Sunday 19 September 2010

The exhibition...

This story came to me fully formed at three o'clock this morning. It wasn't a dream because I wasn't asleep, I couldn't, it just popped into my head so I wrote it down. Then I stayed up another hour to illustrate it. Sometimes it's like that. Sometimes things come out of nowhere and take me to the zone.

Anyway, here it is. I think it was worth spending the night in the zone and losing a night's sleep over.

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“Hello.” She said as she walked towards me.

I had an idea that I’d seen her before - not through these eyes, but through some others.

“Are you here for the exhibition?” She asked.

“Exhibition?” I replied. “I guess I must be. Whose exhibition is it?”

“Yours.” She said with a small smile. I was both pleased and concerned in that same time. My own exhibition after all these years and me not quite yet able to even draw properly despite trying.

“Is it all my own work?” I asked with a grin.

“Yes, all yours.” She nodded.

“And is it good?”

“Mostly.”

She led me to a room. It was tall and very square. Two pictures hung opposite and facing each other, one to the left and the other to the right. We entered the room. In front and facing us was a blank wall. Behind us the door through which we had entered, now closed and (somehow I knew that it would be) locked.

“Only two pictures?” I asked.

“Only two.” She replied with that same and small smile.

I looked to the right at the canvas hanging on the grey wall. It was blank - or maybe it was painted white. To the left the other canvass seemed just as empty but was deepest black.

“Just two?” I asked her - already knowing how she would respond.

“There were others.” She replied. “Many, many of them - an almost infinite number, of every colour and every shade from blankest, whitest nothing to blackest, darkest nothing, all colours, all shades, a lifetime of painting, a full experience of that time -- but in the end just these two, only these two.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“You know who I am.” She replied with that same small, comforting, disconcerting smile.

And I did.

I knew her name. It began with ‘D’ and ended with ‘H’ - but it wasn’t Delilah. She hadn’t come to my exhibition to cut hair.

“Time to go? Time to leave my exhibition behind?” I asked.

“Yes.” She replied

And together we walked forwards towards the blankness of that other wall.

15 comments:

  1. I for one have enjoyed your exhibition, and I'm better for the privilige.

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  2. Wow...very deep! I hope when D...H comes to visit me, I will have lots and lots of pictures on the Walls, but then again...who knows...Was there a choice?

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  3. I like the pictures. I feel relaxed when I look at them, there is something about them. I don't know if it's because you mentioned you did this in the middle of the night, but it feels dreamy and unreal. Why are there 3 pictures?

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  4. I see what you mean Glynne, although there are only 2 pictures in the exhibition there are 3 pictures in the bottom triptych. I'll leave you to work out why.

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  5. Philip Morgan commented on Facebook:

    There's a psychiatrists beefburger in that story Andy. A cross between Play for Today and Roald Dahls Tales of the Unexpected

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  6. Facebook comments:

    Andy Bickerdike:
    you must have been on the cheese like me...

    Nick Jones:
    I don't fully understand it. But I like it.

    Colin Tickle:
    I'm sure you've still got a few grey canvasses, and possibly even some coloured ones, to paint before you have to worry about the black one. Great post.

    Linda Kemp:
    don't give up yet, you have plenty more to create x

    Simon Parker:
    Beautiful and haunting. I read most of your blogs. You underestImate the size of your exhibition.

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  7. love the drawings.....in the 60s, hippies used to paint/draw similar things - theirs was about self awakening and finding themselves,man - are you finding yourself?Liberation can be a wonderful thing.

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  8. How To Do Stuff
    'If I like ya, I'll RT ya, but if you're full of crap - I won't.'

    HTDS RE-TWEETED this post. I feel strangely pleased.

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  9. wierd and wonderful as always tank

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  10. so, are u gonna run one or what???????????? xx

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  11. Who knows my dear, who knows.

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  12. This has a serene loneliness about it.

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