Prompt: You are a piece of art.
I didn’t see her right away.
My knees knocked as I stumbled backward, biting my tongue that had a string of curses ready to fire like a cartridge of bullets in a gun. Though my glare was surely venomous, the old man remained unharmed as he shouldered past me. If I’d known an art museum could be such a battle ground, I never would have agreed to come with my friend.
The corridors were two people wide with barely any space to hold the swelling throb of people. Who knew an exhibit on 19th Century Paris could attract aesthetes like flies? I’d lost my friend long ago, resigned to the fact that they would have to find my needle in this large haystack when they were ready to leave.
I about to keep walking when I saw her. She was on the opposite wall with her hands placed on her thighs, soft but scarred, as if she were waiting for something, or someone. Though she wore her smile like a heart on her sleeve, it was her eyes that gave her away. Her eyes were alight in a blue flame, desperate to cling to this happiness that she was trying on. Joy was a fleeting emotion for her, something that often slipped through her fingers.
My body came to a halt in front of her. I almost stepped back. She hadn’t moved in her frame, but I felt a strange sensation overcome me. As if she’d waved to me. When I caught my hand in the middle of waving back, I looked either side of me. No one had seen.
I didn’t know much about this piece. I wondered if the artist did either. With the careless strokes and mixed colours, it seemed she’d been made in a hurry. Had she been painted in a sparked moment of inspiration? Or during a lacklustre attempt to overcome a creative block?
The plaque said ‘From Australia’, but when I scanned it further, it seemed that this frame had seen many places. From England to Wales to Germany. There was talk about it some day being shown in Japan, Paris or maybe New Zealand. Huh.
My eyes narrowed at the several scratches on the paint. I found myself looking at her, as if daring to ask.
The painting was called ‘Annie’, and any Google search would tell you that the name meant ‘gracious’ or ‘merciful’, but the blue flames in her eyes warned me that those things were earned from her, never freely given. She’d decided that long ago. And like a blue flame to skin, she would warm you from the cold if she so pleased, but if you went for her heart, she would surely burn you before you got close enough.
“Hey, you ready?”
My friend’s voice pulled me from the painting. Like lifting a heated blanket, I almost shivered when I looked away. I followed them through the maze of people, dodging elbows and mumbling half-hearted apologies when my shoulder met another’s.
But when I looked back, and my eye’s found hers behind the frame, a heaviness overwhelmed me. Though she was merely a painting, those blue flames spoke to me from over the numerous heads. A farewell of sorts. My visit was short, but still a voice at the back of my head seemed to say:
Thanks for stopping by.
