I make my way back to my desk and remove my driver’s license from my satchel and hurry back to the mystery that awaits.
I manage to wedge my driver’s license between the door and the frame and push down with a few hard swipes. Nothing, but I can see the lock is one of those angled ones so it’s only a matter of time.
I turn the handle as best I can and then start rattling it while I’m forcing my license down the crack and not thirty seconds later…bingo!
I sidestep inside and quietly close the door behind me, taking in the eerily familiar oversized works that are displayed throughout the room.
Familiar not in a way where I recognize the artist who did them, but familiar as in I sense my own style in these.
What the…?
Moving closer to the first piece I see there’s a tiny placard with the artist’s statement.
Wars are fought over a face like hers, although I will never know the curve of her cheek or the sparkle in her eye. Is it possible for a man to create a heartbeat, only to lose his own, when that heartbeat he’s created is taken from him. A heartbeat that would inspire him to work countless hours to impress, even though that baby’s yet to be born. A heartbeat that makes him want to be a better man, so he can protect what’s his, take a bullet if he needed, endure torture and paint until the brush wore away the skin on his very hands. The kind of heartbeat that would possess the owner of where that heartbeat lives to take all that beauty away, only to leave him without a heartbeat to know, or to hear, including the one that is his very own.
It doesn’t really register with me, but it definitely sounds like someone in pain, which makes me cringe. Artists often have more demons than most though, so this man’s, or maybe woman’s, words aren’t exactly unusual.
I turn my head sideways and narrow my focus. Was it a man that painted this, and wrote this. Or was it a woman who spilled her paint, and possibly even her blood, to make this happen?
The name does appear to be signed in actual blood, but like many artist signatures it's illegible. I never quite understood that. As an artist is their work never ’good enough’ in their eyes and therefore they’re actually shy about putting their name on it?
It certainly looks good enough to me, and I wish I could create art with this level of passion, and beauty one day.
I continue walking through the room, and around the various exhibitions, feeling more and more familiar with this work but still unable to put my finger on it. There is note after note of pain, but the one thing that inspires me the most is that I feel like this work could be close enough to mine that maybe I can produce at this level one day.
Silas gave me confidence in myself last night when he told me I should never be embarrassed of who I am, when my little comes out. And this work has given me confidence that I can be a productive adult in the art community. Maybe I’ll never make a million dollars, or even a fraction of that, but at least I can create something I can be proud of.
And that’s all I ever really wanted, artistically speaking.
But suddenly the unmistakable sound of expensive leather shoes on marble are the ones doing the ‘speaking’ and I look for a place to hide.
But it’s too late.
“How dare you!”
I turn around half-way, my body cowering.
“Get out!”
I turn, making a mad dash for the door, weaving around the artworks and making sure not to get within an arm’s length of Silas. Although he’s a big, intimidating man, I know he’d actually never dish out real violence against me, or any other woman.
As soon as I reach the door I don’t stop, running for my desk, grabbing my bag and heading straight to the elevator.
Just as the door opens, I see him walking straight for me.
I dash inside, jamming my finger repeatedly into the close door button and descend to the bottom floor.
I rush out the door and onto the street to the Metrorail stop. I’m not sure where I’m going but I need to get away from here.
I took disobedience too far, and proved to Silas, and myself, that I’ve still got a lot of growing up to do.
And after this it doesn’t seem like our relationship, or whatever it was called, can grow again anytime soon.
I almost had it all and I tossed it away, and I’m not even sure over what.
9
Silas