TWO
The boy at the door
looked even younger than Beth had expected him to be from his e-mail. He was
quite wordy for his age. He couldn’t be much older than seventeen. He was
dressed in faded jeans, Converse shoes, a Ramones T-shirt and a wrinkled,
greasy flannel shirt. His hair was longish and uncombed. He looked familiar
though. As she recognized him, she let out a little scream. Although in her painting
a lot of his features were darkened it was in fact the very same person she’d
just painted.
“What’s wrong?” the boy
asked, worry clearly visible in his face.
She stepped back. “No,
no… It can’t be…”
“Please… What is wrong?
Why did I startle you?”
She pointed at the
boy. “You… you… You cannot be… You can’t…”
“I am so very sorry I startled
you. I meant you no harm… I e-mailed you, asking to speak to you, remember? The
boy without fear?”
She nodded. “Yes, yes.”
The boy was so full of wide-eyed innocence and worried about her, Beth calmed
down a bit again.
“Do you want me to
leave?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No,
no. That’s all right. It’s just… You look very familiar.”
“Oh?”
“Just come in.”
The boy followed Beth
inside. They walked into her living room. Beth asked him if he wanted to have some
tea. The boy said he would like that. She walked to the kitchen after the boy sat
down on her couch. She went into the kitchen, leaning down on the kitchen counter
for a moment, trying to process what she’d just witnessed. How could she paint
someone she had never seen before? And why was the boy from the painting there
just after she’d painted him. Thinking about it made her dizzy. She figured the
best way to find out what was going on though, was to speak to him. So she just
put the kettle on.
When she returned with
the tea the boy was studying her paintings on the wall. He was especially intrigued
by the depiction of a rotting carcass hanging from a cross. It was being tortured
by a succubus-like woman with a whip. The succubus had a shapely female body
and antler-like horns. She was naked, but covered in blood.
“Not one of my best
works,” Beth noted.
The boy turned around. “It
looks very real.”
Beth shrugged. “That’s
what I’ve heard people say, yes. Have a seat, drink some tea and tell me what
you need to know.”
The boy sat down on the
couch again. He sipped some tea and said, “Like I e-mailed you I want to know a
bit more of how you know what to paint. Where do these scary images come from?
How do you know so well what scares them? What does…” The last part she couldn’t
quite follow.
Beth held up her hands. “Slow
down so I can read your lips better.”
“I’m sorry,” the boy
said, blushing. He repeated the questions, slower. He seemed like a very polite
and nice young man. The last part of the question was, “what does painting these
pictures do to you?”
“It’s difficult to say.
The images… They just pop into my head. I don’t know where they come from. I
just know that I’m compelled to paint them. Sometimes when I look at them I
feel uncomfortable. I don’t really like horrific things. But I just have to put
them on the canvas to get them out of my head. I have displayed some of them so
I can hopefully understand better where they come from.”
“That’s intriguing. So
they are a mystery to you?”
“You could say that,
yes.”
“Were you always so good
at painting?”
Beth shook her head. “Didn’t
pick up a paintbrush until I painted my first horrific picture ten years ago,
just after I lost my hearing.”
“How did you lose that?”
“That’s a peculiar story,”
Beth said. “But I will tell you.”