Title: Art + Gertie = Sarcasm(A LOT of it)
Place: Nabias during an abstract art exhibit
Characters: Snowy(my main persona), Gertrude(Lucain yet to be created- for more info on her, I direct you to
here, bottom of the page. :3)
"I love you... but not that much." Gertrude grumbled as she was wheeled against her will to the abstract art exhibit in downtown Nabias by her less than competent pusher, Snowy. “Oh, Gertie, I love your sense of humor.” Snowy laughed; Gertrude rolled her eyes. While she tolerated the young woman’s company, she absolutely abhorred this abstract junk. It was just a way to give slacker artists new meaning to their simple and “sorrowed” souls. Ha, they didn’t know real pain. They had their futures ahead of them, though if their future was in art she wasn’t certain.
She had a better reason to be angry at Snowy for dragging her out though. Today, she had wanted to go out herself in her Lucain form to see what she could do, but instead, she gained only hairy wolf-slash-human legs once again. Useless, just like her life. Everything came to a pathetic point in her life. She had accepted that her life was pointless from the day they told her she would never be able to walk properly again, at least in lucain form. It was impossible for her to walk as a human. As they passed a TV shop, a newscaster in a heavy Fenling-lined coat stuttered out, "
There's a freeze warming- I mean, freeze warning in effect. You might wanna get those coats on, Evelonians!"
“If I have to ask once more-“
“Gosh, Gertie, have some fun once in a while! I swear, you’ll love this exhibit. All the art is, like, totally just… it blows your mind what you see in it. Just please stay and see at least a few pieces. For me?” she pleaded. She had been lucky enough to catch Gertie before she decided to start moping, and keeping her there long enough for her to actually enjoy herself. Gertie grumbled something along the lines of, “Real art didn’t require just seeing.” Or something of the like. She was at least glad Snowy had the dignity to help her into pants to cover up the ugly hairy things.
As she was wheeled in her portable prison through the metal detectors, the first thing she noticed was the many prissy little artists dressed in all black with berets and cigarettes. Pathetic. Gertrude rolled her eyes and felt the urge to spit somewhere, but held back. Lucky for the artists, her mouth was feeling dry. The last thing she wanted was to start coughing and drive Snowy up a wall.
I swear, what that girl does to make sure I stay alive. She just doesn’t wanna quit, does she? Gertrude thought smugly to herself. She slowly peeled off her coat and handed it to Snowy, who went off and took them to the large closet. One artist looked down at her with a scrutinizing eye. Gertie gave him a stony look.
“I’m sorry, sir, what seems to be the problem?” she asked, narrowing her eyelids slightly. Her eyes were chips of ice, while his were a watery green. “Joo have no stayell or colurr. Joo is… how you say, pale in comparrizun?” he said to her. She looked at her outfit. She wore nurse’s shoes (really, did she need to change shoes? Because you didn’t really need different shoes when you’re in a wheelchair.), tan pants, and a white t-shirt with faded brown letters reading Chocolate Lover across the front (something Kairi picked out, thinking it was a ‘fun’ shirt for her. Pfft.). Sure, she wasn’t in style, but he was an artist. Since when did they care about clothes?! And, to make things worse, he was trying to pull off a fifties beatnik look. She blew air out of her mouth. It whistled between her teeth.
“Well, Mr. I-Came-From-The-Fifties, I think that you should keep your mouth from saying things it will regret. I may be in a wheelchair, but I am sure that I am more powerful than you in this business and certainly have more influence. You may be the artist- though if you really are an artist I have yet to see- but I am the critic. And right now, I have to say your art is not taking on the personality you think it should have.” Gertrude finished with a light but still very sharp tone to her voice. She eyed him with a smirk starting on her lips, poised to continue the speech. “Now, where is your art? I’d love to see if actually some meaning other than, ‘Look at me! Because I’m twisted into some convoluted shape that no one can figure out what it could be, I attract your attention! I represent some form of morbid suffering! Yay!’”
The man gaped at her, his cigarette tipping out of his open mouth. He quickly retrieved it and scurried off, glancing back a few times with a slightly frightened expression, waving his palm slowly to guide her to his exhibit. Gertie followed after him, taking hold of her own wheels while Snowy followed at her side. As soon as they entered his little section, Snowy was taken aback by the wonderful exhibit.
“I don’t pretend to understand it, but… are those whales in the sky?” she asked Gertrude, smiling and hoping that Gertrude would get into it through her question.
It truly was a magnificent sight. White whales made of cotton balls and Styrofoam hung from the ceiling, spinning slightly. Bright blue ribbons, streamers and strings cascaded around them, down and down and down, just stopping at a height comfortable where no one would get an unexpected tickle on their forehead or cheek. “Beautiful… the sky is falling, but he makes it seem like a good thing!” Snowy said quietly in an awed voice. Gertrude looked about with a bored expression, taking in less of the art and more of the people there. Some of them were downright curious- there were children with thick, Hollowheart horns protruding from their skulls. A baby passed in their mother’s arms; at least she thought it was her mother, as the baby showed off Sygriff plumage along its pudgy face while the mother wore the various little baubles of the pet.
The thing she noticed most was two women, both very curvy and very pretty. But that was not what attracted her attention- they danced about freely, a rainbow of ribbons fluttering about their figure. They were crazy, ambitious, and yet they looked happy and alert. They skipped to her, pulling a ribbon between them: it was a beautiful red orange that shimmered and reminded Gertrude of wildfire. As they made to put it around her, she shook her head. “No, thank you. I would rather not.” She said politely, raising her hands to stop them. They halted and frowned at her, giving her the worst sad face she had seen in her life. Longshot could do better than them. “Do not give me that. Away with you before I am forced to raise my voice.” She gave them her famous steely look and they wilted under it.
