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Ripe (2) Don't You Dare (3)
Written today and first published here
He ‘looked’ up. The painting was real. He felt it contained sustenance for all the body’s senses without direct effect upon any of them. He was, in any event, blind. Yet he knew he was in the presence of genius. Touch, smell, taste, hearing, these were not often involved in a gallery’s exhibits of fine art, but, using this as a test case, he licked his lips, snuffled the air like a bird of prey or, rather, like the prey itself, and dared extend a finger to touch the painting before any alarmist gallery-guard or guide could notice him. He did withdraw it at the last moment. He knew there were boundaries even he could not cross. Boundaries of taste and behaviour. He smiled. He was good at that.
He took the arm of his lady companion. She was his ‘guard-dog’. And there was nothing in her character that would resent such descriptive glibness; both of them shared humour amid laughter.
She had been the subject of the painting. He knew this. That was why he was here. She had been the model used by the famous living artist, taken from the Job Centre Office where she usually worked, asked to sit nude day after day in his warm studio, and her folds of fat and large ripe breasts revealed to the world by the means of a searching-eyed work of imaginative art quite beyond the power of any photographic device.
***
The famous beautiful lady TV presenter answered her door. And was shot.
There was a latent suspicion – expressed by many of those in the vicinity – that a man and his large lady companion (who led him as if he were blind) had left the residential road soon after the incident. But this remained hearsay for lack of hard evidence. The various accounts were, in retrospect, little better than ghost stories.
So the police arrested someone else. To make the best of a bad job.
***
The gallery guard took one lingering look at all the exhibits in this his corner of responsibility, before he left for the evening. He was a great reader of Jung and Freud, and continuously compared the two. Being someone who simply sat guard over paintings, he had much free thinking-time for deep concerns. He was no simple ex-serviceman type.
There was the portrait of the fat lady that was the prized centre of his domain. He thought he had seen the same depicted lady visiting it today.
But the memory must have been one of a universal collective memory rather than his own on its own. That lady in the portrait had indeed died over fifty years ago, long out-living the painter who had so celebratedly painted her in it. She must have been a ghost. A fat one.
As to there having been a ghost of a ghost accompanying her, even the gallery guard was unaware of this.
The guard shook a fist at the painting and, for whatever reason, said aloud: “Don’t you dare!” And left.
Even the remaining shadows in the emptiness continued to appreciate the inner charm of the painted lady. Perhaps her ripe largesse was just the first wrapper around the prize of svelte beauty within.
***
I watch him leave through the gallery door. I fear he is intent on deeds that will never be solved. Just like any other character in fiction.
As to myself, I still feel fruited with fresh stippled oils and the essence-of-all-the-senses left me by the one who painted me into this corner.
Although I must remain essentially senseless, I try to snuffle the air ... and pray.
He ‘looked’ up. The painting was real. He felt it contained sustenance for all the body’s senses without direct effect upon any of them. He was, in any event, blind. Yet he knew he was in the presence of genius. Touch, smell, taste, hearing, these were not often involved in a gallery’s exhibits of fine art, but, using this as a test case, he licked his lips, snuffled the air like a bird of prey or, rather, like the prey itself, and dared extend a finger to touch the painting before any alarmist gallery-guard or guide could notice him. He did withdraw it at the last moment. He knew there were boundaries even he could not cross. Boundaries of taste and behaviour. He smiled. He was good at that.
He took the arm of his lady companion. She was his ‘guard-dog’. And there was nothing in her character that would resent such descriptive glibness; both of them shared humour amid laughter.
She had been the subject of the painting. He knew this. That was why he was here. She had been the model used by the famous living artist, taken from the Job Centre Office where she usually worked, asked to sit nude day after day in his warm studio, and her folds of fat and large ripe breasts revealed to the world by the means of a searching-eyed work of imaginative art quite beyond the power of any photographic device.
***
The famous beautiful lady TV presenter answered her door. And was shot.
There was a latent suspicion – expressed by many of those in the vicinity – that a man and his large lady companion (who led him as if he were blind) had left the residential road soon after the incident. But this remained hearsay for lack of hard evidence. The various accounts were, in retrospect, little better than ghost stories.
So the police arrested someone else. To make the best of a bad job.
***
The gallery guard took one lingering look at all the exhibits in this his corner of responsibility, before he left for the evening. He was a great reader of Jung and Freud, and continuously compared the two. Being someone who simply sat guard over paintings, he had much free thinking-time for deep concerns. He was no simple ex-serviceman type.
There was the portrait of the fat lady that was the prized centre of his domain. He thought he had seen the same depicted lady visiting it today.
But the memory must have been one of a universal collective memory rather than his own on its own. That lady in the portrait had indeed died over fifty years ago, long out-living the painter who had so celebratedly painted her in it. She must have been a ghost. A fat one.
As to there having been a ghost of a ghost accompanying her, even the gallery guard was unaware of this.
The guard shook a fist at the painting and, for whatever reason, said aloud: “Don’t you dare!” And left.
Even the remaining shadows in the emptiness continued to appreciate the inner charm of the painted lady. Perhaps her ripe largesse was just the first wrapper around the prize of svelte beauty within.
***
I watch him leave through the gallery door. I fear he is intent on deeds that will never be solved. Just like any other character in fiction.
As to myself, I still feel fruited with fresh stippled oils and the essence-of-all-the-senses left me by the one who painted me into this corner.
Although I must remain essentially senseless, I try to snuffle the air ... and pray.