Art is Dead

The sun pierced through Dorian’s smoky onyx suit jacket and pristinely white dress shirt, kissing his skin with its warmth. Its light seemed to radiate everywhere, accentuating colors like the red from Dorian’s silk pocket square and tie and reflecting off his bronze cufflinks. Such a lovely day seemed worthy of a stroll through town.

The town was quiet at this time of day, so quiet Dorian could hear the heel of his carbon colored dress shoes clicking against the blue-grey cobblestones that lined the streets. As he passed the brightly colored houses that accompanied him on his way, a sight took Dorian back to his childhood. A scarlet fire hydrant had erupted and a group of children in shades of fuchsia, lime green, and turquoise frolicked in the majestic waterfall that cascaded down on them.

A smile crossed Dorian’s lips as he thought back to when he and his sister would play in the rain in their Sunday best. Once they returned to their home, their mother would shriek hysterically at the mess of mud that would trail through the house behind them. His mother would never approve of what the children were doing but Dorian found himself having to resist the urge to join them.

The street curved slightly, revealing a lilac building that housed a quaint coffee shop. The entrance was adorned by twinkling lights that come nighttime always seemed enticing. Behind a large cedar door, peach, lavender, and crème cloaked stools lined an electric blue counter. The place was surrounded by large bay windows where readers would curl up to read masterpieces and writers tried to compose their own.

A beautiful girl with porcelain skin and chestnut curls that covered her back stood behind the counter. She smiled at Dorian as she handed him his drink, she was accustomed to his schedule. Every morning, rain, hail or snow, Dorian would come to the coffee shop with his notebook and pen and sit at a bay window from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm. She had witnessed Dorian’s frustrations many times. As an attempt to comfort the frustrated writer, she’d always take over a sweet treat which Dorian received with a dazzling smile, but he never spoke a word to her.

Dorian suffered of a personal mental block. He had entrapped himself in his head and was never truly able to say what he felt, what he thought, what he needed. His solitude and quietness had opened up something in Dorian, something that he believed to be both a blessing and a torment. He was observant and acute to others’ feelings. An absolute empath, but of all the things he noticed, he never spoke a word. In his mind, he was a valiant hero, but reality had doomed him to keep his opinions to himself.

The town’s clock tower rung its chiming bells announcing the arrival of lunch time. Dorian picked up the multiple drafts he’d scattered around the floor and tossed them in the bin. Yet again, Dorian had found himself blocked by memories that flooded him and impeded his progress on the masterpiece he wished to write. It was this need to shut the world out that time and again seemed to prevent Dorian from writing.

When he left the coffee shop, the sun was still warming up the day, but clouds began to clutter the sky. His walk led him to Pearl Street which was booming with sounds and people. Masses coming and going pushed and shoved Dorian who quickly found himself overwhelmed. Music blared from cafés and stores competing for people’s attention. Everyone saw each other but no one really looked.

After fighting his way through the crowd, Dorian crossed the large Spanish doors which protected his favorite ale house, his haven. What had initially attracted Dorian to the pub was its rosewood door. The iron details that kept the glass safe drew him in, but it was the delicate carvings that invited him to enter. Opulent chandeliers swung from the ceiling; diamonds twinkling in their light as they dangled from the piece. The light gave it a nebulous feeling but it seemed fit for Dorian who had chosen to hide from the light, from the truth the world sough to tell him.

The ceiling was a sight to behold in and of itself. It was all rosewood, carved to perfection. In its carvings hid angels – cherubs that watched over the deeds of the affluent men and women that hid inside the building. The wooden rods all connected like chains.

The art of the door and ceiling matched the art of the iron chairs and tables. The legs of the tables and chairs wound themselves and looked as elegant as lace. The true masterpiece rested on top of the tables. Hand-crafted mosaics depicting some on the greatest pieces of art our world has seen.

Dorian’s feet felt unworthy as they paved a way for him on the marble floor and led him to a table in the center of the bar. He buried himself behind his menu and after quietly ordering, he shut out the world as he sat, pen in hand, and tried – in vain – to write…anything.

Around him, the aristocrats gloated about their businesses and their stocks while they guffawed and shouted in merriment. Dorian heard none of it as he focused intently on the blank piece of yellow, striped paper. Any time the tip of his ball-pen would make contact with the page, a sickness invaded his mind and hindered his progress.

