ME INDEED

ME INDEED

By

Darr

    He cursed the image he was looking at. There was nothing there. No emotion, no distinct feature affording a casual observer a glimpse into his true personality. He leaned back in his chair and stared at his painted image hoping a glint of himself would seep through the layers of oil paint and reveal itself, but after several minutes he came to the realization nothing would surface, nothing.

    The sweat dripped from his forehead as he looked down at carnage spewed upon the floor.

“What have I done!,” he screamed as he knelt down amid the torn and ripped shreds of what was once his self- portrait He picked up a jagged piece of canvas. He moved the piece about at various angels attempting to recognize from what part of his face this shard of reddish-flesh tone came from without success. “A cheek? No. Perhaps the tip of my nose? Or was it part of my forehead?”

    He gathered up more pieces  laying them of the floor in some semblance of order trying to find the mate to the piece he held with no definitive results. “This is useless. You idiot!” He stood up and released  the piece of canvas watching it flutter down to join the scattered remains of his image. 

    He left the den where so many years and hours of his life were spent in creating works of art representing the essence of himself and his interpretations of life yet now, as he looked back into the room,  he saw only a tomb where the sordid remains of his self-perception of being an artist lay buried within the corridors of his mind and ego. He stood before the array of bottles of Gin, Vodka, Tequila, Bourbon and Whiskey before lifting up the bottle of Gin and mixing himself a large glass of Gin and Tonic. After stirring the concoction he took a tentative sip, “Naw,” then added more Gin before returning to the den. 

     He took a sip, sat down and surveyed the damage. In a moment of instant rage he destroyed eight months of work. “ What the hell is wrong with you? Eight fucking months and for what? All because you think you’re an artist. You are definitely an idiot! What were you thinking? ” He took a long swallow of his drink. The vodka burned its way down his gullet allowing the alcohol to slosh about and mix with the enzymes within his stomach before streaming through his bloodstream spreading throughout his body to eventually wash away and numb the absolute remorse;  no remorse was too kind of a word,  it didn’t exactly explain the instant explosion of disgust, hatred and contempt that swept through him when he realized his self-portrait was nothing more than an extension of his inability to paint the image his mind visualized. “It takes a true artist on the scale of DaVinci, Rembrandt or Van Gogh to perfect the self-portrait. In other words, You’re an imposter pretending to be something you’re not.

    He took another sip. He was a fraud with limited abilities reaching for a level of perfectionism he was incapable of achieving ….?

   He kicked a few of tattered remains lying on the floor near him and watched them settle down on some other ragged pieces. “What?”  

   He stood up. The jagged flesh tone piece of canvas he just kicked was lying on a small portion of his eye. He got off his chair and kneeled down to get a closer look.

   Yes, a bit of his pupil with a glint of white paint he dabbed on to indicate a light source he used to create a reflection could be seen peeking out from beneath the flesh tone piece he just kicked. He remembered the difficult time he had trying to place that single dot of white just right upon his pupil to clearly indicate where the light source was coming. But then, he also remembered how he could not capture any hint of emotion when he completed painting his left eye. For it was his left eye he was now looking at. This he knew.  He also recalled his total frustration at the time he was painting his left eye his inability to blend the right amount of colors and texture to create a realistic eye that actually appeared to be looking out from the canvas onto you. He took another swallow of his drink, stood up then stood upon his chair.

    Looking upon the remains of his self-portrait lying upon the floor, scattered about as they were, awarded him a very different perspective of the mutilation he didn’t realize before, or maybe it was the alcohol smoothing out the rough edges of his strict self -critique of his abilities, that created what he now considered  ‘something worth considering.’

    “From chaos comes sanity or so they say.” 

    “Chaos.” He laughed. “No chaos created what I did. What happened came from a spontaneous outburst culminating from years and years of believing you had talent which in an instant you suddenly realized you have none and therefore, you are a fool to …… Screw it!  You should burn it. Whatever glimpse of worthiness you thought you saw in the piece you should discard and immediately gather up the remnants and purify your conscience by watching the fire consume whatever essence of belief you had in yourself proclaiming you are a painter of worth.” He finished off his drink and went to throw the glass away before common sense prevailed. “Not only would you be picking up broken glass, but at the same time picking up the pieces of your soul.  But you won’t do neither because you know deep down inside of your corrupted and demented soul you’re a coward as well. That within you remains a fleck of self -belief you’re good at your craft. . Ha! So what are you then?” 

     As he stared at the roughly four to five feet swath of destruction of the pieces of the broken wooden frame still retaining a grip on some fragments of canvas to the various oddly shaped pieces of torn and ripped canvas came a true vision of himself. 

     He hopped off the chair and went immediately to his knees. “This is … How utterly simple.” 

    Three hours and four drinks later Ramon stared at the multitude of torn, ragged and  jagged pieces of canvas glued and pieced together to create an abstract mosaic of his self-portrait placed upon his easel.  

    “Me indeed.” 

                                                           THE END