Untimely #22 - Still Life

The artist has been booked at short notice, cancelling another lucrative appointment to be able to take this job. It is not every day that one has the opportunity to be involved in something so grand. As we all know, a person is only inducted into the Philosophical Hall of Fame once every fifty years. But now, for the first time in PHOF’s illustrious history, two men being are invited in at the same time. This is a momentous occasion, particularly so for the talented young painter who has been invited to capture the two men in portrait fashion, as is the custom. Naturally she is a little nervous, but no less confident in her skill.

Day1.

The door opens and Carlos Irwin Estévez floats into the studio on a large, well-controlled cushion of ball lightening. He is in the lotus position, his hands folded in his lap. He glides at the pace of thick chocolate for, as he explains to the artist, if he were to move at his regular speed, she could lose consciousness – he already knocked eight men out in the foyer. Journalists! He goes on to say that when he first fell to this planet he reached such extreme temperatures whilst at terminal velocity that he was engulfed by a fireball a city block wide, and he wouldn’t want her to get hurt.

As she begins mixing her colours, capturing that blend of navy, seal’s skin, and spiderwebs for his loafers, she asks about when he first realised that he was so much more than average men, that he was truly major league. He starts by calling her ‘Sparky’, and she is unable to concentrate on anything else. As he talks, a platoon of tears march, single file down her cheek, engaging on a mission to capture just one hundredth of his brilliance. His is a new way. While conventional humans represent an idea with the switching on of a lightbulb, Sheen deals in planetary hotshots, solar flares, black holes.

They are together in her studio for fourteen hours. He does not move, but he is not still. He vibrates, a million tiny nuclear explosions occurring at any one second, somewhere in there. By the time he leaves, the young artist is worried that she has been blinded, having stared at the sun for so long. Almost immediately, she begins to mourn his passing.

Day 2.

Thomas Alan Waits starts to arrive at 4 am. From that point on he does not stop arriving. The Tom’s bump into themselves, hustling around, big time. They jaw with each other about foreign affairs, ménage à trois, and height-speed ratios of jockeys. The artist is at points exhausted, curious, frightened and infatuated. The Tom that wears the sunglasses asks her about her daddy and her granddaddy and what her momma does for a living. The Tom with the movie camera points at her easel and asks what's she gonna spend her blood money on. She says she’s being paid but small change for this job. It’s about honour. Three Tom’s start to well up.

Finding it difficult to get a handle on them all, the artist decides then and there to paint this subject in two colours only: deep red, like a collective heart attack, and vine green for their ghosts.

At precisely six o’clock in the evening the remaining Tom’s group together in the middle of the studio and begin to shift about uneasily. The artist wipes her hands and asks what’s up.  She’s told that it’s almost closing time. She points out that it’s only six o’clock but they are already jangling keys, putting on hats, mumbling see you around’s, glad to know you’s, catch you at the soda fountain… She blinks and they’re gone. The artist wipes her hands on her apron, lights a cigarette and fetches a broom.