His sickness had been worsening as of late. He seemed to see everything whenever he tried to write and it scared him. He thought himself accursed by this ailment but trying to shut it out was the real danger. He saw them all: his mother, the children, and the woman from the coffee shop, even the waiters at the ale house. It was unbearable for Dorian whose world view disallowed any disturbances. And so he quietly enjoyed his meal in the dim lighting and thought of his sister.

In Dorian’s eyes, his sister was always meant to do great things. Her undulating red hair always mesmerized him, it was a stark contrast to the darkness the covered his head in lush, sleek locks. But it was in her jade eyes that he always saw this vivaciousness – this potential that he didn’t even recognize in himself.

Alice could enter a room and fill it with joy and laughter. She was always at the top of her class, but it was her caring nature and her dedication that always led Dorian to believe that there was more out there for her than the lives they’d led.

Thinking of Alice and her peculiar schemes lightened Dorian’s mood considerably by the time he finished his lunch. As he pushed the rosewood Spanish door, Dorian was astounded by two things: the first, the streets had quickly emptied. The second, the splendid sun that had accompanied him throughout the morning had vanished behind the opaque, murky clouds. Dorian let the door shut behind him and continued his journey down the cobblestone streets.

The day seemed to have died along with the crowds, sounds, and smells that typically invaded the streets after his lunch. He looked across the street toward a burgundy banner that announced the holiday menu from the bakery across the street. The rope had come undone on the right side and the specials were half-covered by the fallen side.

He traversed toward the bakery and stopped to examine the rope which had a red streak of paint on it that matched Alice’s hair perfectly. It felt rough between his fingers except for where the red paint embraced the wheat colored rope. Grabbing the fallen rope, he tucked it into his satchel once he noticed even the owners were gone and so no one would stop him.

The smells of pastries and bread were noticeably absent from the streets, so were the sounds of the garbled music that clubs and bars would blast in their desperate attempts to pull in the hordes of teenagers that infested the streets.

Dorian had never been one to partake in social activities. He abhorred any and every place where he would find himself cornered or pushed up against other people. He needed his space – his freedom – but something had always tried to force him to enter a club down the street. To combat this desire, Dorian entered a nearby church.

The church was nothing like the imperially regal cathedrals that lived up the street from his home. It did not possess the grandiose stain glass windows depicting multiple saints. Nor did it feature the awe-inspiring high ceilings with their enviable acoustics and design.

It lacked those thick mahogany doors that exuded elegance. There were no immaculately white marble floors, nor a magnificent Rood welcoming you with the victorious image of salvation. The Cherrywood pews did not stray far from the glorious altar where a priest would rest in his throne.

No, this church had none of the ostentations of his social circle and that is why his mother always begged him to never walk down the street, always up – only up. She did not want him to see the reality of the cruel world. She did not want him to see the shanties “those people” called homes. She didn’t want him to see the police barging into houses and beating innocent people.

She feared his reaction to boarded up houses, homeless children, and anything that would make him revile his wealth – his upbringing. It was her who had fed Dorian this pure and innocent view of the world. She feared the worse if his unrealistic expectations ever crashed.

Dorian’s hand trembled as it reached through a crack in the simple double doors composed of un-furbished maple wood. He pulled one of the doors back and as he went to enter, a stray black cat ran past him. Startled, Dorian struggled to balance himself in order to avoid a fall. There were no pews but simple plastic chairs, some of which were already threatening to break. The altar was a mess of cinderblocks and cement.

The chandeliers were transformed into simple lighting fixtures. The stain-glass windows were small and few. The wood carvings of the Passion of the Christ which Dorian had grown so accustomed to seemed to evanescence in the small church.

The floorboards could only attempt to imitate the finest wood in its laminate form. Dorian forced his feet toward the front and he kneeled before the altar. He made a quick prayer for his sister and was horrified when he looked up and saw the image of Christ with a maggot crawling out of where its eye should have been.

Disgusted by the amount of bugs crawling around in the church, Dorian exited quietly but rapidly. A gust of wind caressed him as his feet made contact with the cobblestone. For years, Dorian had been escaping from his mother to attend the coffee shop and the ale house, but he had never noticed what surrounded his beautiful places. They seemed to be the few gems among the streets.

