Untitled Eyes

Strokes of yellow and brown coated the canvas, swirling together in such a way it made my stomach churn like butter. Bits of green and blue peeked through the– clouds? Is that what those are? –but there were too few to have been trees and a sky. Everything was so blurry; all I could make out was all those colors clouding together behind a magenta fog. It felt like there were eyes hidden in the haze, watching me. 

As I stated at the painting, a sudden chill coursed through my veins. My chest tightened.

I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t. The world disappeared from around me. I stared at the painting until it meant nothing at all – if it ever meant anything in the first place. And why would it? There’s not an artist signature visible anywhere. It’s untitled. 

But it was dated last May. That was the only clue I had.

Somehow, this painting stood out to me so strikingly, in a way that was so uncomfortably familiar. If it was created last summer, though, the chance I had seen it before is very low. This was my first time in this museum, viewing this exhibition. I suppose I could have stumbled upon it while shuffling through artist portfolios, but I feel like I would have remembered such a distinct piece. Still, I could have sworn I had seen this before.

I stood there, feet stuck on the concrete floor of the museum right in front of the painting, and my eyes stayed trained on the muddled colors and the magenta fog. I kept trying and failing to figure out what the hell it was; what the hell it meant. To no avail.

Eventually, I had to leave. Even after stepping away from the painting and moving on to another, I couldn’t get my mind off of it. Even as I made my way back on the ferry to Providence. Just the memory of that painting haunted my thoughts; I couldn’t escape it.

