It's been a while since I posted a short story here! There has been a lot going on not just with me but around the world as well so it took a while before I could sit down and work on this new short story. People often ask me if my previous story "Hurricanes in coffee cups", was based on a true story. I always wind up telling them "Yes... And No." So if anybody should ask if THIS short story is anything like the first short story: "Yes...And No."
Please let me know what you think. Happy reading. Peace!
"A Portrait of The Afflicted"
By Wowie Go
In life, there are always gonna be stories that are left untold. Just as much as we'd like to say that we try to accept every opportunity life hands us, we know we won't get to. It's like trying to sip every last ounce of soda pop out of a bottle with a straw. You suck as hard as you can, tilting the bottle to one side in a desperate attempt to gather all the nectar's sweetness but gag at the choking hot air that comes along with the fluid. Or trying to smoke the very last bit of tobacco in a cigarette. Determined to reach the double-line that separates the contents from the filter you start inhaling a faint taste of what's putrid, something noxious, something that's not the least bit good. And as you keep going the wicked taste continues to overpower the refreshing taste of the tobacco until finally, you've taken in as much as you can stand and you put it off. How much more of the bitterness could you have stomached to compensate for the accomplishment of taking in everything you could?
My philosophy professor a few years ago would contend that the answer to that question simply doesn't exist. What could have been is a mirage in the universe that can only be compared to the unattainable concept of perfection. When one is put in a position where he or she is compelled to choose, whatever it is he or she chooses is the one that becomes part of reality. All other options are supposed to be and are ultimately erased out of existence simply because it isn't as if we can rewind and do the other things we missed out on. Having said that, there is nobody who can say with sheer certainty that they can tell exactly what would've happened had they taken the path of road B instead of road A. But just as we would have it, we DO think about these things with such certainty. And we say it with such certainty that it strikes us as something that is just as real as the choice we've actually made in reality. In not so many words, I call this syndrome by a another name.
Her name was Alice. She was a sophomore taking up fashion. I had been told during the first few terms studying Communication Arts that my university was famous for its smörgåsbord of beautiful women... They definitely were not one to disappoint me once I saw her. She had a slender body, firm breasts, fair radiant complexion matched with a beautiful set of brown almond eyes. Unlike every other beautiful woman on campus however, she struck me so differently.
Most beautiful women tend to exude such a cold personality simply because they KNOW they're beautiful. To them the desire of a run of the mill guy to associate with them is... well, common --therefore uninteresting. They think of it simply as just the order of nature... But she was the exception to this rule. She had a warm radiance to her. A nice, wide, gleaming smile that was just clearly the opposite of the stay the fuck away from me scowl given out by the other beautiful women. Apart from that, she was one of those girls whom you knew was game for anything. Not necessarily in intimate terms but everything in general. She'd be open to cut class to hang out with you the rest of the afternoon and just talk and laugh about the silliest things. I figured she must've been one of those girls who would sneak out with you back in high school to concerts or parties very well aware that whatever over-the-top gathering you were sneaking out to wasn't the reason she went but rather for the thrill of getting caught going to those silly things. In short, she was definitely not a wet blanket.
I was a senior at the time taking up subjects I've failed over the years. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not a slacker. I'm just the kind of student that a professor would either rave about in such high regard that he'd mention me in class every so often or absolutely abhor to the point where he'd just kick me out of the room just breathing the same air as him. One of those exceptions regardless of whoever taught the subject was Literature. I'm not really a big reader. The last book I read with much fervor was Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson back in the third grade. I loved that book up until my sister threw it in a creek near our house one day when she was eleven. It actually took me a decade before I knew how it ended but by then I just didn't care enough to read anymore. Ergo, I could definitely care less about how and why it was written either. However, it just so happened that world literature was one of those courses I HAD to retake. I did and always will resent that subject. Nonetheless, I was still compelled to sign up for the subject so I could finally graduate and get to writing for an ad agency –the job I've always wanted.
It was the last day of World Literature class. Our professor had just started discussing the Orwellian language of Newspeak in complete detail that I found it such an irony how one could speak so draggingly about a concept meant to simplify human communication. Somewhere in the world George Orwell must be turning over in his grave just hearing this woman speak. But I wasn't at all digesting any of what my professor was saying. All I knew was that I had to finish what I was doing. I carried a sketch book with me. It was a nine by twelve sketch pad that was left over from my design principles class that I decided to use as a journal. I only used half of it back then so I decided to fill it up with my inner thoughts. I guess I felt inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci who used his Mona Lisa as HIS own journal. He was reportedly carrying it around with him everywhere ever so careful in piecing it together whenever he could. People always said Da Vinci never finished Mona Lisa. Go figure, Alice was my Mona Lisa.
The sketchbook was almost full with her drawings. A doodle of her figure from the back row, a caricature of her sideways, an almost cubist looking rendering of her taking down notes of Shakespeare. Among all the other drawings I've done of her, there was but one that I considered my Pièce de résistance. It was a portrait of her on a plain white background done in pencil. I had been working on it for the three months I took world literature. I've come a very long way in finishing the drawing. Only it was missing the most important things...
I started that sketch one January afternoon. I laid out the half-filled sketch pad on the burgundy armchair I was sitting on that day, just grabbed the roundest pencil out of the bag and mildly began to draw her figure on the paper. Everything came easy at first. She was so buxom, so blithe that the shapeliness of her body was so easy to follow. I made it a point that I was always seated at the aisle that divided the classroom into two. It was the best view I could find from the filled-up classroom. She was always seated at the very right corner in front which made it hard for anybody else to draw her likeness. But even though the gap between the two of us were far apart, the curvature of her radiant body would just roll off the lead of my pencil. So sleek and so beautiful.