“It must have been the people,” thought Dorian.

They had covered up the filth and the despair that filled the now empty streets Dorian had always failed to notice as he waded through tough crowds. The novelty of it all seduced Dorian into walking further down, down to the place his feet always tempted him to go. He finally gave in and allowed them to lead him to the club.

The neon lights were off, a broken window had been boarded up and the usually energetic emerald green door had lost its luster. It had been a while since Dorian had traveled so far into the city. He did not recall the terracotta shaded lots that lacked any pavement. He had no memory of the mustard yellow dive bars. Rarely had he thought of the eggplant funeral home which had gone out of business a while back by the looks of the peeling paint. It was all there and he’d never really seen, he’d only looked.

Looking back at the club, Dorian thought, “Something must have happened, it must have been on the news,” but he never watched the news.

He never did anything that could threaten to interrupt his only masterpiece: his view of the world. His hand reached for the faded gold knob and he gently pushed the door inwardly. The wood from the bar was chipped and rotting, broken shards covered the floor. The shards that didn’t come from broken mugs came from broken windows. The old pool table was stained with dried beer that had been spilt long ago.

The tables were covered in graffiti and the chairs were either broken or toppled over. What little remained of alcohol bottles on the shelves were emptied. Toward the back, a door had been forcibly ripped off its hinges revealing a bathroom with no running water and infested with rats. The place must have been wonderful once, before it had been ransacked by hoodlums.

Terrified and disgusted by the rats, Dorian walked in reverse and jolted once his back bumped an old jukebox. The sound of the machine sent him sprinting down the road, frightened of what its invisible source might be.

Dorian ran down the street without thinking, his feet barely touching the ground. Navy blue and beige buildings flashed by him. He finally came to a stop and realized he was lost. A heavy fog had descended on the streets making his world eerie. He heard couples screaming at each other, babies weeping, some looked down from their windows at him. He didn’t belong.

Far in the distance he could hear sirens, he shook with fright. His thoughts went to his mother. He should’ve heeded her warning. He should have listened, but it was too late to listen now. His fear blocked his mind, he wanted to turn around, to go back, but he couldn’t. His mind tricked him into thinking that there was no way out. His curiosity propelled him forward.

He saw children in the streets here too, but they were not playing. Their faces were darkened by dirt, their clothes were but rags of neutral colors Dorian couldn’t pick out. There was no broken fire hydrant, only stale air. The children gave him puzzled looks before ducking into an abysmal alley where their fates had been sealed.

Nothing here shun, not the sun, not the people, not the colors. The foliage was all dead in shades of coffee, ebony, and ash. It all seemed frail and bleak. Life had been drained from this part of town and it was being drained from Dorian too with every step he took. It was a town of invisible people whom he heard but did not see and phantoms whom he only saw for a minute before they vanished.

The further he walked, the more the fog thickened. The few street lamps that had been his companion in these streets had now all faded into distant memories in the darkness which was only lit by a silver beam of moonlight. It seemed as if no one lived in the houses and complexes he passed. There were no quarrels, no weeping or sorrow, no apparitions – there was nothing.

For a minute, Dorian enjoyed the silence, he relished in it. It did not shatter his perfect world like the shouting and crying did. He pretended everyone in the boarded up houses was asleep. Lovers wrapped in each other’s embrace. Children with smiles tucked tightly into their dream clouds as they dreamt of the adventures to come.

Everything was happy, and quiet, and filled with peace…but only for a moment. Dorian had been drunk with the moonlight’s sweet nectar which seduced minds into romanticized universes where nothing could harm or do wrong. His bit of moon could only take him so far, and in its light, like at the end of a rainbow, something rested nestled against a stone hard wall.

There was no magic at the end of a moonlight beam, but a man shivering in the night’s freezing weather. Dorian approached him with caution. The man trembled as he curled himself into a ball in an attempt to shield his body from the cold. Before him stood a piece of cardboard propped up by his legs. The wear and tear of the rain and the man’s life had made the writing unintelligible.

The man looked up at Dorian, fear in his bloodshot eyes. With gentleness Dorian removed his suit jacket and handed it to the man. The night’s cool air pierced Dorian’s skin through his white shirt that stood out against the muck on the man’s clothes.