This is the story of how I learned my life was a lie. And yes, the painting has everything to do with it.

~~~

“Alana, do you have some colored pencils?”

Rolling my eyes, I leaned my head backward over the edge of my bed to stare at my sister who had basically taken over my desk. “Yeah. Don’t you have your own art supplies, though?”

Jessie pouted, her upside-down frown looking more like a smile. “I do, but you have all the nice stuff. Like Caran Dache? Come on, I would use that over Crayola any day.”

“Okay, but I paid for it.” I pulled myself back up to a sitting position and turned to face her, letting out a sigh. “Also, I’ve told you before that the supplies don’t make the art, right? The artist does.”

She just shrugged, turning to pick at some wood chipping off my old desk that I bought for like $10 at a yard sale when I was 15.

“I still think the better quality supplies make a difference. I mean, you have the better stuff for a reason. You can’t really talk.”

For the thousandth time that morning, I rolled my eyes. “They’re in the top drawer in my closet. Just don’t destroy them, please.”

With a grin, Jessie hopped up from my desk and ran to my closet. I closed my eyes, listening to her groans and grunts as she reached up to open the highest drawer of my closet organizer. Plastic clanked together as she shuffled through the drawer for a few seconds before grabbing my beloved, expensive ass set of colored pencils.

“Thank you!” She squealed, running out of my room to go work on whatever art piece she wanted the pencils for, leaving the drawer wide open.

Jessie and I had always been very artistic. We probably popped out with paint smeared all over our bodies and color theory already embedded in our heads. Our mother was also an artist, fairly successful in her own right. Growing up, we had traveled to so many different places for art shows and festivals, and to celebrate her work being presented in museums.

Being diagnosed with cancer didn’t even stop her. She asked dad to bring her canvases and paint supplies from home to her chemo appointments so that she could focus her mind on something other than the disease trying to kill her. I still had all of her chemo paintings. They were beautiful, but so utterly heartbreaking. Especially knowing that would she had survived, they would have been a symbol of hope. Instead, they just represented her slow decline in health.

Doctors said she would get better. They said she would make a full recovery. That was a lie.

I’m still so angry with everyone at that hospital. All those years holding mom’s hand when she was so sick she couldn’t even open her eyes, much less squeeze back; sitting in the waiting room with bated breath every time she was admitted, just hoping she would make it out alive this time, it felt like it was all for nothing. 

Because on May 8th, mom’s cancer won. Her nurses and doctors didn’t even bother to let us, her family for god’s sake, know that she wasn’t going to make it.

For once, I would have appreciated the truth. Instead, they let their lies hang in the air while she drifted further and further away from us, like a balloon sent to the heavens by a child in the summer. I hadn’t even gotten to say a proper goodbye.

Most of my paintings had been dull and lifeless since she died the summer prior, a mere shadow of the art I used to create. Instead of bright, colorful surrealism pieces, small, thin strokes of black and gray covered the canvas in a desperate attempt at abstract. It was the least amount of effort I could put toward the one thing that used to make me happier than a leprechaun finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. In my world, there was no rainbow and no pot of gold, only skies that cried and mud staining the grass.

I still didn’t want to let my mom down, though. She had been encouraging me to apply for every prestigious art program I could so that I could follow in her footsteps, so I pushed through my long bout of grief-ridden depression and worked as hard as I could on perfecting my portfolio and writing essays about why I wanted to get into all these crazy good schools that I definitely wasn’t good enough for. The amount of shock I felt when the Rhode Island School of Design sent me a letter of acceptance was incomparable, and my sister and dad’s excitement clouded my judgment. I accepted the offer and went through the onboarding process so fast, my fingers nearly cramped. 

My dad saw my acceptance as an opportunity to pack up everything we’ve ever known and move the entire family from South Dakota to Rhode Island. I was grateful that I wouldn’t be alone, but also is it bad to have wanted some space? I tried to look at the bright side of things, such as that I wouldn’t have to find a job so I could afford rent, my dad could make home-cooked meals, and I would still have my sister around to confide in. Still, I found myself feeling stifled by their presence sometimes.

Which was why I always felt immense relief when I could take a day off my busy schedule and hop on the ferry from Providence to Newport. I had made the trip dozens of times, usually to just take the ride both ways and enjoy the water. Occasionally, the calming ferry ride would clear my mind just enough to inspire a new drawing, the breeze and slight crashing of the waves making it easier to put pencil to paper.

This time was different. For my History and Theory in Exhibition and Narrative Environments class, I was assigned to spend the day at a museum and look at all of the pieces with a critical eye. My professor also told us to think about how art curators find the right pieces for exhibitions, and we had to write an essay on whether we believed the curation did the paintings justice or if the exhibition dimmed their significance.

It was such a nice day. I had actually managed to forget all about my mom and the stress of helping my sister apply for university and the way my boyfriend was avoiding me for some reason. The Newport Museum was so gorgeous, the cabin-esque exterior exuding a cozy feeling that warmed me to my core; the vintage brown ceilings and floors complimenting the historical paintings lining the walls; the room’s centerpiece a large baby grand at the top of the staircase. For all intents and purposes, I was in my element. I was calm and inspired.

And then I saw that painting. From that moment on, I was on edge. I couldn’t explain why or how, but I just had this feeling that something wasn’t right. Even though the colors in the painting complemented the other art pieces in the “Abstractions of the 21st Century” exhibit, it was just so out of place. And the way it called to me…

One time, I read some guy’s story online about how he got into a car accident and passed out. When he woke up in the hospital, life went on as usual. He went on to eventually meet the love of his life and have two kids, and everything was fine and dandy. Then one day he noticed the clock in his bedroom seemed larger than he thought it was. He stared at it for days on end. It just seemed to get bigger and bigger and bigger, and he was in this kind of trance.

He was in a coma the entire time.

So I had been feeling like something was pulling me back to the museum to stare at that painting long enough to where I lose consciousness, and I honestly hoped to god that was the case.

I wanted to wake up with my mom there at my bedside, holding my hand and rubbing comforting circles on my forehead with her thumb, humming the lullaby I always begged her to sing as a child right before bed. I wanted to wake up in a world where my dad wouldn’t be so eager to leave his old life behind. I wanted to wake up and make sure my little sister wouldn’t keep trying to become an accomplished artist just to make mom happy when I knew all she wished for her future was a simple life, working at a coffee shop in our small hometown.

As they always say, though, expectations often fall short of reality.

~~~

I didn’t have the time to go back. As much as I wanted to, classes were starting to pick up and I was too swamped with homework. So I did the next best thing and I called my best friend, Olivia, who lives in Newport.

She reluctantly agreed to check out the museum for the painting after I rambled on and on about how it just felt so weird and that I forgot to take a picture of it and I just needed to see if it was still there.

The next day, Olivia called me from the museum and I described every bit of the painting to the best of my ability, telling her every detail that I committed to memory – every color, brush stroke, the blurriness. Still, she came up empty-handed.

“Maybe you saw the painting at a different museum, Alana. All the paintings here are realism portraits of old men. And some trees.”

