Short Lived

‘You have potential. You just have to free your talent from your fears.’

  The next thing I knew, I was up out of my chair and in front of the door, my portfolio handed to me as though it were a childish plaything.

  ‘Come back next week. We’ll try again.’

  *

  After such an odd introduction, I can’t say exactly why I did return the following week. My reception was no different; Rosalynn swept me into the same sitting room, placed the same mirror before me and issued the same instruction. An hour later, I again received the barest compliment of having ‘adequate technical skill’ before being told to come back next week for another attempt.

  Two more weeks passed.

  Nothing changed.

  By the fifth week, I was certain this was a joke to her.

  ‘I was told you’re the best – that you would advise me! So far, Mrs Carter, I’ve just drawn myself repeatedly, received no comments for improvement and seen nothing of your own work!’

  Her commanding self-assurance didn’t even falter.

  ‘How can you improve your style by looking at my work?’ A sigh. ‘You are drawing well, but you are not seeing, girl. Until you can see yourself, truly and without predilections, and show it in your portrait, you will never possess the freedom to capture anyone else as they truly are satisfactorily.’

  I had no response. The teacher-pupil back-story I had conjured in my head for when I was famous in future years was rapidly self-destructing. Ros nodded appreciatively at my silence, folding her arms in that wise manner the older generation have unspeakably mastered.

  ‘I do not improve people, child. One day, they simply find themselves. Now come back next week.’

  *

  Months began to pass. Father went away on business more and more, unable now to look at me; every day that went by simply modelled me into my Mother and it broke his heart. My art faltered massively. Each week, I felt I was tripping ever closer to something, just beyond my reach, and Ros’ dismissive attitude to every drawing only made the longing ache worse.

  And then that day came – the day my other dream, the one outside of art, came true.

  For three years, I had been hideously infatuated with Aaron Dennis, my imagination growing in its loneliness with every school day that whirled past. He would sweep me off my feet at the parties we attended, holding my hand, his hair a golden halo and his words perfect, like him. But, in reality, he’d never noticed me; the plain, abandoned angel.

  Except he did.

  At Susie Jenkins’ eighteenth birthday, the music blaring and the alcohol uninhibited, Aaron Dennis came to me and told me that I was all he wanted. His tall, muscular body in front of me – a dream come true – he was my knight, my hero... The only one to ever want me at all.

  Now I realise his talk of love was self-indulgent, his actions simply those of a dare.

  Hindsight is a terrible thing, Ella.

  That night, he wanted me – a thirty minute doomed romance.

  After that night, the last tattered shreds of my self-confidence withered, caving in – and, five weeks after that, something else in me died too.

  *

  My whole life felt erased. I had always been solitary, but now it crushed me. I continued sessions at Rosalynn’s, but I couldn’t draw. It was worse than before. Every time I looked in that mirror, all I saw were deadened eyes – no longer even the plain, abandoned, fallen angel. The nothing suddenly revealed in me burnt a ceaseless fire of humiliation – each time I walked to school; saw his cruel face; or saw my own naive, childish reflection.

  Sitting in Ros’ parlour, charcoal snapped between my fingers.

  In the glass, Rosalynn’s expression, one that had grown strangely familiar, suddenly softened for the first time. Then – an oracle – she asked me the one question I needed, but could never have expected.

  ‘Why are you so alone, love?’

  Her pitying words struck my heart, a painful bullet of undeserved sympathy. I slumped forward onto the table, dye and pastel smearing my face – and I cried. I cried for my foolishness, my shame, my failure... my betrayed, unborn life.

  I felt hands on my shoulders, gnarled fingers that would never draw again; my mortification deepened. I was a waste. Then a forehead rested against my lank hair and Ros’ voice, unexpectedly soft and maternal, whispered in my ear.

  ‘You wanted to know why I always make you draw yourself? Because you need to stop thinking you are empty, worthless. The face is the entrance to the heart, my love – and the eyes are the windows to the soul. Your eyes told me what you have given up, and I’m afraid it will always scar you. But you don’t live through years of fame without realising a few things, so trust an old woman on this: as alone as you may feel right now, it’ll get better...’

