AN ARTIST’S FREEDOM
(A Sample Short Story from the collection)
SHORT SHORTS & LONGER TALES
John Muir
COPYRIGHT John Robert Muir 2006. John Robert Muir asserts the legal and moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent and permission of the publisher.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. The cover artwork is from a painting by Thalap Flores, Northern Territory, Australia.
DISCLAIMER: This story is a work of fiction. The names and characters are from the imagination of the author and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental. If you think the author has written about you, your ego is greater than your imagination or common sense.
Published in EBooks 2013
EBooks ISBN:
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AN ARTIST’S FREEDOM
I had finished work early and was waiting for her arrival at the little suburban station.
The oblong building straddled two pairs of tracks. The balcony on the city side was a good viewing area. The waiting room contained the most intricate, eye-catching and thought provoking piece of aboriginal art I had ever seen. Behind thick glass, it was about a metre wide and 60 centimetres high.
“For a brief period we had the original.” The sudden statement from behind startled me. I had not realized the station master had been watching me.
“A print?”
“Yeah. Four done. The others are in Australia House, the Governor General’s residence, and the PM’s office.”
“Takes my breath away. Where’s the original?”
“Canberra Art Gallery. A precious native art worth tens of thousands.”
“Not signed. Who’s the painter?”
“We know who, just don’t know his name.”
“Dead?”
“No. Alive. A local actually. Lives in the bush somewhere around here. That’s his only known painting.”
“How’d you get it?”
“He was carrying an incomplete canvas and paints with him when he was scrounging around the platforms out there. Found a whisky bottle and within minutes was asleep on the rail line. The police took him, canvas and painting gear away. He was mute and didn’t understand English.”
“Local aboriginals tried to communicate with him, but our painter only understood some. They decided he’s not originally from here. They reckon he’d found the abandoned canvas, paint and brushes on a bush track, then started to paint his life on canvas.”
“The cops cleaned him up, and fed him. They left him with his gear in a cell over the weekend until a court hearing on trespass and public drunkenness. In that time he completed the painting. Magistrate found him guilty and fined him. He had no money so the Court confiscated the painting in payment. It was just another painting. Nobody knew its value then, until the experts saw it.”
“Now he wants his painting back because it contains his soul. He thinks we have the original behind the glass. We put strong bars over the waiting-room windows and leave the lights on at night. He can see his painting when he sneaks around after the station is closed. He stays because his spirit can’t move with freedom into the dreamtime. It’s all locked into the painting.”
As if on call I saw him. He moved as smoothly as a gentle breeze across gardens. Images of Nature’s best wild hunting creatures flashed through my mind. Unconcerned with the presence of anyone or anything around him, he was fully aware of exactly where and what they were, animate and inanimate things.
A dozen waiting travelers watched the same thing. Black hair so soiled it looked brown; he was probably in his late 20’s. To him he was doing nothing to attract anyone’s attention; he totally ignored them in his search.
A soiled short-sleeved once black T-shirt, with a faded Che Guevara screen print, covered his lean but not skinny torso. The shirt hung outside the baggy green knee- length shorts. The legs matched the arms, muscled but slim.
He eyed a token prize and headed towards it. The woman occupying the bench- seat in his sight quickly evacuated to get away from the creature with days of accumulated dust and dirt on its body. Oblivious to her presence or departure he stooped picking up two cigarette butts, and a third further under the seat. Putting his prizes into his pocket his eyes swept the tar-sealed platform.
Gliding down on to the rock-metal floor of the shoulder-depth trench where the wooden sleepers supported the rail lines, our seeker never paused in his movement and efficient search along the track. Bare feet so hardened, the sharp edges of the metal were unfelt. Our athletic seeker picked up three or four more butts.
“He’s on the tracks now.” The station master was on a remote phone.
“I’ve got 4:15 country bound, then, 4:16 city bound a few minutes away. The non-stop expresses aren’t racing through for a while.”
The sound of running feet caught my attention and eight uniformed police ran on to the balcony. The station master quickly explained what was happening.
For the first time the seeker glanced up at the activity above him so quickly it was imperceptible to most watchers. His search was outwardly unaffected.
Four more police arrived. A quick group huddle saw them split into equal teams and head to each platform. The seeker gave the movements a disinterested glance as he pocketed more butts
Two police went past the seeker to the city end and with difficulty lowered themselves onto the track; two more did likewise at the station end. The cordon was complete and closing.
Two officers rushed forward when the seeker’s back was turned. As they were about to grasp him, our athlete dropped to the ground, did a perfect gymnasts backward roll and stood up behind them, then glided onto the country arrivals platform as easily as if he had run up a ramp.
The platform police made a grab but he dived through at knee level, regained his feet, and ran for the two metre security fence with four officers in pursuit. He hit the fence at full speed, but instead of bouncing off, the speed took him to the top and over before dropping lightly to his feet. The frustrated police stood only centimeters away through the mesh.
The seeker jogged toward the city and into the low scrub. The 8-car city train slowly entered the platform to my right. Doors opened and passengers disembarked.
The police were all back on the balcony talking to the station-master as the country train pulled in. The carriage doors opened and the platform passengers entered. One departing passenger, in his haste, had forgotten to pick up his pack of cigarettes and lighter from where he had placed them next to him on the seat.
“Hang on I’ll give both drivers the all clear to go.”
