The Writer and The Artist: The Bubble

Chapter 7:The Bubble

 

THE BUBBLE

 

1

 

An orange dress, with dark red stripes around the waist. The skirt of the dress frilled out like curving petals of a flower. It was a beautiful garment, but it was not to wear, only for show.

            It sits in the window of a department store, next to a busy London road.

            ‘Which road?’

            ‘A road in Central London, I think,’ she said, ‘although I’m not sure which one.’ She then thought of Oxford Street, another place, another time.

She shook the thought away.

She directed her concentration to into the crystal. The complete representation of the painting was yet to appear. ‘But it was crammed with people, coming from nowhere and going nowhere.’

            Ethan noticed the tone, ‘You sound certain of this.’

            ‘Sure I am,’ she replied. ‘None of those people had faces. Have you ever read a horror story of people without faces: without eyes, nostrils; or mouths? Perhaps not even ears. I think I read one by Deborah Bohem about that very thing; at the beginning of the story man in Tokyo meets a lady with no facial features. It was like looking at an egg with a body. Me and John both read it once, it chilled both our spines. Maybe that was inspiration for this painting.’

            ‘What is the painting called?’

            She smiled. ‘Bubble.’

            Ethan grew confused. ‘Why?’

            ‘Because of John,’ she said. ‘He’s the only man on that street wearing a human face…and a bubble.’

            Ethan’s expression settled to intrigue.

 

2

 

‘People walk up and down this street. You can see the main road beside it, built up London traffic of buses, taxis and people getting to god-knows where. But in the middle of the painting is John, walking slowly down the road towards me, with a big smile on his face.’

            ‘You are in this painting?’ John asked.

            ‘I told you, I’m in none of these paintings, it’s always John. I mean he is walking towards whoever views the painting. He is wearing a casual outfit, like he’s just popped out to town. Nobody else on that pavement can walk near him, because he is within a giant transparent bubble.’

            ‘What does the bubble represent? Protection?’

            ‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘protection from everyone else around him. It provides him with the necessary solitude we all need to escape life around us.’

            Ethan was still baffled. ‘But why in this particular painting, why at this time?’

            ‘Let me explain,’ she said. ‘John had always been a paranoid person. He was always afraid of what people thought of him; his opinions; his fashion; his life. Then when he got his job as an editor, he realised he had an important job and he had to let go of his paranoia. It was time for him to grow up.

            ‘So I told him he needed to. I told him to go out for a while and walk. I told him not to come back until he felt like he had walked the whole paranoia out of his system.’

            ‘Just walk?’

            ‘Yeah, just walk, to wherever he wanted to go and to pass whichever people he wanted to pass. I told him to ignore everything around him and focus on where he was going and what he was doing.’

            ‘And did he?’

            ‘The fact I made a painting of it makes it evident, Ethan. He was out walking for nearly three hours. I can’t remember exactly where he walked, maybe he actually did venture into Central London by train, I didn’t ask him when he came back as it wasn’t important. But what was important was when he came back, what he told me.’

‘The bubble?’ Ethan asked.

Laura smiled. ‘The bubble. A day or two after that was when I made that painting.’

            And coincidentally that was when the crystal started to image that very painting, as Laura had done so many years ago.

 

3

 

‘You haven’t asked the other obvious question, Ethan.’

            He thought about it for a second. ‘The dress. Why the dress?’

            ‘It’s like the vase,’ she replied, as synapses in her brain started forming connections. The image of Bubble was complete. ‘Do you see the dress in the window, there?’ She pointed towards the department store situated to the right of the painting. It took Ethan a moment to discover the location of the dress, for there were so many faceless people on the pavement that they blocked the majority of the department store windows. And yet not all, for between two of the people beside the window there was a big enough gap for a dress to be painted, displayed prominently on a female mannequin. It looked so beautiful and desirable and yet…

            ‘It looks out of place.’

            Laura nodded. ‘Just like the vase. Neither have to be in the painting because they do not account for what either painting stands for. The vase in Cosy, the dress in Bubble, neither really means anything…’

            ‘So we have a connection,’ Ethan said, placing his hand inches away from the crystal. ‘Shall we go in?’

            Laura felt hesitant; it seemed unsatisfying just to jump in so soon. ‘Wait a moment,’ she said, eyeing every corner of the painting. ‘We still don’t know what we’re supposed to be looking for. Is there anything we can see now that we saw previously in Cosy?’

            Ethan looked confused. ‘Shouldn’t you know that already?’

            She closed her eyes. ‘Maybe I should.’ She opened them again, ‘But maybe there is something.’

            ‘There is,’ Ethan said, pointing towards the painting, ‘John is there. Just like in all the paintings, John is in them. Maybe we shouldn’t be looking for similarities.’

            Whether Ethan was right or not, Laura still did not know what exactly they should be looking for. And maybe that was the point: maybe they should be looking rather than thinking about it. ‘I say we go in there and see what we can find,’ she said. ‘There is a connection between Cosy and Bubble, the misplacement of the vase and the dress. That should be a start.’

            Ethan nodded. ‘I agree. Let’s get this mystery over and done with.’ He then placed his hand on the crystal and began the process. Crystal glass melted and swam under his touch.