  I clung to her, to her words, tears staining the blank paper beneath us as I howled.

  And then, as she smoothed my hair, she spoke words I will never forget – the words that changed my life.

  ‘Someday you will understand, darling – you’re free now. Today is the day that you have finally seen yourself.’

  *

  Six exhibitions and one marriage later, I travelled once again, now heavily pregnant, to Ros’ house. Nothing had changed except the flowers trailing the trellises and flowerbeds; it felt like journeying a decade back into the dusty past.

  Over the years, Rosalynn never stopped helping me. She held my hand as I stepped into the world, steadily nurtured my talent into bloom and watched encouragingly from afar as I finally stumbled across success – and love.

  And she never once admitted her part in it, continually waving away my gratitude. Rosalynn Carter was always adamant: she didn’t teach people, didn’t help them – they helped themselves. Once, ever-modest, she told me tutoring was simply another artistic project, keeping her busy.

  But she couldn’t stay busy forever.

  The night she went, I held her hand, paper-thin and frail, the face I now knew as well as my own peaceful as she quietly slipped away. From that first second, I missed her more than I could stand.

  In the following weeks, as I cleared through her memories, I came across a room I had never been in before. Sunlight streamed in through a wall of bay windows, dappling the huge array of portraits that lined the room. For a minute, I thought they were Rosalynn’s own works, until I remembered she had donated every last one to galleries the world over.

  Then I realised.

  The faces gazing down at me, warm, full of life, were all the souls Ros always claimed she “hadn’t” healed; the people she “hadn’t” helped. In their eyes, I could see that streak of happiness that only comes from her touch. My throat hurt, and I pressed a hand to my stomach, wanting you, Ella, to share in this final moment with Ros.

  Because there – central amid the faces – was me.

  And I was smiling.

  Foreign Terrain

  The world of Ikea is almost entirely separate from ours.

  A mad labyrinth of amputated bedrooms and bathrooms, secret passages and narrow walkways; people jovially walking down them, hardly knowing their way at all, hardly caring where the arrows on the pathways could take them.

  The world of household furniture and crockery is a strange one.

  Lucy considered all of this as she wandered through the shop in search of necessities for her new home - making a point of sitting on beds, lifting the lids on desks and pushing herself along on desk chairs.

  ‘Do you actually know what you're looking for?’ Asked Charlotte, the friend she had dragged along with her. She traipsed after the bright freckled face of Lucy, who occasionally tossed a snarl of light brown hair away from her eyes so that she could see prices better.

  ‘Things, you know, grown up things. For the flat.’

  Charlotte folded her arms.

  ‘We've got the basics. You don't need to start worrying about desk chairs and plant pots until we're fully moved in.’

  ??
?Well isn't that what people do when they move out of their house for the first time? They go to Ikea. They buy loads of houseware, and then spend hours putting them together. Then they begin working nine ‘til five, realising that this really is it...’ Lucy had paused, staring at the reflected world, distorted in a collection of oddly shaped mirrors on the wall opposite. Charlotte pressed her lips together and stood by her.

  ‘You don't have to move in if you don't want to. Sarah says she's had enough of living with her dad, and she'd be happy to-’

  ‘No,’ Lucy smiled, shaking her head. ‘No, sorry. I'm just not used to the idea. New terrain, y'know! Bedside tables - that's what we need. Well, I need one. To put books on, mainly,’ and she wandered off once more, into the depths of the shop.

  ‘Well I'll look at lamps then, yeah? Meet you at the cafe in-’ Charlotte paused, realising Lucy was not listening, and probably would not listen to her at all during the preparation for the move. She waved her hand dismissively and set off in the other direction.

  *

  Lucy didn't really want any of the things Ikea had to offer. She didn't like the idea of buying all of this new, sterile furniture to replace the wardrobes and chests of drawers she identified with home. Did she really want to move? Was that what this was about? Was she really worried that living like an 'adult' would mean she suddenly became boring?

