The Writer and The Artist: My Conclusion

Chapter 15: My Conclusion

 

MY CONCLUSION

 

1

 

We took the taxi back home. We sat in the back together; her head rested neatly on my lap. I stroked her hair. It felt wonderful, more so than ever before.

            But still she was silent, not because no words were needed verbally, but because she was elsewhere. It was her grief for Ethan.

            I did not actually learn about Ethan until a little later when we both got home. Sure I knew that someone had guided Laura through the depths of my mind, but I had no idea that I had once met him. I had never seen his face after that moment in the cafeteria. But when I did know, I understood. I knew something of the person that he was and how he never really understood love. He was impartial, a neutral party: the perfect messenger. He was blessed with the gift because he would help.

            Because he would want to help. It was his nature to.

            Ethan had not caused my accident. It was me and my foolish negligence. I had already passed well into a coma before our cars collided. Ethan was never at fault.

            I think that made it worse for both me and Laura.

            When we got home that afternoon we barely spoke a word for the rest of the day, apart from a few lengthy conversations. After shutting the front door, I stood watching Laura as she sat degenerately on the stairs. It had almost been like the time I first came home and found her sitting there in an all-knowing grin, as I was stuck with surprise at the sheer perfection of Bad Day placed upon the canvas.

            But there was no painting this time, nor a grin to welcome me home.

            I suddenly felt awkward. Why was it this way? I remember thinking. It should have been moment of joy; a moment to reflect and be thankful, maybe, but not for one to dwell upon.

            It was clear that Ethan meant a lot to Laura.

            In fact, thinking about it now, he had meant a lot to me then as well.

            I owed him one.

            As I tried to muster some kind of small talk to break the silence, Laura saw my struggle and held a finger to her lips.

            Not long after, she said, ‘You go write.’

            And with that she was gone, up the stairs and left to the bedroom. I heard the door creak slowly shut. There was no lock on the bedroom door, but I knew she would not want to be disturbed. I had felt like asking her as she left what she was going to do. But I already knew.

            She needed to think.

            Later on she came down and told me about Ethan. She explained everything she knew about him, including the parts that she did not; the undeniable mystery of who he was and where he came from. But we both believed the same thing.

            He was meant to be.

            She told me of how she had left The Cottage almost immediately after scribbling all that had happened to her and Ethan in my mind. She had not passed through a white void. She had simply reappeared back in the front room, with only a canvas and easel as company.

            Ethan had been left behind. It had been his choice.

            After she told me, she left me alone again to my own baffled thoughts.

            But this time she was not hiding away just to think.

            She was brewing up an answer.

 

2

 

And so what you see in front of you now is the result of my many laborious hours typing, editing and overindulging in the story Laura had fed to me, bit by bit, on the computer in the front room. Her notes of what she had experienced stuck in my memory like nothing else could or would. It was written on my brain.

            I owed it to her to write and finish it.

            At this point of the story I had expected everything to end right here, right now. The perfect ending: Laura and I back together; me having successfully returned to my writing and had finally pieced together a story worth saving in my ‘My Writing’ folder; and us living happily ever after.

            But things did not happen that way. I sense you ask whether this be true of the last part of that last sentence. Well you will have to wait and see. The story is not done yet.

            But here is a quick list of events that happened after we started to settle back into our average way of living.

            Starting with Laura and the locking of the view room.

 

3

 

She had locked it for nearly two weeks.

            It was a decision I thought to be extremely rash. But I did understand after a time. I knew it was not a permanent thing. We had learned to accept who we are. I am the writer; she is the artist. If she no longer painted then she would slip into a coma herself and would eventually die. I did not want that to happen and neither did she.

            She did it mainly because of her grievance for Ethan. Seeing the windows of my mind brought back sorrowful memories, not only of a time when a close new friend had suddenly vanished into a painting, but also of a time when she had nearly lost me.

            Consequently, as when I had stopped writing and Laura stopped visualising, I did not visualise anything for a while. Of course Laura, when she returned to work a few days later after begging her agent for a short break, had her own assignments of illustrations to do. But they were not the same thing. They did not inspire me to image my emotions the way I had done.

            I missed it.

            But I did not condemn Laura for it. I knew it would not be forever.

            And, thank the heavens, only a couple of weeks passed when Laura confronted me with a decision, with a hint of anticipation in her posture.

            She had only said six words, ‘I need more time to myself,’ but that was the same day the door became unlocked again.

            She was preparing a painting.

