"But this is what I would call proper art." Lexi says with a grin as she looks at those who surround them. The man with the extravagant moustache - who seems so overbearing and pompous - is standing next to her, talking to her like a friend. He grabs her hand in his, nodding to himself.
"Yes, of course. Even with your, shall we say, 'lack of proper schooling'-"
"Lack of schooling?" she interrupts. Curious.
"Yes." he says, turning away from her.
"However," he continues.
"How you have learnt to see, stuff of pure beauty. I must say Miss is one-of-a-kind."
He places a hand on her shoulder, to which Lexi could only feel an itch. She brushes it away nonchalantly, then continues watching the painting that she had been captured by. A painting of a man, a painter, who has just finished painting a masterpiece. With his hands hanging down, his head is bent down in sadness. A bottle of red liquid is in his arms, "Tears of Blood", it reads.
"So, what do you think of this?" Lexi asks. The pompous man stops talking and looks at the painting.
"I have no idea what you're talking about. What does this painting have to do with anything?"
Lexi's eyes light up as she looks at the man.
"Oh, I'm talking about this." she says, leaning forward, seeing him smile.
She ends up grabbing him by his dark shirt with the ribbon tied around it. The man lets out a shout of surprise, but in an instant, he finds himself captured, staring in shock at the young woman.
"So, I heard you're going to start painting again. Maybe an exhibition? Shall we run through a few things that I would like to see in a painting?" she says in a cheerful tone.
The man's eyes narrow, "What do you know of my art?" he asks in a low voice.
"I know what art is." Lexi begins.
"Art is, of course, Life." Lexi continues, "Nothing more." "Thus painting is just a form of showing life through art. The reason so many great artists are known as great is because of their ability to capture life."
Lexi leans forward once more, "So, I believe, I shall capture my life, and my career and all of this is the Art that you shall produce." She says, looking straight in the man's eyes. "And of course" she concludes.
"I would love to see that."
"Of course," Lexi concludes, walking away. She looks back at the painting, her eyes fixed again on the man.
"I will call upon you when I'm ready. Don't disappoint me." The man says. Lexi nods.
"I can't wait." she says with a smile on her face. The man looks at her, and she smiles back.
"I know you're wondering what you're doing here. You may be wondering why you, a painter, is in a room full of writers. It's easy, especially since you already know." a tall woman with scarlet hair says. She speaks confidently.
"This is the hall of cretins. Of course, it's not only for painters. No. It is for anyone, escaping from reality, for whatever purpose."
"You see, I am a writer. I write stories, and I do this for an entire month, I put myself into this life. I get to live the life of an author. And this is what you are going to do."
"And who are you?" the man asks, him and the woman facing each other.
"I am Charlotte Meryth Gedwyn. I am the world's greatest writer. I have everything, herculean amount of fame, wealth, and followers. So, yeah. I'm the world's greatest writer, and although you're probably not a painter, and you probably won't listen to me, I'm giving you advice nonetheless. I will be out of your life in a moment, but I have some words I'd like to speak, some instructions if you will."
"Instructions?" the man asks.
"Not instructions, but some common sense. You're probably going to go, in the weeks to follow, and hurt yourself. You will lose everything, everything you are."
"How can this be?" the man asks.
"Because you're a painter, not a writer." she says.
"I disagree. I can write." he says.
"How's your talent quality?" she asks him.
"I paint life." the man says. "What-"
"Life is not something you paint. Life is something that you show in the real, and even that's not something that you paint, but something you remember. Painters paint life. Writers don't paint life. Writers show life."
"Then why don't you write?"
"I write. I put myself in a writing world. Painters paint, writers write. It makes no sense."
"What makes it any more sense than-"
"I disagree. Painters make things what they truly are. They paint. They're painting a tree - they paint it. It's a tree."
"What the hell does a tree have to do with anything?" she asks, annoyed.
"Painters have to paint, and they show the trees. That's all writers have to do, is to write. A tree. A painted tree, or a written tree, it's all the same. That's why the world only sees artists as such. That's why people don't understand why painters are artists. They just see artists as people who paint the world."
"And that's why your so-called ability doesn't exist. You're an artist, not a painter. You're saying painters make the world as it truly is. Painters paint the world. And writers, writers show the world. To be a painter, you have to paint, and to write, you have to write."
When she finishes speaking, there's silence in the room, until she turns to face the man, and he just stares at her. She turns away and walks out of the room, walking to the door, opening it, and turning to see the man, whom she does not recognize.
Click. The door has been slammed shut.
"What are you doing here?"
Click. The door opens slightly, then closes again.
"Are you just standing there?"
Click. The door opens, revealing an empty room. The man stands there, scratching his head, then after a few moments, he runs out of the room of the building, and into the coldness outside, despite the sunshine.
"You know?"
The man looks to the side, staring at the building in front of him, "I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I don't know. I don't know if I want to paint my life, or if I want to write, I just know that I don't know what I want to do."
Lexi, from her view, looks at the man, standing still. He looks at her, "You know, we film real life stories. Reality shows. We capture reality and make it authentic. That's all we do. That's what I do."
"I don't want to capture reality."
"But you can. That's all we, what do you call yourself? Cretin? Artists capture reality and make it authentic. Precisely."
"Precisely. Exactly?"
"That's it. Why don't you come with me, you'll get to see what I do. Maybe you can do that, if what I say is true, you'll have an idea of what I do. I'm an expert," she says proudly.
"And I don't know anything about it."