The man gave Dorian a weak smile as he covered his small frame with the jacket. His long white beard stood out like Dorian’s shirt against the man’s skin, darkened by hard days under the sun.

Dorian noticed the man’s hands as he clung to the jacket. Varicose veins protruded from the once soft skin. They seemed rough to the touch, like sand paper. His long fingernails were caked with dirt underneath. The man’s feet were covered in yellowed scars that had been infected due to lack of treatment. Some were fresh and stood out in the darkness due to the vibrancy of their crimson hue.

A small tin can rested by the man’s feet. A few measly coins covered the bottom. These would never be enough for the man to get by, they would not even provide him with a good breakfast. Dorian searched in his pockets and fished out a nice sum for the man.

A smile crossed his face as he imagined the man’s meals for the next day. He deposited the money in the man’s can and the man, who had been dozing in the warmth of the jacket, awoke with the clanging of the coins.

He looked into his tin can and was awestruck at the money Dorian had left. He collected his can and the suit jacket and rose with difficulty. He made his way toward a run-down café and disappeared. Nothing was nestled in the moonbeam now but Dorian. Without his jacket, the cool night seemed harsh but Dorian felt no impulse to go back so he walked toward the darkness, followed always by the moon.

He came before a clearing where nothing existed but Dorian, the moon, and a willow tree. Something took hold of Dorian and he ran through the tall dried grass toward the willow. His back against the trunk, Dorian sat below the willow and from his satchel he retrieved his notebook and pen. Whatever had possessed Dorian had a strong hold that urged him to write of the memories without fear.

For the first time in years, Dorian let his sickness take over and he allowed his pen to roam freely through the page. The first thing it spewed was about his mother. His dear mother who Dorian resented and hated deeply, he always had but she was all he had, so he clung to her. A prisoner of his own mother.

Oh, if anyone were to read his thoughts they’d be terrified and confused, how could anyone hate their mother? Yet his mad ramblings read as so:

They all thought her so godly. She was always the first to arrive at the cathedral and present her prayers to the Lord. Always sang the loudest, prayed the loudest, always first to receive communion. She was no saint as they’d all have her be.

She was cruel to us – my sister and I. She would beat us and then instruct us to wear garments that would hide her deplorable actions. Many a times she’d broken our bones and then accused us of being the culprits through our games. They all believed her.

That’s why I never told anyone about what she did to my sister and me. That is why I tried so hard to not give into the sickness. My sickness brought with it all I kept at bay, it took away the perfect world I’d carefully crafted for myself.

For years I’d told myself it wasn’t real, it hadn’t happened. But, alas, it had. My mother would come into my room every night, she’d make sure Alice wasn’t present. She would caress my hair until she thought I’d fallen asleep. Her hands would travel down my chest and rest at the edge of the elastic band of my underwear.

I always wondered if she felt my skin crawl and my body tremble as she did it. Her filthy, filthy hands would make their way between my legs where her sick hands would caress my soft skin.

I would try to shift or scream but my fear hindered me and all I could do was stay there, pretending to be asleep and praying until it was over. She’d always take her time. The older I was, the longer it would last. When she would touch me, I would be screaming on the inside but I was condemned to keep quiet.

It started out with her touching me, then she would touch herself and I felt nothing but revulsion. I would cry, and she noticed! She pretended she didn’t but she noticed. She wanted more, she always wanted more but it must have been God that kept her from it as I prayed to Him to save me.

As I prayed one night, I felt her trying to undress me, that’s when Alice came in, and that’s when everything became worse for her. She knew what my mother was doing, she knew she must have done it before and she tried to go to the police but my mother knocked her out cold and locked her in our basement.

She beat her every day, she starved her. My poor Alice who had the world at her feet, who was destined to be something big, died in our damned basement because of me. Had I said something, had I done something I would have been the one to meet her fate.

The last time I saw Alice was the night she died. I crept into the basement one night and there she was. My mother had just beaten her. I could see the bruises all over her frail body, bones broken with ease. I could count her ribs and when she saw me she looked frightened.

She begged me to leave, she said mother would punish me if she caught me down there, but for the first time in my life I refused to fear my mother. I stayed with my sister that night. I nursed her wounds, I fed her, I stayed with her until she drifted off into that eternal slumber I longed for every day since I lost her. I didn’t cry. I should have, but I never did because Alice was finally safe from that monster.

