Breathless

A bored artist muses about peoples reactions to human suffering...

Breathless

In art school he had envisioned himself doing great works focusing on the human condition: the homeless man, the impoverished mother.  Sadly, by the time he got out of school, he discovered that it wasn't still the gilded age. The “human condition” had become “human interest” and every know-nothing with a Polaroid camera was focusing on the bums coming in and out of the soup kitchens.

There was nothing worse then being an uninspired artist in Europe. His rent was due, his student loan was due, and more importantly his father had stopped sending him money. It was time to become inspired, or die. So he sat on a bench, watching as the tourists came and went, all the while hoping that something would awaken the fat, slovenly muse he’d been saddled with.

There came an awkward hush, people moved aside as the curator strode through the crowd pushing a wheelchair. The girl in the chair was maybe 15, pale, her cheeks sunken and her eyes closed. Perched upon her head was a jaunty green knit cap, cleverly designed to look like a frog.

The man that followed the two wore a bright blue shirt, the words Make A Wish Foundation emblazoned on the front and back.

For most people, this scene would have been enough to make a person cry. He, however, merely rolled his eyes. Human Interest, indeed.

He looked instead at the people watching the scene unfold, some of them looked teary eyed, others looked scared. Some people were exposed to this sort of thing everyday while others had obviously never seen a dying person up close and personal.

Europe has an unspoken rule, “If you are dying, do not look it. If you look like you are dying, don’t let anybody see you.” Tuberculosis was perfectly acceptable. AID’s was hidden high tragedy that walked the streets every day. Yet nobody stepped foot outside when they suffered the ravages of chemotherapy. Hairless, shrunken people were a shock to the system. Heaven forbid that people face their own mortality!

He watched on in a bored sort of way as the wheelchair neared the portrait. The Mona Lisa. Of course, how quaint. No doubt the reporters would be feasting upon this for days to come.

The girl raised her head and stared up at the woman’s face, her eyes soaking up every detail. He watched this for no less then fifteen minutes as she stared intently on the canvas. Finally he’d had enough.

“Excuse me, sir, may I ask her a couple of questions?” He asked the man in the blue shirt.

The man turned to him, his tired face looked battle ready. “We don’t talk to reporters.”

“I’m not a reporter. I’m just curious about why she chose this as her wish.” He said, surprised to find that this was true.

The man’s blue eyes wavered for a second. “I’ll ask her if she wants to talk to you.” He leaned down beside the girl and whispered in her ear. She looked around and nodded. “She’ll talk to you. Don’t upset her.” He warned.

Slowly he made his way to the girl’s side, not bending down beside her. “So… The Mona Lisa?”

“Oh, yes.” She said wistfully, “You could say that I was dying to see her.”  The horrid joke was softened by a brilliant smile.

He stared at her a moment. “A morbid little thing, aren't you?”

She shrugged her birdlike shoulders. “Let me guess, you want to know why?”  She sighed and shrugged. “I suppose I had to meet the woman who has been known the world over for hundreds of years.”

It was a cheerful, inspiring little comment, one she’d probably tossed off to the reporters. Deep down, he knew it wasn't true. “What’s the real reason?” He asked as he stared at the gigantic goggly eyes of her hat.

She chuckled. “Back at the hospital where I was diagnosed, they had this poster of the Mona Lisa on the wall. I would sit, the chemo burning and making me sicker then the cancer ever did, and watch her smirk at me.” She said bitterly. “Twice a week, every week, I’d suffer under her grin.”  The girl brought her frail hand to her head, wiping the hat away, revealing an appallingly shiny scalp. “I felt so small, so pathetic, so fragile. Then one day I learned the truth. The real painting was tiny, so old that it had cracks in the paint, and had to be handled with special care. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that my torturer was more fragile then me.  I felt… Sorry for her.” She pauses a moment and looked up at me. “I guess it sounds stupid, right? Coming all this way to keep a painting company.”

He couldn't speak, so he merely stared in horror down into the dull blind eyes. 

Author's Note

The premise of this story is that the un-named artist is a jerk with a superiority complex. He's disdainful to people's reactions to death, but when faced with blindness, as an artist, he recoils in horror.

Reviews

[gombeggar]

i really like the writing...it is very well done...but tere seems to be a hole in the plot...if she's blind how did she even know the mona lisa stared at in the hospital? ...or if she only became blind thru chemo or such wut was her point to being trucked to look on something she could no longer see?

[jadda12]

I enjoyed reading it. It comments on how everyone has their own reasons behind doing something, yet we still always judge people and already think that we know why they are doing something. Nice job

[Marie]

Good story. All your stories that I've read have been good.

Look at the third sentence from the end. You slipped into first person when you're writing in third person.

[Alex]

Thank you so much for your review. I thank you more for catching that defect.

[tworeeler]

Wow. Great contribution, full of anger and honesty. This unfortunately holds true of many artists (myself included). Ego is almost a necessary evil in any artistic endeavor. Callousness is the unfortunate byproduct.

Looking forward to reading more, welcome to writer's cafe!


p.s. - Also a welcome change from the maudlin teenage poetry that plagues this site.