The Muse (4 page)

            Gibson couldn't help imagining more.  He couldn't help secretly wanting more.   

            The fact that he was thinking about her was both jarring and a little surprising.  Why was he thinking about her?  She had always seemed like a stuck-up, snobbish, spoiled rich kid who thought that living in squalor was a rite of passage.  They were from totally different worlds.  But he couldn't evict her from his thoughts.  He couldn’t stop thinking about her, about their last conversation.  That conversation argued against all of the things he thought he knew about her.  He had actually had (dare he say it?) fun with her just now.   

            Was it possible he was wrong about her?  Was it possible he was right?      

            Like a lazy cat, he slowly opened his eyes to the explosion of color overhead.  All of the art he had tacked to the ceiling was different in style, texture, and theme; but each was beautiful in its own way.  He imagined one of his own paintings situated alongside the others.  He quickly changed his mind about that, thinking that none of his would be good enough to be featured with so many masters.  He needed to create something new.  He needed to pour his frustrations out on canvas and see them in a tangible explosion of color.  He spent day after day painting people he really didn't want to paint.  Maybe he needed to paint something for himself this time.

            The only question was what.  What subject was worthy of his time and energy?  If he were to listen to that inner voice, what would it suggest?  His mind kept returning to Faith against its own volition, and Gibson finally decided to give in to it and paint her.  After all, love or the prospect of it had motivated more artists, musicians, novelists, poets, and sculptors to create than just about any other emotion.  If love could be a muse, he suspected she would be whispering Faith's name in his ear.       

            He jumped up from the bed and raced to his studio, grabbing paints and brushes with a fervor that wasn’t customary for him.  He had a few canvases already prepared, and he chose one at random.  For the next hour or so, he painted with a passion and fury that he rarely exhibited anymore.  He was held fast in the grip of inspiration, and he couldn't move quickly enough to capture the image he saw in his mind's eye.  Gibson normally was a very fastidious artist, taking his time and being careful to get everything just right.  Not so tonight.  Tonight, he was consumed, possessed, driven.  He had often heard of writers getting in a zone, musicians finding “the pocket,” and athletes hitting a streak.  Yet, he had never experienced the feeling until now.  As he painted, he suddenly understood.

            He was on fire, burning from the inside by a force more powerful than simple inspiration.  

            From nothing more than a blank canvas, some paint, and the image that was fiercely burned on the surface of his brain, Gibson recreated a stunning likeness of Faith.  Normally, the girl was aloof, flippant, and sometimes even condescending.  Yet, he had seen a different side of her on the front steps, and that is what he painted.  The face that stared back at him was thoughtful, glib, and intrigued.  She was a girl and a woman all wrapped up in a single glance, and as he stared at his creation, pleased with himself.  He had captured something with his brushes that any photographer would have envied.  He had captured this woman's essence, and the more he stared at the portrait, the more interesting she became.

            Faith.

            Why had he failed to notice her like this before?  Why had he never seen her from this perspective?  It was a mistake he wouldn't make again.

            The muse had spoken, and Gibson had responded.  The painting before him was the best thing he had ever done, and yet he couldn't show it to anyone. 

            “Why can't you show it to anyone?” the muse asked him.  “You've transcended simple emotion and converted it into art.  If that doesn't deserve an audience, I don't know what does.”

            “You don't understand,” Gibson thought, feeling foolish for answering a character that owed more to hyperbole than reality.  “I can't show this to her.”

            “Why?” the muse asked.

            “Because I just can't,” Gibson said.

            “Because is not a reason.  Being frightened of the response is not a reason.  If you're afraid to take a chance, your life will remain as it is now.” 

            “But what if she rejects me?”

            “Will you be any worse off than you are now?  Will you be any more alone than you are now?”

            The muse had a point.

            Before he could talk himself out of it, he decided not to waste this opportunity.  Without waiting for the painting to dry completely, he grabbed the canvas and headed out the door toward the stairs.  He was going to go down to the next floor, down to Faith's apartment to show her what he had done.  He was going to try and find the man inside him he wasn't even sure existed.   

            He tried to imagine the look on her face when she saw what he had done.  He imagined the way she might smile at him, the light in her eyes, the lilt in her voice.  He imagined it all in an instant, and it was a vision of perfection.  The world around him exploded in vibrant blossoms of color.  Nothing was black and white anymore.  Everything was distorted by a vibrant hue of some sort.  His feelings gave him a bright outlook about everything, and the world was transformed as a result. 

            Yet his imagination was playing a cruel trick on him, and the scenario he envisioned wasn't true.  He realized that when he reached the 4
^th
floor and saw a young man standing outside Faith's door, fist poised to knock.  He was dressed for a date and carrying flowers.  Gibson froze, mouth agape.  It all made sense now.  The call Faith had gotten just a little while ago.  Her need to exit their conversation.  She had someone waiting for her.  Why had he expected otherwise?  She was a beautiful girl.  No doubt there were plenty of gentlemen callers.  Before anyone could see him and ridicule him for his stupidity, he hit the door leading to the stairs and headed back home.

            His gut churned, and his hands were sweaty.  His eyes darted around nervously, wondering if anyone had seen him.  Surely, if anyone had, they would have thought him foolish.  A man like him with a woman like her?  It was more of a joke than a defiance of the laws of nature.  Gibson suddenly hated himself more than he ever had.  He had allowed himself the slightest bit of hope and dared to take a chance, only to feel like the world's biggest dope.