Dorian dropped his pen as he wept all the tears he had held in all these years whenever he thought of Alice. As his tears subsided Dorian decided that if he was to give in to his sickness he would do it fully. He thought no more of himself but of what he’d ignored his whole life. In the abysmal darkness that surrounded him, he thought of the woman from the coffee shop.

There was always this man who came in when Dorian did, he harassed her, he mocked her, he would grab her and mistreat her and Dorian never said a word. He thought of her treats for him and for the first time, instead of looking at her face, he noticed her hands. The chipping red nail polish and the bruises around her wrists from when the man grabbed her.

“I should have given into my sickness and seen. I should have spoken up,” he thought, but it was too late now.

His mind shifted to the ale house and the waiters he ignored. The business men who mistreated them. Dorian was one of them, a business man. He had gone corporate after his mother forced him into it because she never believed he’d live as an artist – no one ever did. He wasn’t like those men, he knew that, but for the first time he acknowledge their behavior.

The men would never tip the servers who so graciously treated them. They would attack them, spill their food on them, trip them, mock them because they had no wealth. No, Dorian had not been a culprit of these actions, but his were worse in his eyes.

He had never spoken up. He had been so absorbed in his perfect world and in his need to write a masterpiece that he had ignored the truth and that made him just as bad. He thought of one of the waiters, always courteous to him. He thought of his red bowtie coming undone as one of the businessmen shook him for mixing up some minimal detail in his order.

His mind skipped to the children he’d seen that day. First, the ones playing. Dorian had seem more than their vibrant clothes and heard more than their laughter. One of the boys had rolled up his sleeves, revealing amethyst bruises, ruby scars, and cigarette burns. Dorian saw himself in the children but it was not memories of playing in the rain, but of the beatings that came when he and Alice arrived with dirty clothes.

Children were always doomed to speechlessness. That boy will suffer like Dorian did and he did nothing to save him. He also did nothing about the kids who looked at him in the dingy streets. They had no home, they would not sleep on a comfortable bed, they were going to sleep hungry and dirty and alone in a wretched ally. One of them would die that same night, he’d seen the amber blood oozing from a nasty open wound.

Orphans, he’d never seen them but his mother always boasted about her donations for them. Their fate was sealed in those alleys. They were going to die, those who didn’t would turn to drugs, the girls would turn to prostitution. No one was going to save them, no one could save anyone from this wretched world.

Lastly, he thought of the homeless man. Under moonlight’s magic Dorian had fooled himself into thinking that the man was going to get supper, but that café was no more. Inside, all the vagabonds would pay to get their fix. That night that man would share a needle and it would lead him to a horrible death. The blood inside him would mix with others’ sickness and he would doom himself, that’s how it always happened.

He could never print this, thought Dorian, the world cannot know the truth because it does not wish to recognize it. He too was going to die. Either he’d become an artist and find himself starved and cast out from his society or he would be a businessman.

Dorian knew there really was no option. His mother thought his writing a hobby, a passing fad. She would never allow him to be an artist, she was already killing him. He would become one of them, he would be a corporate man and he would be damned if he would allow that to happen.

His sickness had taken over, it was no longer Dorian who thought for himself but it. He was going mad, but he would go even madder if he had to become one of them. He searched his satchel for the rope and hung it from the tree, it was too long.

He retrieved his pocket knife and quickly cut it. His hands were trembling, causing the knife to slip and slice his hand, the crimson matching the paint on the rope. He ignored the blood and the pain and quickly knotted a noose. Dorian had seen the world, he had seen the truth. His sickness and his sensibilities had conspired against him. He was overwhelmed and sorrow was his ailment.

The longer he looked at the rope, the longer he longed for Alice and her red hair. His head went through the noose and he let himself go. As the air escaped him he thought of the nail polish, the bowtie, the hydrant – the wounds. The only things that stood out in his memory were red.

In the darkness the homeless man stood facing the willow. Between the fog and the dying moonlight he saw a ruby pocket square and a scarlet tie. His bare feet touched something damp and looking down he saw the blood, life drained from a man who saw the truth and was overcome. Many saw, but Dorian finally looked. Many heard, but Dorian finally listened.

#literature #shortstory #art #writer #writing #abuse #dark #reality