens. But that’s a report—a history. And readers are NOT with you to learn what happened. They want to know the effect of what happens on him, and how he reacts. The reader wants your protagonist to be their avatar. They want to live the story in real-time, AS HIM. As E. L. Doctorow puts it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” You’re giving the weather report. Well written, yes, but still, a report.

Like everyone who turns to writing fiction you’re missing several critical facts.

1. They offer degree programs in Commercial Fiction-Writing. And you have to assume that at least SOME of what’s taught is necessary. Right?

2. The goal of public education, as it was when it began at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, is to provide employers with a pool of potential workers who had a predictable and useful skill-set, commonly known as The Three R’s: Reading, wRiting, and aRithmatic.

And what kind of writing to employers require in most cases? Nonfiction, like reports, papers, and letters. So in school we’re assigned reports and essays, whose goal is to provide an informational experience. But try to write fiction, whose goal is to provide an emotional experience, with nonfiction tools and we have what reads like a report.

Fiction’s approach is emotion-based and character-centric. Nonfiction tells the reader that the protagonist who's heading into that dark basement feels fear. Fiction causes a spoor of gooseflesh to march down the reader's back.

3. Part of the problem is that our own writing always works for us. But that’s because we begin reading with full context, and with intent guiding our perceptions. For you, the narrator’s voice—your voice—is filled with exactly the right emotion. But what about the reader? They have only what the words and punctuation suggest, based on their background, not your intent.

4. Can we truly understand why the protagonist does and says what they do if we don’t view the situation exactly as-the-protagonist-does? The thing we ALL forget is that the reader will read/experience what the protagonist is GOING to experience BEFORE that character does. So unless our responses are calibrated to those of the protagonist, we can’t know what the character's reaction will be. So, we react as ourselves, and will be in constant disagreement with their decisions.

But if the reader is following the protagonist’s decision-making in real-time; if they know the protagonist’s imperatives and resources; if they know the protagonist’s evaluation of the situation, that reader will BE the protagonist.

Take a quick break and go to YouTube to watch the trailer for the film, Stranger Than Fiction. It shows what WOULD happen were life like the approach you’re currently using. It’s a film only a writer can truly appreciate.

The fix? Simplicity itself. Grab a few books on the tricks the pros take for granted. We don’t see them as we read, only the result of using them. But we expect to see that, and will reject writing that wasn’t created with them. More to the point, your readers expect to see that in your work—which is the best argument I know of for digging into those tricks. Personally? I’d suggest starting with Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer, which recently came out of copyright protection. It's the best I've found, to date, at imparting and clarifying the "nuts-and-bolts" issues of creating a scene that will sing to the reader. The address of an archive site where you can read or download it free is just below. Copy/paste the address into the URL window of any Internet page and hit Return to get there.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

Try a chapter of two. I think you’ll be glad you did. And you’ll love the difference in your work, because the protagonist becomes your co-writer, whispering suggestions and warnings in your ear.

Just remember to read slowly, with lots of time spent thinking over each new point, and how it effects your writing. And practice each point, to make it yours. Fail that and two days later you’ll forget you read it.

And six months later, re-read it, to learn as much that’s new as you got the first time.

So…this wasn’t what you hoped to hear, I know. I’ve been there. Something like this stings…a LOT. But we’ll not address the problem we don’t see as being one, so since you asked, I thought you’d want to know.

But whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing. It never gets easier, but after a while, we can become confused on a higher level.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/