Life in Paintings

Chapter 21 - Through Glass Lenses

Chapter 21 – Through Glass Lenses

I'm still trying to catch my breath when I appear in the next painting.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't my favourite hallucination, popping up again. I really need to tell my doctor to up my medicine," a lovely voice says before I can get my bearings and when I look up Tanya is smiling at me. I don't even know what to say.

A second time with Gustave and now a second time with Tanya. Why?

I look around her room and everything looks the same except for a new painting. It looks like someone took off their glasses and their cleaning one of the lenses but in the other one you can see Tanya standing by the window looking out at the snow falling on the city. I stare back at her. She still looks the same. She's still has the same short blond hair and piercing green eyes. She's wearing the same overalls though they appear to have more paint stains if that's even possible. And she's popping pills again. "How long has it been since we've last seen each other?" I ask her.

She answers me after swallowing her pills and water. "Oh, I don't know, about two weeks ago. You went all Abracadabra-POOF-disappear on me, it was quite unsettling. My hallucinations have never done that before," she says and goes back to her painting.

"That's because I'm not a hallucination," I tell her, following her.

"Sure, you're not a hallucination," and she winks at me theatrically, to show it's just a big joke to her. "You know, I didn't see you disappear the last time. I woke up the next morning and you were gone. And I went to see my therapist. We changed my pills."

Now I kind of feel bad. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. If you are a hallucination, you're a nice one so that's fine. And if you aren't a hallucinations and this curse thing is real, it's not your fault. It would be kind of nice actually. You've only been in famous paintings. It's nice to know I can compare to those," she narrows her eyes a bit, pensive, "A little intriguing too. I wonder how the curse picks the paintings."

It's a good question. "I wonder about that too," I tell her, and I do. Why all the pain? Why some moments of rest? Why Gustave? Why her? Is this curse trying to teach me something or is it just trying to make me suffer? Having some answers would be nice.

"Then again, what's the point in trying to make sense of something senseless like a hallucination."

"I'm real," I press.

"Yeah, you keep saying that but I'm not exactly in a position to believe you," she answers and chuckles a little.

"I'll prove it to you, what's the date today?"

She frowns, confused as to where I'm going with this. "February 15th."

"What year?"

She rolls her eyes and huffs. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, seriously."

"2012," she concedes.

2012. The thought is strange. I exist here. I really exist. Somewhere out there I'm probably in a lecture in college right now, living my life. "Okay yeah, that's good, that's about two years ago from me. I'm from 2014," I say, almost more to myself than to Tanya.

"I should seriously congratulate myself. My hallucinations have never been this entertaining. Usually it's all death, death, death, blood, death, binge-eat cookie dough, death," Tanya just rants away.