Do be Careful with your Doilies

“You can’t look at it directly. Well, I lie. You shouldn’t look at it directly.” The man was standing in front of a framed painting hanging in the back room of the dusty apartment. A clean sheet was artfully draped over it. “I have it covered as you see,” he continued, “it’s been inconsolable since Mrs. Shasta passed. We aren’t quite sure how to safely move it.”

The movers frowned; this was not usual. But unusual was their specialty. “Is it screwed to the wall or something?” The taller one asked.

“How fragile is it?” What the shorter one was actually asking was, how expensive would it be if it broke.

Sidestepping both questions the man asked, “Are you sure you’re up for this? You do have experience with this sort of thing, correct?”

“Of course, this is our specialty.” Said the tall one. Let’s call him Owen. But the shorter one looked worried. It was a big painting, and the staircase was very narrow. “Luke,” said Owen, for that was the short one’s name. “Get the tool kit, we’re making a crate for this one. Get the aluminum foil as well.

As is the case with most paintings that have taken a turn for the sentient. They had a tendency to unexpectedly pun. Too much punning was never good. Aluminum foil was simply a cheap way to make sure that nothing shiny in the painting could reflect anything back, or onto, the viewer. Self-reflection was greatly discouraged.

This particular painting had been hanging in the back room of Mrs. Shasta’s apartment for its entire career. It had become unexpectedly self-aware one late November evening on the occasion of Mrs. Shasta’s sixtieth surprise birthday party. A series of mishaps too numerous to recount here, had culminated in a very painful bite, given by Mrs. Shasta’s horrible Pomeranian to a distant niece. Said niece had stepped on the dog, hard. It was an accident, but she wasn’t sorry. That Pomeranian had it coming. The badly bittern niece duly started to bleed a copious amount of blood all over a crochet doily that Mrs. Shasta prized. In the ensuing chaos, somehow, this bloody doily was flung and hit the painting in the face.

Sometimes that’s all it takes.

“What does the painting do?” Luke blurted. He had read about the doily incident in the work order.

The man looked affronted. “Do? It doesn’t do anything. It’s a painting.” While the credentials of the movers were solid, the man standing in front of the painting was not impressed with them so far. “It makes you do the doing.” He shrugged, nothing for it, these were the movers on hand. “I have another appointment. Please lock up on the way out.”

Luke, not reading the room, asked one more question as the man turned to leave, “What happened to the dog?”

The man paused but did not turn around, “Oh, the dog? It outlived Mrs. Shasta for sure. Do be careful on the stairs.”

Alone with each other, and the painting of course, the movers got to work. Owen hadn’t wanted to take Luke on this job, but he was very good with aluminum foil and the owner's son, so there had been no real choice in the matter.

The painting sat deep in its ornate gilded frame. The cream cotton sheet covered it completely as it hung sullenly on the wall. The cloth did not come close to touching its surface but billowed slowly, like shallow breathing. Luke could swear there was some kind of light …

“Are you looking at the painting?” said Owen sharply.

“No.” Luke lied.

“Help me get it off the wall.”

It was as heavy as it looked, and larger than they thought. There wasn’t enough floor space to put it face down, so they laboriously put it back on the wall and moved the furniture to make more room. This revealed a few ancient and well chewed tennis balls, nested in puffs of dust.

Once safely back on the wall, the cloth covering slyly started to slide off, revealing one ornate gilded acanthus leaf. They caught it just in time, before it revealed more than just the frame.

“Let’s get the packing material down on the floor first. We’re going too fast. We have to be systematic.” Owen was starting to sweat. He thought the painting might be blue. He shouldn’t know that.

“One, two, three - lift.” They placed the painting face down on the matted mauve carpet.

“We forgot the packing material. We didn’t put it down.” Luke said in a whisper. He backed up to the cobweb encrusted wall where the painting had hung.

“Happens. Calm down Luke. It’s still face down.” But Owen gave the painting a quick glance to make sure. “Get the stuff. I want to get this over with.” Owen wanted a beer and his recliner, the one he had to fight the cat for.

They both left the back room to regroup. Luke took out the heavy-duty aluminum foil. No way was he going to use the cheap stuff from the dollar store. Not for this job.

“Did you measure it?” asked Owen.

“The aluminum foil?”

“No Luke. The painting.”

“Can we just go?”

“No Luke. We can’t just go.” Not for the last time Owen wished the kid had stayed at the office.

The painting disliked carpeting. It disliked the color mauve as well. While it was no easy task, while the two men were in the other room, it decided to face the other direction. But it coyly stayed draped in the cream fabric, no point in frightening the gentlemen.

Luke gave a panicked shriek when he entered the back room with the packing materials.

“What is it? What happened?”

“I thought we placed it face down!” He dropped everything on the floor, disturbing the thick layer of dust on the carpet, then started to cough. Luke was not rising to the occasion.

“Luke, why don’t you go downstairs and get us some sandwiches from that corner place?” Handing him a wad of crumpled bills he continued, “I’ll take a turkey on rye and a coffee. Two sugars.”

Luke, grateful for the excuse to leave the building, grabbed the money and ran down the stairs. Upon reaching the street he decided that he wasn’t feeling well. With only a slight twinge of guilt, Luke texted his dad that he was going home for the day, he thought it was something he ate. He’d pay Owen back later.

Owen’s demeanor changed after Luke left. He wasn’t expecting him to come back with sandwiches. The guy was not up to this job, no matter his foil skills. It was probably better this way; he’d talk to the boss tomorrow. Now it was time to get to business.

The painting itself had enough. It did not want to leave its comfortable back room, no matter how much it disliked the carpeting. It did not want to be literally man-handled down a narrow staircase. It wanted to stay put. With only one gentleman left, it had to figure out how to get back on its wall.

“You do know it’s nothing personal, right?” Owen addressed the painting, “I have a job to do, and that’s you. You have to go.”

The painting looked so sad on the floor, so uncomfortable. The cloth was all bunched up in the center. He reached out to smooth it, to pull it out of the way…

“You stop it. Stop it right now. I’ll get you down the stairs in pieces if you don’t cut it out.” Owen knew that was an empty threat and would most likely get him fired. Instead, he closed the blinds and turned the lights out through the apartment. He was going to do this by feel.

That made all the difference. It took a while, all by himself and in total darkness, but he got the thing packed up, even if he did run out of aluminum foil halfway.

It was a shame though, that he covered the back of the painting instead of the front. It was an honest mistake, but a mistake the painting had set up carefully.

He only opened the blind tiny bit to check his work, but it was a bit too much. The sheet of fabric had long since fallen away, and was now too crumpled to use, never mind too far away to grab. There with perfect serenity was the portrait gently smiling at him from the floor. It was so beautiful. So very beautiful.

The painting was not delivered to the warehouse. While the man was annoyed, he was not surprised. That’s the last time I use a service because I have a coupon, he thought to himself. An ancient Pomeranian snored beside him on the desk in a small pink bed.

“There there my sweet poopsie, there there.” He stroked her fur as she slept, “there there.”