            I could feel the tingle of my creative emotions from within.

 

4

 

I had returned to work by the time the painting had begun.

            I had a rented vehicle sorted out from a local firm who sent the car (a green Vauxhall Astra, it did the job I suppose) to my house the day before I was due back. I did feel nervous about driving, but after my week’s vacation the swelling in my head had gone down and the pain was near nonexistent. I was capable of driving.

            Laura was happy for me to go to work for two reasons. She liked to see me return to my weekday routine; we both knew things were back the way they should be. But she also wanted the alone time she required to finish her project. She told me later that she had had an argument with her agent to extend her holiday until a ‘personal arrangement’ had been dealt with. Her agent gave in. Laura got her extra time.

            And it was worth it.

            Only after a few days of solid painting, it was done. It was a Friday. I was doubly glad compared to usual, because I had the weekend free to look forward to.

            But my glee tripled when I opened the front door.

            It was like the first painting all over again.

            But it was a good day, a very good day.

            I opened the door and faced one of the most remarkable paintings I had ever seen.

            It was of Ethan, sitting alone in a busy London cafeteria, staring out into the bustling crowd of what looked to be Oxford Street.

            I already knew she was sitting on the stairs behind the canvas. ‘You…’ I struggled with the honesty. ‘You are so damn clever, you know that?’

            And with that, Laura got off her step and brought me in to kiss her.

            That evening was magical.

 

5

 

The Saturday morning after (I was so glad I had not the need to get up early – I wanted to stay in that bed forever) Laura explained it all to me, even though I already knew most of the reasoning behind it.

            Because I had started to write again, Laura returned to having visualisations, only days after I had begun to type after so long. She first experienced them as she sat alone with only her dreary thoughts to sit beside. Every time she had seen the same individual.

Ethan.

He was lodged inside her mind. Laura had left Ethan inside the painting of her version of The Cottage. It could only mean one thing.

‘He must have survived it!’ I remember her stressing over and over. ‘He must have defeated my fear!’

And so there started a new search, not for me but for Ethan inside her mind. Laura told me how every day she had awaited a vision, just to gain another clue, just to work out another detail that could lead her to an answer.

            At first it had only been Ethan, shrouded in darkness similar to that of my cottage, perched upon a steel chair. He had left no clue.

But he was smiling, always smiling with an intelligent grin.

Laura was always bound to find her.

One clue was all it took: a coffee cup.

The answer was so clear it was pure water.

 

6

 

One location linked the three of us together: me; Laura; Ethan. There was one location that we had all been to. Not at the same time, of course, but it was still significant nonetheless.

            The busy cafeteria on Oxford Street.

            ‘He must be there!’ she said to me. ‘He has gone to the memory we have of the first time we met!’

            She had started the painting after experiencing a complete visualisation, with Ethan sitting in the café, alone at a four seated table, as though he was expecting visitors.

            Us.

I believed her words entirely. There was no way that I could not. Her hands were shaking with the excitement, but they were rough from the dedication she had put in to it. Her belief was my belief. In any case, finding Ethan would make her happy. I wanted her happy; that was the end of it.

You may notice that something about this set-up does not make sense. Of course Laura now had a window of her mind that depicted Ethan. But she had not the means to go inside the painting. She no longer had a guide to help her there.

But she had me.

It is here where our belief in the matter extends to heights where only true love can reach.

This was our belief at that moment: Ethan was no longer inside Laura’s mind.

He was now actually sitting inside that busy cafeteria, waiting for us.

We had set him free.

 

7

 

Whether or not you believe in miracles, whether or not you believe in the story I have placed in front of you, it does not matter. Belief is merely a human concept that exists potentially within an individual, but can expand to numbers of an entire nation. Religion of course is in that high category of number.

            But what about love?

            Do you believe in love? Do you want to believe in love? Are you in love at this very moment, or do you wish to be? Again, such things do not matter. These are the wrong questions to ask.

            Instead the question should be this: what does love mean to you?

            It does not matter whether you believe in what I have told you. All in all, I know I believe it. It happened to me and to Laura. It was our beliefs that led us to this conclusion.

            So before I end this story for the good of my writing soul, I wish to leave you with a thought.

            If you do believe in love, ask yourself what it means to be in love. Only then are you potentially able to find your true love. Love can last from seconds, to months, to years. True love spans generations. You do not always have to create painting upon painting in order to find it.

            Sometimes, as with art, the painting; the story; the love finds you.

            God bless.