Hearing Red

An emptied artist. The colours are too much. And red is the most filling of all.

HEARING RED

by Susurrant Horror

“It is so plain,” my patron whispered, behind me, “so plain, but evocative. Like the others. There’s a certain brutality to it. As though the canvas suffers at your touch.”

I smiled weakly, though did not re-focus away from the art. Did not focus on him.

Plain, yes. It had to be plain: but despite everything, I was glad that Sir Telasbury could see the crenulations of brutality coursing as a river down the creases of the work. The unseen pain, I thought that it said. The truth was, I did not understand the art: not really. I only knew how to tease it out, and to allow it to bloom.

Sir Telasbury, my patron, appeared to understand it. To see it.

“Thank you, sir,” I muttered with mildness. Sweetness. His words were grand.

And they ought to end there.

His voice was similarly sweet as it returned. “None of that, my dear. I have told you, that you must call me Nigel. Our relationship has moved beyond such honorifics, hasn’t it?”

I nodded.

I stiffened at the light touch of my shoulder. My wooden stool became uncomfortable, as I felt the difference between my level and Sir Telasbury’s height. I was suffocated by his shadow.

“You must do more. The exhibition is in mere weeks, and your debut will be quite the sensation.”

At this, I finally turned. It permitted an excuse for his fingers to fall away from me. The man was dressed eminently – as always he was – and his smile was effusive. He had not long since returned from the Ardeche, and the remnant of sun still played across his creased face.

I hazarded courage. “Are the pieces thus far not sufficient?”

He appeared to allow the question to play in his thoughts before responding. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. As you know, the guest list changes daily. It would be useful to have options, to suit the final tastes.” He added, quickly: “But in any case, everything you paint is a joy, my darling. If the art foments in your mind, then why not bring it about in the world? You know how it pleases me.”

And it did please him.

He continued, at my silence: “I will be attending that dread benefit tonight. I trust you will progress in my absence.”

I nodded, and his fingers grasped their perch and lingered a little longer before he moved on.

The white and grey piece stood before me, finished. Was it ever finished?

It was plain, of course. My patron had the right of it, there. Colour…

No, I could not think of colour.

Colour represented too many things. Too many splashes could easily wrest control of myself, into something else. The colours would begin to suffuse to the surface and overwhelm me, to strangle me with their sick. If I did not push away those thoughts of colour quickly, then they would spiral into something else. Everything would be colour, and colour would be sound, voices; the singing stars themselves.

My work stayed in the shadows. The gloom of the charcoal, perhaps with tinges of livid blue. A bruise, not a wound. That was all.

An idea began to foment indeed, and I carefully replaced the canvas from my patron’s limitless resources.

As I worked, the whisper of light from the gaps of the thick black curtains began to fade. Night hurtled toward me. Comforting night, where the colour was drained from the world.

The door creaked open once more, and my patron entered. I could look at him more easily now, when his features were eclipsed. Even in the low light, I could see his cheeks ruddy, and his eyes tired but with the embers of a fire ready to be stoked.

Fingers grasped my shoulder once more, and the smoke of alcohol trailed about me.

“This is coming along quite well,” he whispered.

The fingers explored, and I stiffened.

“Quite well indeed.” The whisper, likely intended to be a soft call, was more of a rasp. It croaked and creaked like straining easel-wood.

I nodded, my back arching away from the fingers.

“But it would be good for there to be colour, I think.” His speech was slurred. “Yes, I do think so. There are certain guests who will attend, and they do enjoy colour. Vibrancy. I appreciate vibrancy too, you know. And you are my vibrant artist. My joy.”

My voice barely escaped my gritted teeth. “What colour would please you, sir?”

“Red,” he rasped.

That was enough.

My synesthetic shadow erupted at the mere thought. The mere mention. Red was the most complete of all colours, I felt, and it could fill me up at a simple whisper of it. Suddenly my mind seemed nothing but stars of every colour, a kaleidoscope unending. It was not mist, but galaxy. And that galaxy rotated with a deafening choir.

The colours had to be drained from my mind. That was the only way. To allow the white purity of the canvas to drink them, so that I might forget them all over again.

I moved unseeing, feeling the brush as though it were my finger – an extension of myself. Each stroke was a crash of sound, or a shriek, or something like a whimper.

But it was not enough for the colours to escape passively. They had to be forced out; each last drop. I began to blindly create those gulleys and channels within the thick canvas. To work my brutality into what was once pure.

Brutalised. Yes.

This was a place of brutality.

To take something innocent and paint it with all the colours that it did not want.

Each splash of red was a rising anger, and a roar. Each twist of blue was a bubble of despair, and a sob.

Finally the galaxy of colours began to abate. To fade and leave behind just the canvas, as I etched my mark upon it. The noises faded too, leaving behind a peaceful stillness. Though I could see the colours I had painted, they no longer strangled my mind and blinded me. The canvas owned them now, and I could breathe easy.

A final etching of the canvas was all that was needed now. I held the brush just so, that the end of it might scour the work: to inflict agony. Red burst from each drawn channel. Veins of brilliance.

My vision had long since returned, and my faculties restored, even as I continued to consciously excoriate. The original canvas lay stricken upon the floor, and I knew that the canvas I etched now was that of my patron, his tongue lolling and the flesh of his face hazarded by my brush. It was mostly red, but there was the truth of the blue and black, too.

His rasp had become a gasp now, though his fingers did not have strength to reach – with confusion – his eyeless sockets. The orbs had become a paint and smeared their wet across the skin-canvas.

The colours were all there now. The work was complete: having liberated it from my mind, I felt free.