A Thousand Words

This was my piece for our 2015 Flash Fiction Night at the Hoover Public Library. I had the idea rattling around in my head for a few years of doing a story that literally cut itself off midsentence once it reached the thousand word limit. As is the usual case with my flash fiction, A Thousand Words is meant to be performed out loud.

If you want to hear me read it myself, you can check out my video at A Thousand Words.

A Thousand Words

Marguerite!

God save me, where is that girl?

MARGUERITE!

Pay attention child, when I call you.

Now, my painting has arrived at last. I need you to fetch an iron spike and a strong mallet from the stable so you can hang it- Now.

I don’t know why I bothered having the damn thing commissioned. One image to capture my likeness for all eternity? I only have the potential for disappointment.

Marguerite! You’re ten steps away! Have you become lost again? Oh dear, I can feel the pounding in my skull already.

Welcome back Marguerite. Now I want you to drive the spike into the middle of that unsightly depression beside the mantle where that awful statue used to be. Over there. –Well take the painting with you! I want it hanged so my eyes in the portrait are on the exact eye level they would be, were I to stand in that spot. Lift it up! That’s a walnut frame Marguerite! Don’t drag it.

This painting is my immortality. When I’m gone, this single image of me will remain. Although for the life of me I don’t know how a person’s whole self can be attached to a mere portrait, but nonetheless this is my legacy Marguerite, now please treat it with the respect it deserves.

Wait. Bring it back. I want to look at it before it’s mounted permanently. Keep it off the floor Marguerite. Now show it to me.

Well I know what the back of it looks like. Turn it around child! I’m quite certain I’ve paid much more dearly than it’s worth- oooookay…

 .......................

Keep it off the floor Marguerite.

I suppose it will have to do. It never fails to astound me the consistency with which one’s expectations are never met. Disillusionment is the only guarantee no matter how often you take your hopes lower, lower, lower…

What are you doing? Didn’t I just tell you to keep it off the floor? Are these instructions difficult?

You must understand, I can’t blame you for the quality of the painting itself, but I can hold you accountable for its condition. Now please, Marguerite. Thank you.

Did I ever tell you of the only portrait I’ve ever seen which truly captured the very essence of its subject? I can’t imagine why I would have. The piece was owned by a gentleman in Lipson. Portugal. The figure in the painting was a baroness or something. She was delicious. I can’t remember her name, but those eyes. Those wonderful dark seething eyes. Until my dying breath I’ll never stop thinking about them.

She had that intensity you could only find in the most cunning of predators. No matter which angle you stood, her eyes seemed to stare at you. Into you. Dissecting you. She must have been quite the spider in her day. And the artist’s craftsmanship with the brush didn’t stop there. Her lips were frozen in a perpetual smirk as that of an insatiable goddess to whom men would sacrifice their very livelihoods to please. And one could feel the painter’s unbridled lust in every bristle stroke caressing her porcelain skin. I imagine he must have felt he was having quite the mad affair with his succubus. From what I understand, this wound up being the man’s final piece, though Heaven knows what ever happened to him-

Marguerite! Have you not heard a single word I’ve said? I grow weary of saying this, but if I find a single blemish on that frame you’ll leave me with no choice but to dock your wages until I have it, and the entire floor of this room, replaced! And then you.

Stupid girl. I don’t know why I ever bothered taking you in. And now you’ve gone and caused me to completely lose my facility of thought.

God be merciful, where was I? Eyes, lips, something about an affair, nobody of importance

–ah yes! Her husband.

He was a man of power, or so he believed. He came from luxury and she from nothing worth mentioning. The man had enough wealth to surround himself with the most lavish aesthetics of his time, including his lovely baroness.

All he ever expected from her was beauty.

She gave it –and nothing else.

She never did anything, never even spoke throughout the whole of their marriage. She was just beautiful. And those eyes and lips drove him into rages with an unexpected need to please her.

He would try, and fail. And that itch held sway over him. When he realized the power she had, he could bear her no more, and ordered his servants to dispose of her. And when they failed to follow through he tried to murder her himself, only to fall slave to that impure glisten in her eyes. He tried over and over and never came any closer.

In the end, the poor fool tore his own eyes out. Can you believe that? This woman was so beautiful, her own husband would rather blind himself than feel helpless in her presence.

That was power.

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Just drag it over to the mantelpiece and hang it. No! Don’t drag it Marguerite. Up! It’s not that heavy.

Have you ever heard the expression ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’? Such an odd saying. Why so specific? Was that meant to be a criticism on the insufficient use of the written language? If the picture truly is the superior method for conveying content, then why are picture books meant for children?

Well if that painting is unable to capture my likeness, then I find it highly doubtful anyone could accurately portray my life from start to finish in such a short span of words as a mere thousand.

Marguerite, must I do everything myself? These are the simplest of instructions. Let me demonstrate visually for you. See where I’m standing? The eyes of my portrait on the level of my real eyes.

Drive the spike in.