  She was in her early twenties. She had years and years of partying and adventuring left in her, but would leading a nine to five life suddenly make her mundane?

  She stopped, leant against one of the surrounding dining room tables and sighed. Ikea was too large and vast for her. She had been roaming for some time in search of the bedside tables, and so far every table but the one she had desired had turned up.

  Ikea wasn't as fun as they made it look on '500 Days of Summer.' After the first couple of visits, it lost all charm and just became one vast warehouse of soulless items, waiting to be homed, or built...

  What little charm remained, came in the form of specified paths, which weren't the necessary ways to escape the shop itself. A variety of hidden passages ran between sections, bringing you out in places you didn't know existed. It was those that Lucy intended to find and make use of, so she wouldn’t get lost amongst the madness, (or lack thereof).

  Feeling along the walls, smirking at her own personal homage to ‘Labyrinth’, Lucy wondered how long it would take her to get back to the cafe if she shot through each hidden nook. Perhaps she’d tumble into an oubliette, or face off against the Goblin King while she was at it…

  Her hand slipped, and she stumbled forward, against the corner of the wall leading to the adjacent passage. Releasing a grunt of irritation, Lucy straightened up and faced the opening full on before hurrying down it without looking forward or back- afraid somebody might have seen her clumsy display.

  It was after a few seconds of walking, staring with pink cheeks at her feet, that Lucy began to wonder where she was. Her footfalls were alarmingly loud and echoed against walls that should not have been tall enough to have such an effect - and when she finally looked up, only black surrounded her.

  There was equal darkness ahead and, after one swift glance back the way she had come, she found the same scene behind.

  Perhaps all of the lights in the shop had gone out? Perhaps if she carried on straight forward, she would find other people. Perhaps the lights would have come back on by then...

  She quickened her pace, frightened now, desperate; she wondered where Charlotte was, if she was alright, if everyone else in the shop was alright...

  Lucy’s foot brushed against what felt like rubble, rolling and crunching under foot. Snapping her gaze up, she saw a vast, green landscape stretching out before her, pinpricks of colour dotted in the distance- wild flowers growing. She looked down, and flinched away when she saw where she was standing- on the edge of a verge, angling down sharply.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she staggered back, whirling, confused and lost, only to see that the corridor no longer followed her. A further expanse of grass was there instead, soft and fluffy in appearance – definitely not the squeaky plastic floor of Ikea.

  Lucy quite simply didn't understand. She had been looking for bedside tables, and then...And then this?

  It made no sense.

  ‘Hello?’ She called, her voice instantly torn away by a wind that picked up all around her. She pulled her anorak close, looking left and right.

  ‘Hello!’

  The voice that replied was cheerful, distinctly male, and Lucy span around, having flinched in surprise at the sound.

  A young man leapt back at her sudden movement, raising his hands in a surrender which Lucy thought to be quite unnecessary.

  ‘Sorry!’ He smiled at her, keeping a safe distance. ‘I didn't mean to make you jump. I just got excited, that’s all!’

  ‘I got lost,’ replied Lucy, keeping her eyes on him. ‘Could you point me in the direction of Ikea?’

  She wasn't calm, not at all. The words fell from her mouth with a life of their own, telling her how to feel and forcing her outwardly to stick to that. Inside, a fierce shudder was threatening to dance up and down her legs and arms. If such a thing happened, she would most likely fall from the cliff. She took a wary step away from the edge.

  ‘I'm Toby.’ He thrust his hand out, looking guilty. ‘There isn't an Ikea near here. Well, not anymore. The Gap comes out all over the place. This was one of the more unfortunate locations.’

  Lucy eyed him, and then took his hand.

  ‘Riiight…’

  Toby pumped her hand with great enthusiasm, for so long and with such excitement, that Lucy had to struggle free.

  ‘Is this a science thing? Parallel dimensions and stuff? I watch ‘Doctor Who’, I know about these things…’ She was trying to be rational. Despite not being the sort of person who involved herself in the adult world willingly, Lucy was trying to look at everything from a logical view point. She had been in Ikea, and then she was there. That was a fact. What was also a fact was that Toby’s constant grin was beginning to frustrate her.