            ‘If you see anything worth looking at,’ Laura said, as she placed one foot into the blur of painting, ’let me know.’

            ‘I will,’ he said, as Laura pushed her whole body through.

 

4

 

And then everything became white again, giving Laura the distinct feeling of déjà vu. Another test? she thought.

She waited for his voice. It did not come. She thought there might have been a whisper of a sound, but it was long gone, now only a faint murmur lingering in the white wind.

Open your eyes, Laura.

She looked around and as expected she found John. He was walking towards her; at least he looked as though he was, yet on close inspection he was merely walking on the spot. Surrounding him was the clear bubble, protecting him from the outside world.

He was looking towards her, wearing the same grin in the painting. She looked into his eyes and returned the smile, merely to acknowledge what they both knew; he was just an image of his own imagination.

The sounds of the painting suddenly filled the white void, the clutter of city traffic amidst the background sounds of distant chatter that meant nothing to the painting, considering the fact that none of these people had a mouth to chatter from. Only John had that luxury and yet he did not speak, he merely walked on the spot, contained within the bubble.

Then she saw the dress. Looking towards the department store, constantly moving to avoid the stampede of people, she suddenly realised why it felt so misplaced. She had painted no other dress, no other garment of clothing, not even another mannequin, in the window. But now that people were constantly moving in front of it, she could see areas of the window she had not painted before.

            These areas were completely blank. The whole of the department store had but one dress in its display window.

            Why?

            She looked through the crowd and saw John, still walking on the spot. She felt tempted to talk to him, but what would be the point? She shrugged off the thought and looked around.

            This painting, although not to say that Cosy was in any way ordinary, was particularly unusual. Turning to face the direction of painting she had not painted, she found, instead of the corner of a room, an infinite straight road, revealing little more than more paper faces and more traffic.

            But there was something else: a rubbish bin not too far away; more shops to the side of the pavement which displayed little more than bare mannequins with nothing to show for. Obviously, Laura believed, this part of the painting meant nothing.

            Except there was something; when she turned this well she could make out a distinct odour, the smell of compiled, dirty litter.

            Why the smell?

            She shook the question off (Too many questions!) for already knowing the answer: the smell was a lure to the bin.

            She started forcing her way through the crowd, unable to translate any of the babbling lingo being omitted from any of the creatures she passed. They pushed hard against her shoulders, nearly carrying her away with the raging flood. But her determination made for persistence and she found strength to push harder, punching them into the gasping air gripped between the herd.

The smell became increasingly potent as she approached the bin, positioned close to the pavement’s edge. She trudged her way to the side of the road.

            Was there a particular smell she was trying to make out? No, she told herself, the smell itself isn’t important, it’s merely the lure. There’s something in that bin. Something I need.

            She stopped beside the bin and looked down upon it. It was the standard round bin you would see on any pavement in the middle of a town or city. It was completely black, with a gold lining underneath the two gaps (two black voids) parallel to each other, where rubbish could be entered. A lid above the gaps blocked Laura’s view of what was inside the bin, so she took the action of attempting to remove the lid (constantly reminding herself not to scavenge through bins in the real world).

            At first the lid did not budge. Maybe it was screwed on. If it is, Laura thought to herself, then maybe what is inside this bin is not important at all.

            But the lid did start to move, when Laura applied more grip and force. The metal lid squealed against the bin it covered as she twisted it free, yet nobody turned around. They had nothing to do with what was happening here.

            As the lid became free, Laura threw it to the ground (comically knocking one egg-faced pedestrian to the floor, who simply got up and carried on walking, muttering lipless to itself). She then drew her attention to the contents of the bin.

            Her attention could not be drawn away.

            Her mouth fell a little open and she took in a heavy breath. She started to feel sick. She closed her eyes and looked again, but there was no difference. The same conception lay before her eyes.

            She staggered backwards and fell to her knees, retching her innards onto the side of the imaginary road. Nobody helped her up.

 

5

 

Standing beside the crystal, watching through into the image, Ethan was unable to see what was inside the bin, for whatever had made Laura keel over was far too deep inside to be seen from his viewpoint.

            Seeing the contents of her stomach spewed across painted tarmac, Ethan hurriedly took a step in.

            He came out where Laura had first entered, so he was unable to immediately see her. He looked back towards the bin and yelled her name.

            At first he saw nothing, only the wave of people moving back and forth across his view. But then he could make her out, bringing herself to her feet.

But instead of coming straight over, he watched as she looked back towards the bin and lowered her hands inside. What is she doing? he thought, if it made her sick, why is she taking it?

He saw her take out an object from the bin. From what he could make out through the hustle and bustle it was square and yellow. She looked up towards Ethan and started walking back, avoiding the occasional pushing and shoving from the crowd. Knowing Ethan could not remove his foot from outside the crystal, he waited patiently for her to arrive.

The first thing he noticed about her when she stopped was her face. It was completely pale. He then looked down and saw what she was holding. It was a yellow pizza box that had a pseudo-company label ‘Pizza Delivery’ scrawled across it in fancy red lettering. Only for show, he thought.

Seeing Ethan at a loss, Laura started to open the box, closing her eyes in a grimace as she did.

Seeing the twitching crow inside nearly made Ethan puke as well.