“Well, excuse me, sir, but you will have plenty of time to look at those paintings just as the curator has promised.”
Nelson Hightower shoved his elbow into the gut of the man pressing at his wife Amanda’s back as she stared at the graceful brushstrokes composing that lovely girl surrounded by a field brimming with sunflowers all painted such a magnificent shade of bright and glowing yellow.
“My wife isn’t finished yet. Show some manners and give her a little time. Do you realize she’s displayed her own work on these very walls?”
The man snorted. “Hell, this gallery exhibited my templates two years ago, mister. Maybe it’s your wife who should show some manners. She’s not the only one wanting to get a closer look at that painting.”
Amanda lifted a finger and reached softly towards those sunflowers. The flowers seemed to twirl like miniature suns the longer she stared at them. She thought she perceived a breeze lifting the strands of the girl’s hair, to ruffle the hem of her dress. But Amanda reminded herself that such could not be. A painting held only two dimensions. A painting had no room in which to hold the wind. Yet it was as if the painting kept whispering to her that such was possible, if only she believed, if only she would touch those oils and feel how logic and wisdom could trick a person from knowing the truth.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, Nelson.” Amanda’s finger stretched another inch closer to the canvas. She concentrated so hard on not touching those paints that her finger trembled as it strove to be as close to those sunflowers as possible without setting a fingerprint upon the pigments. “It doesn’t make any sense, because you only see a painting with your eyes. But I swear there’s a buzzing in my ear. Like the sound of that swarm darkening that canvas’ sky.”
Nelson gripped his wife’s elbow. “I don’t think that’s very funny. That painting might be mesmerizing, but it sends chills down my spine all the same. I’m not so sure I’m going to want to buy the template based on this painting when it’s offered for sale at the gift shop.”
“You can’t turn this painting into a kit, Nelson,” Amanda whispered. “You can’t turn any of these pictures into a template.”
Nelson smiled. “Eventually, they turn everything into a template. Eventually, they find the perfect numbers and formulas for everything.”
“I don’t believe that,” Amanda’s finger stretched still closer towards those oil sunflowers. “I might’ve believed it before, but I don’t believe it now. I don’t believe anyone could ever duplicate any of it, no matter the directions or the outlines.”
Nelson peered over Amanda’s shoulder at the girl sitting amid the sunflowers. Her face was turned towards the background, looking away from those who gathered to consider the technique of her creation. A part of Nelson badly wanted for that girl’s features to turn and face him, but an equal part in his heart feared that wishing so may actually give those paints the power to swirl and reshape the canvas’ contents to satisfy his curiosity.
“It’s just a trick or technique like everything else, Amanda.” Nelson swallowed the urge to scream at his wife to withdraw her finger from the canvas, resisted the urge to shout that she place her hands into her pockets. “The artist only drew his own outlines. Everything boils down to outlines in the end. There’s nothing that can’t be copied.”
Amanda did not withdraw her finger. “I never realized you were so sad, Nelson. I never knew you were so incapable of believing in magic.”
Once more tempted, Amanda’s finger stretched still closer to that painting. Perhaps someone in the crowd pushing at her back unexpectedly bumped her. Perhaps she wanted to touch that canvas simply to spite an overprotective curator. Or, perhaps she want to reach out to those colors and test if her husband was correct in thinking that, in the end, everything boiled down to outlines and numbers. No matter the reason, Amanda’s finger touched those swirling oils. She gasped at the touch. She thought she felt a sting upon her finger. She pulled her hand back to her side, and saw that a little of the color blemished her skin. She quickly dabbed at the stain with a cloth withdrawn from her purse, and yet the color refused to vanish, and her efforts did nothing else but further spread that yellow blight of pigment.
Outside, the wind suddenly calmed, as the sky grew increasingly dark. Those still waiting beyond the gallery’s glass doors stared up at the clouds as a buzzing turned from a murmur into a drone. People screamed. People fell. People swatted at their faces and pulled at their hair as the swarm descended from the heavens and tossed the community into unnatural dark.
The insects splattered against the gallery’s glass windows and doors. The glass cracked, and shortly thereafter it shattered. The gallery offered no shelter to those who gazed upon Clive Turner’s opus wall from the rushing swarm.
The templates would be devoured and destroyed.
A new style would replace the kits sold in the gift shop.
That old, timid world would feed the swirls and shadows of a more creative kind.