  ‘Will you stop smiling?’ She snapped suddenly, picking this as the thing that would bother her, out of everything that was happening. ‘You aren’t helping! You’re not helping at all!’

  Toby’s face fell.

  ‘Sorry.’

  For the first time, Lucy actually looked at him. He was younger than her, but not by that much - a couple of years perhaps. When you were in your twenties, though, one or two made all the difference. He had brown hair, which was long and creeping below his ears. His fringe was combed to one side in a scruffy manner - Toby was obviously not the sort of person who liked keeping it under control, but had to. It looked as though it had been ‘neatened’ with some haste. His jaw was quite angular, but his features were soft. He wore a black zipper jacket, with a strange logo on the breast. It certainly wasn’t the Ikea logo, and Lucy stared at it for a questioning few moments.

  Toby hadn’t noticed, and was too busy explaining his excitement at Lucy’s sudden appearance. He couldn’t seem to restrain himself.

  ‘They told me in the induction you know! They said ‘Toby, when you close the gaps, it’s possible you might get a Wanderer. But it doesn’t happen often. Just close the gap as quick as poss-’’ He paused, and frowned, noticing Lucy’s curiosity. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘The logo on your jacket,’ Lucy straightened up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s the logo for the company I work for.’ He looked wistful, and Lucy thought he must finally have noticed the questions she had forced down, and her general confusion.

  ‘Do you want to go somewhere? I’ll explain things. Then maybe we can get you back to your Ikea.’

  *

  They had been walking for some time, through what Lucy could only describe as wasteland. The cliff had disappeared long behind them and given way to sandpaper like ground, reaching far and flat, seemingly infinite.

  Neither of them
had said a word, but as the scenery rolled by, featuring nothing but distant hills and nearer, dusty flat ground, Lucy grew impatient.

  ‘My name's Lucy, but you called me a Wanderer. Why?’

  Toby looked over at her.

  ‘That's what they call you, down at the office,’ he cleared his throat. ‘I'm quite new. I should really check the protocols for this. I know there's something I should be remembering, something really important about Wanderers. You're not supposed to be running around in foreign terrains, but there's a reason behind that...’ He frowned, and slid a hand into his back pocket. Swiftly, he removed a journalist's notepad from the confines and began flipping through the pages.

  ‘I had to write everything down,’ he explained, rather haphazardly, as he flicked one page after another. ‘There's a lot of stuff to - Oh! Here it is!’ He opened his mouth to speak, and as if in answer, a gunshot tore through the air.

  Lucy squeaked in alarm, and whirled in the direction of the sound, despite her better judgement. Toby had gone rigid, but was already facing that direction, notepad clutched in one hand, other curled into a fist.

  ‘Did he just shoot at us?’ Lucy demanded, staring in panic at the man who stood a short distance away.

  He wore shades, which he lowered with a grin that twitched and tugged menacingly at the corner of his mouth. He reminded Lucy of the maniacal faces that sneered at her from the television during Crimewatch, and a shudder skittered down her spine as a result.

  The pistol in his hand shone in the bright daylight.

  ‘...Warning shot.’ Murmured Toby distractedly, keeping his eyes fixed on the man, who continued smiling like he was in on a joke nobody else knew the punch line to.

  ‘Let the Wanderer come right on over to me, and the next shot won't be aimed to kill.’ His voice had a smooth drawl Lucy couldn't quite understand. She swallowed thickly, already confused, but now frightened as well. This couldn't be having a positive effect on her health.

  ‘That was it,’ hissed Toby, only loud enough for Lucy to hear. She wanted to look at him, but she held her gaze on their assailant - and his weapon. ‘Bounty hunters. I haven't even had a chance to...’ He swore and held the small notepad tighter in his hand. ‘There aren't many Wanderers, so there aren't many bounty hunters, but they can sniff you out, they can-’