The Portrait (short)

This short story is the precursor to the developing novel The Portrait. It was inspired by a story of the same time written by Nicolai Gogol.

Alone, he sat in his study, hour after hour, day after day.  There he sat, staring at himself, or what he hoped to be himself.  It was terrible.  He didn’t believe it.  There was a semblance of him in the layers of paint smeared and brushed on the canvas.  Unacceptable, he told himself.  So he slaved away for days more.

“Hon.  Are you going to come eat?”

The artist awoke to someone standing before him.  He nearly fell of his chair at the sight of the blurry specter.  It was only the painting he realized, glaring at him from behind dull, lifeless eyes.  The eyes would need some more work to bring it to life, he thought.

“Did you hear me?”

There was that voice again.  A woman’s voice, coming from somewhere outside of the room.  How long had it been since heard another’s voice?

“I’m not hungry,” he croaked at the door as his wife began to knock.

He eyed the painting then the door, waiting to be alone again to work.  The shadows of feet behind the door shifted disappointingly before disappearing.  Thuds of footfalls trailed off down the hallway.  Alone again, he could get back to work.

The eyes stared through him, past him, like his eyes had done the last time he brought himself to open the door to face his wife.  That was the last time she gave the idle threat to leave him.  His agoraphobia had progressed to such a point that the windows were sealed shut with dust and looking at the door was becoming harder and harder.  His only thought at the threat of divorce was relief.  Then he’d finally be truly alone to complete his work.  It would be better, for her, for him, for the portrait.  But she couldn’t bring herself to actually do it.  She did not know what to do to help him and the threat had not worked.  After his project was complete for the showing at the gallery it was bound to pass, she figured.  She would let nature take its course, hoping he would not destroy himself in the process.

There was a soul deep inside of the dead black marbles he sensed.  It needed to be brought to the surface.  Once it was there the subject would pop from the very canvas it was on and prance about the room as the best in show.

His oil stained fingers scratched his neck with a bristling sound.  Last he could recall he had a clean shave.  Now he could smudge or scrape off the excess paint with his face.  His portrait would look good though.  Forever sitting firmly in his strong build in the old leather arm chair, surrounded by darkness.  From the darkness his glowing youth would shine on all its viewers.  It would awe them, frighten them, with its likeness and knowing in its eyes.  The longer he stared at those eyes, the clearer the image became.

Gripped by the eyes he continued to work.  He scraped and smeared and feathered.  Little by little, the soul came to the surface of those eyes.  To the surface of the canvas, over all those layers.  Layers upon layers, building, reaching out from the easel.

They were there.

The eyes.  Surrounded by the blur of all his prior shortcomings, the eyes met his.  They were uncanny.  They were knowing, wanting, and hungry.  He took a step back, the farthest from the painting he had been in the long time.  The eyes seemed to follow him, not letting him out of their sight.

The artist smiled.  Satisfaction that only an artist felt with the realization of a dream spread across his face.  In that moment his youth returned, matching that of the face beneath the layers of unfocused contours.  The harder he looked into those eyes the more he saw the rest coming to life.

His hands began to move with a life of their own.  A forbidden force guiding every stroke.  He was weak and weary but his craft was strong.  He no longer saw the oils or the canvas, there was only the figure clear as day, more real than real, in his mind’s eye.

The darkness around the subject filled the world around him, a narrowing tunnel with a face forming in the distance.  The world was gone.  His body was gone.  If he was still breathing he was no longer aware of it.

“Going to eat anything today?” a voice called in the distance.

The face retreated, the tunnel collapsing around it.  He was still smiling, he felt.  A smile so tight it hurt his face.  Shaking and panting he came back to be in his studio.

A loving knock came at the door.

“Not today either I take,” the door murmured.

He looked about the room, trying to catch his breath.  So long he had been in that room, only to feel as if he had not been there in forever.  That didn’t matter.  The portrait was calling him.  The eyes had grown a face of equal clarity.  His hand reached to caress the cheek, imagining that it would feel as if his own after a fresh shave, smooth and oily.

The door, a voice said in his head.

“Oh.  Yeah.  Just leave it at the door, honey.  It’ll get it in a bit.”

The voice sounded like his, but it did not feel like his.  It would have been believable if he had said it… however long ago it was he sequestered himself in that room.  The voice was youthful, full of energy, with the intonation of a patient, content man.

The tray of food at the door went untouched throughout the night.  It was a silver heirloom with floral swirls carved into its handles and etched in the plate, withstanding the test of time.  The dumplings and mashed potatoes on the fine white dishes, however, had curdled and became hard before the sun arose the next morning.

In those wee hours of the morning, something else was dawning.  From the face came a neck, then in no time there were shoulders.  The hair and ears could have flicked if a breeze were permitted to pass the sealed windows.  Lapels below the collar wafted a scent of starch and steam from a fresh iron.  More and more of the picture came to life.  Its head and should leaned forward eagerly, waiting to be finished.  Artist and subject, leaned in nose to nose, forehead to forehead.  An unnatural mirror, the gazer moved and the reflection only leaned closer.  He was nearly complete.  The pieces fell into place faster with each stroke.

The artist collapsed.

An exhausted heap on the hardwood floor, he came to a moment later.  Every ounce of his energy, the life force the portrait hungered for, had been given.  When the feeling returned to his arms he felt for his chair.  He wanted to sit back and gaze upon his masterpiece.  It was the very chair in the picture, though covered in paint much like him.  A momentous bit of effort later, he sat in the chair before his reflection.

The illusion was complete.  Every freckle and dimple mapped his visage.  Each curl traced with a swirl of early gray on his head, not a hair out of place.  The depth of the picture was breathtaking.  He decided he would rest later, it demanded to be admired.

The eyes followed his above a plotting smirk as he approached.  Light enough to cast a glare on the background made him think he could see the room behind him reflecting on the canvas.  Still, the picture watched as he neared, scanning every detail as if they were his own creation.

Their eyes locked again and there he saw the soul called forth and the evil behind it.  Hands lunged for his neck from the canvas, the subject pulling from the frame as the artist backed away in shock.  Surely it was a nightmare.  He spent too long in that room with that painting.  He would wake up, run from the room and hug his wife.

The hands squeezed tighter and tighter.  The room spun as the darkness grew.  He would have fought if he had the strength, but there was none; he was slave to his creation.  Chair and table were knocked over with a clatter as the artist was pushed towards the easel.

“Is everything all right in there?” his wife called from the door.

The artist opened the door, meeting his wife in his finest suit, prim and polished from the highest hair to the soles of his shoes.

“Couldn’t be better my darling,” he said lightly touching her cheek leaving a streak of flesh colored paint.

He set off into the world, as a new man, to find more subjects to paint.