The gap between the trains was barely a body-width. Between platform and the trains was even narrower. The soiled apparition glided up between the city-bound platform and the train carriage, grabbed the forgotten cigarettes and lighter from the seat and scaled the 2-metre fence before the police moved. Within seconds he had disappeared among the scrub.
“Jeez, where’d he come from?” The station-master moved back inside his office, seconds later a bell on each platform sounded and the commuter trains pulled out.
Two police, doing a goodwill act for a young mother, carried a baby-stroller and groceries to the city bound departure platform. She carried a month-old baby. A two year old on a lead gingerly made his way down the steps. A quicker four year-old led the way.
Tasks done, the police drifted out of the station.
“Cleared just in time,” said the station-master as he passed. “The expresses will roar through in a fe
w minutes.”
More passengers started to gather on the departures platform, watching more appealing entertainment. The toddler was dancing to the platforms’ background music while tied to one of the seats. Crouching, leg stomping, clapping and pointing; the crowd whistled and clapped. The four-year old began rap-dancing.
Unnoticed in the shadow of a large tree outside the fence, our athlete watched the infants perform. A smile on his face, he danced silently and rhythmically the dreamtime movements of ten thousand years.
The mother was changing the baby’s napkin. In the distance the approaching city-bound express was making its dull sound on the rail lines. She knew this train would pass through without stopping.
An upbeat Michael Jackson song crackled from weak speakers. Both children burst into a wilder dancing frenzy.
The two-year-olds body jerked hard on the lead. The tied end flew free, and the toddler stumbled into his older sibling. The elder already off-balance from an exaggerated routine, grabbed at the younger for support and both fell toward the edge of the platform before rolling into the trench. The mother had not noticed the collision.
Women screamed and men yelled as the express train entered the country end of the platform. A grey figure flashed over the two-metre fence, past the woman, and swooped into the trench metres in front of the fast traveling engine. Brakes making banshee sounds, the squealing sixty-ton engine and carriages flowed past the platform. The helpless spectators’ view was blocked by the blur of passing carriages.
I stood frozen on the balcony watching the two infants tumble on the track. The express rumbled beneath me hurtling toward the helpless infants. My view of the blurred figure’s entry onto the track blocked by the front of the engine as I saw two small bodies tossed into the air before they landed heavily, then tumbled and rolled onto the safety of the arrivals platform, and immediately started crying. The grey ghost was nowhere.
The station-master rushed out of his office.
“No!” he screamed.
The last carriage was past the end of the platform. I stared down at the grotesque half figure cut clean through at the waist. Its arms tried to turn the upper half of its body around and reach up and scramble back onto the platform, but they could only reach half-way up the dirty concrete wall.
Spectators rushed to the platform’s edge, women screaming. Some women and men vomited at the sight they could now see.
The station-master ran into his office, threw some emergency switches, then out and down the stairs knowing it was too late. As he got to the half-figure he jumped onto the track. My sight seemed to magnify the detail and I could see the clear brown eyes of the dying man as if they were in front of my face.
With the station-master bending over him, his mouth and lips moved in silence. With his strength fading, he slowly raised one arm and pointed to the waiting room. The station-master understood and turned to look up to the balcony.
“Get it,” he screamed.
I knew what he meant and ran into the waiting room. The cabinet was padlocked. I picked up the nearest chair and swung with all my might. Shattered glass emptied out of the frame. The print was attached to light corkboard. I yanked it off the hook and ran down to the platform.
The station-master put it front of the eyes of this greatest athlete and artist. The weakened bloodied hand moved forward and touched the print. Tears formed in the corner of his eyes and a smile beamed on his face.
The station-master and I both looked up at a figure that had appeared, and was leaning over the edge of the platform. He was a distinguished looking man in a dark blue suit with a face showing very obvious aboriginal features.
He quickly removed his suit jacket, tie, shirt, pants, shoes and sox, then went to an area with soil and rubbed some on his face and body before coming back to where our victim lay.
He began to dance and sang a haunting refrain which took over the atmosphere as he moved as smoothly as we’d seen our athlete do. Some nearby kookaburras joined in, and the gentlest of breezes began to blow over the platform.
The fingers of the half-man gently, but weakly caressed the painting and the smile stayed. There were two quick jerks of the fingers and the life in the eyes died as the body expired.
Our dancer stopped. In a clear educated English voice he said. “Now my brother, you can rest with your freedom in the spirits of our sacred world.”
The station-master and I just sobbed at the now very frail looking body. The infants’ mother was on the arrivals platform comforting them.
We looked down the platform at the stopped train.
Then we looked around for the man who had done the dance and singing. He and his clothes had gone. Police were arriving and talking to witnesses. The station-master clambered onto the platform, slowly walked back to his office and locked his door. The painting still under the hands of the hero, art now gently marked with the extra beauty of the bloodied finger strokes of the painter.
I walked slowly back to the apartment.
I do not wait at station platforms any more.
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About The Author
John Muir was born in Hamilton, New Zealand. Attended Palmerston North Boys High School and graduated in accounting from Massey University. He spent 25 years in Sydney, Australia, and time in Asia.
-Short Shorts & Longer Tales
-My Other Shorts & Formal Tales
-The Siege of Apuao Grande
-Just Cause, Wrong Target
-A Sunday Market Seller (A sample story from “My Other Shorts & Formal Tales”)
-Patch (A short story for 8-12 year olds)
John Muir-Visit my website at www.
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