"You do. You don't know how to not be this way. Do you want to know why your art is so flawed?"
"Excuse me?"
"Well, what is your greatest flaw, YOU will find, it's what you do when you're not here. I want you to be here. I want you to be here, now. I'm your teacher in life."
"Well, I don't know, because I I well… Maybe because I don't know my great flaw."
"Cretin likes the word, to a point. Seriously, what is the key flaw in your life? It's not leaving the house without telling anyone, or me, that you're going somewhere, it's not your art, it's something you don't normally do."
"I don't know. I don't understand."
"Exactly. You don't understand. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND."
The man becomes calm, and looks down. He looks up at Lexi, "So what do I do to fix it?"
"You don't fix it. You just do what you normally do. You just become a person that does NOTHING else. Literally, nothing. Don't go anywhere, don't do anything. You don't go to the supermarket, don't go anywhere. Just do nothing. That's your life, that's what the 'everything and nothing' is. Now I'm going to take you to a place."
"You're gonna take me where?" he asks cautiously.
"The studio of a famous artist." she says, walking away.
"You want me to be... I don't know. I don't know what you want me to do."
"You do, you just don't know it."
She leads the man through the hallway, and the coats of the busy people in front of the hallway. She passes a painting of a man. It was very simple, but very deep. The artist later said, with a good sense that he had captured the man's true essence, is that we are all very deeply flawed.
"Where are we going?" the man asks, still confused.
"It doesn't matter. It isn't important. Look."
She leads the man into a room. It was filled with things from the man's life. She shows the man a picture on the wall, "This is you when you were an artist, an amazing one."
She walks away from the picture, and towards a different one - a painting of her. It was very large, about four feet tall, and to the right was a smaller picture of the man.
"That's a very nice painting."
"The word beautiful doesn't make sense in the world you're about to enter. You will not see the picture, you will see the reality of the picture. You will see Creation. You will see the Creation of the painting, of the real naked woman, and of the artist. That's your reality. I'm going to take you there."
"And how long do I stay here?"
"Forever." she says, walking out of the room, back towards the hallway, with the man following close behind.
"You mean, like, in a painting?" the man asks, starting to understand.
"Exactly, like that, and exactly what you've been saying. You're an artist."
The man looks at her, confused, and walks towards the door.
"Wait,"
"What?" the man asks.
"I'm ready. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to become this," she says.
"You have to go with me. What if your life becomes boring? What if you're in secrecy for the rest of your life, like a ghost that hides? What about your answers?"
"I don't need them. They'll be answered when I choose to, that's my freedom. Now. If I go with you, where are you going?"
"To the studio of a famous artist. I'm going to stare at that, at your work, at the paintings, at the images, at the artwork, at the paint, at how you see things, and how you see yourself. I'm going to stare. If that's what I need, then I need to go.
"Where does it go from there?" the man asks.
"Let's go."
In front of the window of a building named The Mirrored House, the man stares at the same painting that the woman's painter had. He stares at the painting, looking at the outside view, then at the inside. It is a picture of two figures, a man and a woman, hugging one another. The man is smiling. The woman is crying. The woman is crying so much, she's in pain. The man is hugging her, in pain. They are both in pain. The woman cries even more that the man is hugging her - that's why she's in pain. The man is smiling, but is in pain. This is the first painting they are going to look at.
The man stares at the painting. He stares at the painting, then, as the woman is walking, he looks at her. He starts speaking, as he looks at the woman's painting, "This is me when I was an artist, when I was an artist. This is fine, I think. This shows the way I worked, this shows why I painted what I did, this shows why I painted myself. This is me, painted myself. This is how I worked. This is very good."
"ADDER. That's what the artist called himself when he wrote his true story that you can read below. His painting shows the audience some insight to his life. His paintings encompass his whole life - his real life. His paintings tell the story of a man, the story of this man, the painter, and gives the man audience the insight to what he is. A man, with no importance. He paints what he paints, he paints what his emotions reflect, and his emotion shines through the art. It's beautiful."
"He wants to paint reality. He doesn't paint women for their look, but for their person. He draws the women he paints, but he draws them to show the person inside, the real person inside. He paints himself, even though he's not naked, he's still painted. He paints on the canvas. He paints for a reason that he knows, but it is a silent understanding to him. It is an understanding that he knows, but he explains nothing to it. He is silent to it, when he paints his soul, he paints not that he paints, that his soul exists, but that his soul exists in the creation of a painting. His soul is a creation. He wants a purpose to his art, but he doesn't need one to paint it. He paints it anyway, because he can. He paints the painting, because he paints the painting, because he can create it, because he is creation."
"This man does not laugh, or smile, or think of the past of the past or the future or the past. Reality is something he creates. There is no difference between him and the real. There is no difference between anything he creates, and the real thing he paints. They are blended in one. He has no memory, he has no history. He's exactly who he is, nothing, everything. He creates everything. He is creation, and he creates it. Creation of himself, of his life, of everything around him."
"She feels pain because he is her everything. She watches him go, he goes to paint, to go away, to leave her.
The man sits in the room of the building, the same room as the woman in the woman's painting. He looks at the paintings on the wall. He stares at the paintings of the woman in the paintings, she has a rabbit in her hands. She holds her painting, and she paints it. She paints on the canvas, as the artist paints on the canvas. There are six paintings. The first painting is one of a man - the man they just saw in that painting. He is wearing a contraption to paint. The second painting is one of the woman that was in the first one.
