Still Life with Neglected Bottle
No.
Tova bent to peer through the lead glass of the
barn. There the white thermal bottle waited, glowing atop the filthy blue roof
of her Honda, just across the drive. A ray of sunlight was shouting through the
sparse shade to make it obvious.
Stupid.
Primaries, secondaries, tertiaries: the
instructor, who was patiently explaining, was a good painter. Tova had once been
a good-enough painter. She wiped sticky oil from her hands with a dish towel and
squinted at the imbalances in her composition.
Glance.
Still a stronger rendering than others.
Earnestly nice, her classmates aspired to imitated prettiness. She should go,
because a noxious fume needs air and the stillness stoked her thirst. The bottle
was out there, seeming to sway with the wavy, old window. Right there,
reflecting heat.
Arrogant.
Imagining the rudeness of wrestling herself from
the quiet studio of solemn students just to get her drink felt devastating.
Years of relinquished skill tore at her parched throat. The cells of the color
chart filled with placid swatches.
Chewing her lips, Tova considered the aluminum
crow’s legs of her easel, wondering how she might lift them noiselessly to
create an escape route. But, but. Voices and bodies began percolating with
beginner questions of tone versus value.
Now.
Tova scanned the room, then scraped her easel
aside. She leapt and dodged with the grace and fury of a famished tiger,
lusting past days of rotten, incompetent kills on canvas. She smiled an apology
to the disabled woman at the edge of class as she contorted around her walker
and exploded out the door, panting with regret.
Debrah Malater
Debrah
Malater is an artist and video maker who’s been disillusioned by most things
yet is thrilled to still be here. This is (might be?) her first published work
of fiction.