            He was destined to be “just a friend” and that, perhaps, was the most depressing thing he could imagine.  When he reached his apartment, he didn't head for the beer in the refrigerator or the liquor in the pantry.  Instead, he tossed the painting onto the moth-eaten couch and headed straight for bed.  This time, he didn't lie on his back and stare at the paintings on the ceiling.  Instead, he crawled beneath the sheets and buried his face in the pillow, wanting nothing more than to stick his head in the proverbial sand. 

            He remained like that until he went to sleep.  From then on, it was nothing but tossing and turning.   

            And while he slept, he dreamed.

            The muse, it seemed, wasn't done speaking to him.  In dreams, she had his full attention, and like any good patron of the arts, he listened.  

            In his dream, he was adrift at sea, clinging to a bit of driftwood for dear life.  The boat he had been on had capsized, and he was treading water, trying to find some way to stay alive.  He could feel his legs growing tired as he kicked to stay afloat.  His muscles were aching, and he bobbed up and down in the currents like a fishing cork. 

            As he treaded water, he wondered if there were sharks or other dangerous fish swimming around him, unseen in the darkness.  He shivered in the frigid depths and wondered if hypothermia would claim him before any of the denizens of the deep.  He struggled to keep his head above water and wondered if he would go under and fill his lungs with sea water instead of survive.  There were so many possibilities, so many ways to die out here.  He wondered about them all. 

            And still, he clung to the driftwood, hoping that someone would rescue him.

            He stayed in the water for hours.  His lips were dried out from all of the brine, and a fine layer of salt had caked on his brow.  He was tired, thirsty, hungry, and ready to lie down and sleep for a week straight.  But he knew that to stop fighting would be to surely die.  So he kicked and flailed and tried to survive. 

            Then, miraculously, from out of nowhere came a lifeboat sailing by.  For as far as he could see in either direction, there was no point of origin.  There was no land in sight.  No sailing ships.  Nothing but miles of water no matter which way he looked.  The lifeboat had just...appeared.

            And what was more, the lifeboat had the word
Faith
stenciled across its bow.  It was here to save him, and he was ready to be saved.   

            Eager for a reprieve, Gibson pulled himself up out of the water and into the boat.  A blanket was waiting for him along with several bottles of water, a basket of food, a flashlight, and some dry clothes.  He wasted no time opening one of the bottles of water and drinking half of it at once.  Then, he ripped open an energy bar and devoured it hungrily.  Thankful, that he wasn't going to drown now and feeling the full weight of his exhaustion, Gibson pulled the blanket over him and went to sleep in the boat almost immediately.

            When he fell asleep in his dream, he woke up in real life.  Moonlight streamed in through the window, and the clock radio beside the bed flashed 2:48 a.m in red.  Gibson covered his head with the pillow and tried to go back to sleep.  His mind, however, was in overdrive and wouldn't be tamed so easily.  

            For the next couple of hours, he pondered the nature of his dream.  What did it mean?  Why had the lifeboat been named Faith?  Was his subconscious smacking him across the back of the head and telling him to wake up?  Or was the dream the product of all that had happened during the day? 

            Gibson didn't know quite what to make of it, and at last, he finally fell back asleep again.        

            The next day Gibson roused earlier than normal.  He hadn't slept well.  No matter how much he tried to forget, he kept replaying the events of the past evening over and over again.  He kept walking down those steps and rounding the corner just in time to see Faith's date preparing to knock on her door.  It was cringe worthy, and Gibson wished he knew of a way to bleach the memory from his mind.  For his own sanity, he knew he couldn't spend the day reliving the moment over and over again.     

            In a rare moment of determination, he decided to go someplace different to paint.  He needed to get away from The Square for a while and all of the thoughts and feelings associated with it.  After some contemplation, he decided to setup shop at the train station.  The demographic there would be totally different from what he was accustomed to, and a change is what he needed the most.  At least there, the chance of running into Faith would be less.   

            The train depot was a bustling, chaotic mass of people moving to and fro.  It was like someone had stirred up an anthill and turned the place into a hub for pandemonium.  The people here weren't the normal doe-eyed folks in love.  Rather, there were businessmen, police officers, food vendors, city officials...or more importantly, people on a mission.  These weren't simply people wandering about aimlessly in search of serendipity.  These were people who had places to go and people to see.  Gibson wasn't even really expecting to make any money today.  He just needed something to occupy his mind after last night.  He didn't want to think about Faith today.  He needed
not
to think about her. 

            For a while, he was content to sketch the casual passerby.  He would pick out someone with an intriguing feature and draw a caricature of them.  He found a man with a handlebar moustache that was particularly fun.  Then, a lady with a wart on her nose walked past, and he took the liberty of transforming her into a witch on her broom.  He hadn't even bothered setting up his paints.  At the moment, sketching was much more fun.  He was right in the middle of drawing a police officer with an enormous gut when someone spoke to him.

            “You're pretty good.  Think you could draw me?”

            Gibson had been in deep concentration and was startled by the voice.  He turned and saw a dark-haired woman with full lips smiling at him.  Like him, she was holding a sketchbook and a charcoal pencil.  Like him, she was drawing different people in the train station.  Gibson realized his mistake.   

            “Oh, I'm so sorry,” he said, genuinely meaning it.  “I didn't mean to butt in on your territory.”