But before they began to step away, Snowy reached out and caught the closer one’s shoulder. She played with a ribbon, readjusting it on the girl’s shoulder, then said
"Don't even try. Your colors will fall right off." She told her. “Here, I will make sure she keeps her ribbon. Do you have one for me?” the girls smiled, and selected a bright but soft light blue, and the closer wrapped it loosely around her neck like a scarf. Snowy smiled enthusiastically, saying proudly, “Oh, what a wonderful color for myself! You must see auras.” She gushed, as if she wanted to know more. The girls passed a look between them and nodded with a shrug. “Well, thank you for the gifts. We appreciate them greatly.” She told them sweetly, and said a small goodbye to them. Gertrude ground her teeth as they leaped and pranced away, going to toss a few more ribbons onto visitors. “What was that all about?! I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. If I have to send people away disappointed, so be it! Why-”
“Gertrude.” Snowy’s firm but quiet voice snapped Gertie out of her rant. She came up and drew Gertrude’s fire colored ribbon around her and then let it slide into her lap. “Disappointment is not something anyone ever wants to have. Just because you’ve had so much disappointment, so much anguish... why does it need to be transferred to other people? There are ways to get rid of it without making others feel it. The true strong people get past their troubles and fight to make everyone’s life better. What’s the matter with you, Gertie? So you fell. There’s no reason your disability should keep you from smiling.”
The young girl’s face was a stone, and a tear that slide down her cheek froze below the cheekbone. She flicked it off -not without a bit of anger behind it- and stalked away, trying to keep her tears from flowing freely. The middle-aged woman sighed with frustration, looking away. She could not look at the ribbon in her lap; instead her eyes were drawn to the clock tower outside the window. She begged it to go back, or forward- any time that would give her the chance to make everything better.
Try as she might, the clock tower just wouldn't move at this rate. She groaned inwardly, and her head went down. Immediately the bright contrast of her ribbon to her slacks made her stare at it with a heavy amount of curiosity. It wasn’t as beautiful as when it was about to be handed to her. It was limp and folded and lacklustre. It reminded her of, well, her. Before her accident, she had been excited, fearless... ready to be a great.
“Xai’re, why have you cursed me to go through so much heartbreak? Why did you choose to take my dreams away?” she whispered- she was defeated and broken down; she was vulnerable. Suddenly, a small cough interrupted her grieving. She looked up and saw, to her surprise, the artist. He looked at her with a sadness she had not detected from him. “Yes?” she asked, her tone sharp and icy. He flinched, but held his ground. “I wud like tu show joo sumtink.” He said, and placed himself behind her chair and pushed. She did not argue; something about him seemed sincere now. Though she was not sure what he could want to show her.
She was pushed into a small room with two paintings and an illuminated book in it. The walls were swirled and splotched with blues and was seamless with the art outside it. No one was inside; barely anyone actually noticed the room. The artist shut the door, and silence cushioned the room and gave Gertie a sense of security. A beautiful mosaic of the sun just rising above the clouds was in front of her, and a warm yellow light, soft but still bright, made it look almost real. “This is beautiful...” Gertrude said in an awed voice; the artist smiled in pleasure. “I’m glad joo like eet.” He told her, gesturing towards the book. “But that’s nut whut I vanted joo tu see.” He snapped up the illuminated book and brought it over to her, handing it to the paralyzed woman gently. “My life’s work... it’s my best work ever. I studied illumination in many countries. It took me seven years and eight months to finish this.” He said to her. She lifted the cover as slowly as she could, handling it like the finest china. As she flipped through the pages, she became engrossed in the pictures. As she looked closer at each one, more was revealed. A tree with a knothole in it became an owl’s home, with two round white eggs and a down-lined nest. The waves of an ocean became so complex that she got seasick just looking at it. “These are... I have no words for this fine art.” She said. As she arrived at the last page, she was thrown off. It showed a woman with a knife to her throat. At the bottom, there were a few words.
With the kiss of a knife, her eyes shut forever...“That vas thee last I saw of mai mother. She... she tuk her life becuss her husbend, mai fahder, he was keeled in a car accident. She cud not tink of a life wethut heem. She did nut consedur mei.” He said, his eyes stoic as he tried not to remember too much of the night he became an orphan. Gertrude saw the same sorrow she had in him. “I had been luking forwurd to a prumized day at thee park with mai dud. Instead that day, I went tu thee priest to tell heem that I wuz an orffen.”
Gertrude handed him the book; he took it solemnly, placing it softly on the stand and flipping to a happier page. “Please ma’am... I saw that joo were struggling to hev a fun time. Sence mai trajedy, all I hev vanted vas fur mai parents to be prud of mei. Today I know they are.” Gertrude sniffed and turned away. “I’m sorry for your loss... and I think that your exhibit is creative and magical. But next time... I want you to show everyone that book.” She told him with her polite voice. “It’s the best thing you have going for you.” She smiled slyly, and with that, she rolled her way out of the room, opening the door to be greeted by waves of sound. As she rolled aimlessly through the exhibit, Snowy ran up to her, distraught. “Oh, Gertie! Thank Gods I’ve found you; I was so worried!” she cried, hugging the woman and letting out a small sob. “I’m so sorry I got angry at you, I-”
“Shhh, Snowy.” Gertrude said, putting her finger to Snowy’s cool lips. “Can you do me a favor? I have an apology to deliver."