Drawing in most of her details was very tedious. She would let me sit with her on the far right corner of the room while she was intently listening to the professor's ramblings about Chinua Achebe and Things fall apart. My mind was definitely somewhere else. My mind, as far as I was concerned was at my hands and my fingertips. I glanced at her from time to time soaking in as much as I could. Her brunette hair swept to one side, the cherry red blush smeared on her cheeks, the soft cottony feel of her I love NY shirt, the way her flared denim pants traveled down the contour of her legs and those jagged little bits of duct tape wrapped around the instep of her worn out left sneaker. I had never been this close to her that every mundane detail seemed to be so wondrous.
By February my work was finally taking shape. Everything from her hair to the creases on her shirt were complete. I had never felt such a sense of accomplishment in my life. I'd gotten caught up in drawing her portrait so much that I decided to finally take a break. So one crisp February afternoon, I left my sketchbook in the backseat of my car. There it would sit for a greater part of that short month wasting away, basking in the sun for days at a time slowly shriveling. All the while inside of me felt like what it must feel like to have climbed a treacherous mountain, what it must feel like for a queer to come out of the closet or what it must feel like to have been first at something seemingly impossible to everybody else... like the moon –or Everest! Owning emotional vindication through having channeled everything I had for Alice into one seemingly significant piece of art, made me feel at ease. It was then that I discovered that when one's mind isn't boggled by one or a few thoughts everything seems to be perceived clearer than one ever thought was possible. Because just as nothing had changed in the span of mirroring a woman's gracious image on to a blank piece of paper, I found that the professor's rantings weren't so dulled anymore, the books actually appeared to be interesting and I was as gleeful as any student ever could have been. I finally participated in that otherwise irrelevant class. I even got into a heated debate with the professor about James Hilton's Lost Horizon and why Conway chose to leave Shangri-La for Barnard and Lo-Tsen's love for one another. Conway was an idiot, enough said.
It was the second week of February since I had last seen Alice. She was no longer seated on the front right corner seat where she had always sat. I took it as a casual absence the first time she had cut her class. After all, she was a huge contributor to the school's newspaper who was at the time about to go into publication for their last issue of the school year. But somewhere around the third and fourth meeting she was away, her disappearance started to become unexplainable. She had disappeared just as my emotional honeymoon was finally losing its momentum. As I drove home that night I saw the sketchbook sitting neglected in the backseat. The glossy blue cover page had warped. Still warm to the touch as it slowly burned from days of exposure to the sun. When I got home I took the sketchbook that I had abandoned out of the car, opened it to the page of her drawing and just stared at her incomplete face. If I squinted I could faintly make out the details of her nose and mouth. But if I closed my eyes altogether I could see the image of her like a block of ice melting away in the hot summer sun just leaving behind a trail of her Juniper breeze body spray for me to just desperately grasp. It was as if the captivating image was slowly drifting farther and farther away. Caught in a fit of rage the sweat rolled down the side of my face and into my neck as I tried feverishly to finish the drawing under the light of my dimming old desk lamp. I wondered how many times I've seen her face during the time she was in class as I kept drawing her face until the pencil had finally dulled and the paper finally grew thin and nearly tore through. The fit of rage was overtaken by a bitter surrender... my concession was imminent.
The Friday of the last class, I came to the classroom half an hour early with the worn out sketchbook in hand. The burgundy armchairs were still unoccupied, the lights were still off and the musty smell of the insides of the idle air-conditioner still filled the warm humid air. I sat on the armchair by the aisle that divided the empty classroom where I usually sat just staring at the burgundy armchair on the right corner that hadn't been occupied in over a month. One by one the room filled up with students who were eager to finish the last hour-long stretch of World Literature. At exactly 4:15 that afternoon, the lights finally turned on, the cold dry breeze of the musty old air-conditioner began to fill the room and the professor finally came in with her copy of George Orwell's 1984 in her hand. I wondered if Alice would ever come to class just as I heard the draft of air rushing out of the front door that just opened. Lo and behold, someone was walking across the room. Duct taped worn-out sneaker, flared jeans, peach cotton shirt, hair swept to one side... The armchair that had cradled my masterpiece was occupied one last time.
But there was something different. I didn't know if it was my inability to practice drawing for quite sometime or her unusual tossing and turning in her armchair that March afternoon. I found myself in a struggle to finish all that I can on that weathered old sketchbook more so than I ever did before. She fidgeted from her armchair like those anxious to leave around her sitting upright one second and slouching on another. I would find the perfect angle for me to get a good view of her eyes but she would turn away at the very last second. She rocked back and forth leaning forward with her head on the armrest for quite a while and leaning back on the backrest after. I never could have thought drawing such a beautiful image could be this tiresome --could be this frustrating. But as I looked at the portrait I had done for the past three months, after having been drained of all sophomoric emotions, everything seemed apparent. The figure of her body wasn't as well defined anymore, the creases on her shirt were dulled and the lines were smeared out from all around. This was the same angelic portrait I reveled in awe months ago and yet I still knew something better could've been done. It was just too late to fix. Just as Winston Smith conceded that two plus two was equal to five at the end of 1984, I just closed my battered sketchbook and waited until the bell finally rang. Until she got up from her seat and left.
On to my next portrait.