“No, I just know that I saw it there.” I sighed into my phone speaker, rubbing my right temple to ease an oncoming headache. “It’s alright. I think I can carve out some time to go back on Tuesday after my morning class. This is gonna bug me until I figure it out. Thank you for trying, though.”

“Of course, girl. Try not to go too crazy over this mystery painting, alright? Love you, bye!”

Olivia hung up before I could respond, the words “too late” dying on the tip of my tongue.

~~~

When I stepped into the museum the following Tuesday, I felt off. 

Gone was the tranquility from my last visit, and all of the progress I had made toward staying cool and collected in the face of a potential coma-induced reality. In place was just fear. Cold, icy fear ran through my nervous system, starting at the tips of my ears and ending at my toes. Not even my favorite white, strawberry-printed Forever 21 cardigan and brown Steve Madden boots could keep me warm. Even if I set myself on fire, my fear would have kept me alive.

I took the same path as I did the week before, letting my feet guide me to the exhibit and right up to the spot where I remembered the painting lived. I didn’t immediately risk a glance, hoping that Olivia was right and the mysterious painting had disappeared. But then the fear sent another chill through my body and my stomach began to churn. Just like the first time I stood in front of it. I knew before I lifted my head that it was still there.

That time, I let myself get lost in the muddled grays and blues and greens and streaks of yellow, and the hazy magenta fog that encapsulated me. I didn’t look away. I let myself lean into the trance. I let whatever magic or jinx that painting had pull me in until I couldn’t even think about pulling myself out. Because if no one else could see the painting, that meant it was there for me. The painting was for my eyes only.

So I let it pull me away from the life I knew; from the life I lived. I let it reveal all the truths my family kept from me and all of the lies I kept from them.

The world went dark.

~~~

I wake up with my head in the clouds. Quite literally. I’m so light, I’m floating. I blink away the sleep from my eyes, that familiar feeling of tranquility washing over me. Everything is quiet. Everything is bright. No one is around me.

“Hello?” I ask, voice quivering. It sounds softer, almost younger.

Suddenly, an angel appears. I blink in surprise. It’s an actual angel. No… no, it’s…

“Hi, honey.”

Mom leans down in front of me, placing her hand on my forehead and rubbing her thumb over my creases in soothing circles. I close my eyes, relishing in the tangible feeling of her soft hands. I don’t want to question how this was all possible, because of how perfect the moment was, but I need to know.

“Mom… what’s going on? What was that painting? Where-?”

She shushes me quietly, smiling softly. Sadly.

“We’re at the threshold of life. You need to decide whether you want to join your father on Earth or stay with me beyond the clouds.”

I blink. “What happened to me?”

Confusion floods her features. “Nothing happened to you, sweetheart. Something happened to me, though.”

“What happened to you?”

“I… I didn’t make it out of the delivery room. But you can.”

I swallow, that fear pushing its way through my chest again, ready to burst.

“Wait, wait. So I’m not even born yet?”

“You are at the brink of birth right now, hun. The doctors are going to make sure you can live a full, happy life, if you want to.”

“Hold on, hold on. So… that entire life I just lived… never happened? Where’s my sister?”

“Sister?”

Horror threads itself around my intestines. I feel a sharp pain stabbing into my abdomen, and all of a sudden I start to hear random sounds around me. A faint beeping. A baby whining. A grown man sobbing. My father. My eyes start to burn, throat closing up.

“But-but I just got into art school, and you’ve been gone for a year now and- and that painting?”

“I sent that painting to you. To let you know it’s time.”

Why doesn’t she understand I need actual answers?

“Time to what, mom? Live? I’ve been living. You’re saying my entire life is a lie?”

She looks concerned, her small smile pulling into a frown. “No. That was an example of the life you could lead. I think your soul is telling you that you’re meant to be an artist.”

I swallow, voice shaking as I ask, “Like you?”

Mom nods. “Like me. The painting that pulled you in was one of the last pieces I created. I couldn’t find the meaning in it. I’m glad that you did.”

Tears stream down my cheeks. “And what is the meaning?”

She purses her lips. “I don’t know, and I can’t tell you. I want you to figure it out. Go live your life. For me.”

I nod reluctantly, giving her a wobbly smile. She leans down to kiss my forehead. I close my eyes.

When I come to, the world explodes in fuzzy yellows and browns and greens and blues. A blurry, gray fog smears the colors together, accented by a slight magenta hue. All the colors muddle together until they become something I finally recognize; a new life.