Vanitas

This is a story written for a school assignment in which I was tasked with "remediating" something. That is, turning a message in one medium, into a message in another medium.

The original media which provided the inspiration for this story, and for which this story seeks to serve as an explanation is a Dutch baroque painting by David Baily, entitled Vanitas. Vanitas is a still life painting with a portrait, and part of a larger genre that was popular at the time known as a Memento Mori; a reminder of death. The painting therefore conveys mortality and the transience of life as a central theme and depicts many elements that invoke thoughts of aging, death, and mortal pursuits. The idea behind this project was to turn a painting into a story, and in explaining the strangeness of the painting, create something that the painting could have been an illustration of. I have included the painting to accompany this submission.

 

Remediation: Vanitas, a short story by Joe Iennaco

                The man strode through the streets of Florence at a brisk pace. Those who crossed his path, or walked past him, or along side of him, made barely any notice of him, and yet instinctively, subtly, in a way that nobody would have noticed but him, they veered well out of his way. An air of vague discomfort permeated his presence. He was not offended. None of them would have even noticed their slight, were it pointed out. And none of them would have been able to recall specifically, the short, dark, stranger in fine clothes they passed on the way to wherever they were going.

                His eyes wandered with a natural curiosity back and forth across the street, and those he looked upon felt a brief chill and a shudder down their spine, and automatically averted their gaze, as though afraid to make eye contact. The stranger looked briefly, with little interest, at the children running about. Many people are fascinated by youth because to them, youth represented potential: they were fascinated by all the things that a child could become. This man, on the other hand, likened their state to an uncarved block of marble; why get excited? There's nothing to be impressed by... yet. He had a greater disdain for youth's present chaos and dynamic unformed personalities of children than the fascination of others by the not yet realized potential of their future. He was a creature of habit, and though where you may see chaos where he sees a meticulously arranged collection, where he saw chaos, there was chaos. And the idea of a personality and a future that changed as often as the tide, profoundly annoyed him. The children ran happily by him, nearly oblivious to his disquieting presence, unlike nearly everyone else on that street. He paid nearly as little attention to them as they did to him.

                Quickly passing his gaze away from these strange little creatures, he laid his eyes on the vain. Young, beautiful men and women, or so they all told each other. He for one, saw no beauty in such ignorant foolishness. To devote so much money, time, and effort, so much of the limited potential of their short lives to their vanity, something they knew would fade within so short a time, he felt was the height of absurdity. They could have devoted their lives to the world, or to the persistence of memory, where their achievements, perhaps etched in marble, might last for eternity. Instead they devoted themselves to none other than their own lives, and their achievements would last no longer. As foolish as a snake that hopes to sustain itself by eating its own body. He would take a guilty pleasure in watching them wrinkle and grey. And then, he knew, his soft heart would pity them, as they realized the error they had committed. He would hope they made time to leave something of a legacy, while they could.

                Then he looked upon those of middling age. These were the ones who looked most wary, who trembled most heavily in his presence. Who, if not deterred by fear, would glance back out of the corner of their eye to see if the short, dark, stranger had passed. They were firmly engaged in their life's work, and they looked to him like the drafts of uncommissioned paintings; enough there to imagine the whole of their parts, but enough blank space to surprise you yet, anxiously awaiting the judgment of their patron. The stranger was not, of course, and was not so arrogant as to pretend to be, the patron of mankind, who called them into being and would take final possession upon their completion. But if he was, he mused, he would commission a great many of these people. A cobbler, a farmer, a mother of three, all he saw just then had made good work of their lives. All of them had given gifts to the world, and all of them would have happily given more than they could, given the time.

                He reached the house to which he was headed, and entered, unbidden. There, laying on his deathbed, was an ancient lute player. Around the bed, stood a family. The dark stranger was impressed. Not many common musicians had the talent to feed so many. Some family members wept at the stranger's approach, but they parted to make room for him at the bedside, though he was uninvited. He smiled at the old man, still feebly clutching his instrument. The man half returned the smile; the two had long made peace, but the shadow of sorrow on the man's face was for his family, to whom this meeting was quite unwelcome.

                "Are you ready to go?" asked the stranger?

                "Not quite yet." Said the old man. As he gripped the neck of his lute and began to strum a final song. A new song, the visitor recognized, for he had long been a fan of the man's work. As the notes sang out with the enduring talent of a much younger man, the visitor admired the scene: a dying man, with his legacy arrayed around him. His family at his bedside, knowing between them, all his songs by heart, and as much as he would finish of his final song, sounding in the air.

                "The last notes are mine." Said the visitor, interrupting the song to take the man's lute away, the last chords, and as of yet unwritten songs still hanging onto the thing like loose strings. And as the instrument left his hands, his soul, as though tied to the instrument and man, flew from his body. Presumably to Heaven, everyone assumed. The stranger walked home, lute in hand. Unplayed notes still dangling from it, unwritten songs still rattling around inside. Everything the dying man failed to leave to the world now belonged to this stranger.

                At home, he found a table which he felt would be a suitable place. He moved the skull centerpiece & the baby out of the way. He decided it would look better leaning upright, so he stood an unfinished manuscript upright to lean it on. He tried a few things to get keep the manuscript from falling over. The easel of an uninvented style was too light, a flute full of unplayed songs kept rolling over. He eventually used another few unwritten books and it stayed just fine. He took a second to admire it; another perfect arrangement of gifts. Tokens of legacies. All the best legacies are unfinished, he thought, for all the greatest people are those who can never allow themselves to stop achieving.