Listening?
“ You don’t respect me.”
“Hmmm?” murmured Vincent as he was viciously mixing a startling shade of blue.
“I said, you don’t respect me. You ask me for advice, time and time again and yet you never take it. Why then do you even ask?”
“I don’t ask. You keep offering unsolicited suggestions.” Vincent said, smearing long streaks of color defiantly onto the canvas.
“Oh, unsolicited? Really. What was that the other day about the stacks of wheat? Or last week about that shade of purple that gave you nightmares? Or the GIRL?”
“I really don’t know what you are talking about.” Vincent was scratching at the canvas fervently with his brush.
“Let’s see if I can jog your memory. I’m going to do an impression for you Vince. See if you can guess who THIS is. Ahem. OOOOh, what DOOO I do? That blonde girl in the café is there every night. Should I TALK to her? Should I give her a painting? Should I buy her a DRINK? Will she LAUGH at me? Should I PAINT her? HAND. STAPLE. FOREHEAD.”
Vincent heaved a deep sigh. “This yellow is too acidic. Needs to be sunny.”
“Are you even listening?”
“Half listening.” Vincent scraped the offending color from the canvas.
“Honestly. I don’t know how we got on for as long as we did. Do you know what it’s like being around you?”
“I’m sure you are about to tell me.” Vincent tapped his brush against the mouth of the glass jar.
“ It’s like being a shoe on a FOOT that denies the very existence of said shoe, and that this foot walks about through broken glass, wailing of its PAIN and torment even though it remains covered.”
Vincent chewed his thumb in thought, holding the paint laden brush at different angles.
“VINCE!!”
“Shut up. I have to fix the foliage.” Vincent said as he flicked his brush aggressively.
“I told you, use less cobalt and more viridian. But NoooOoooo. Have to be stubborn.”
Vincent paused in mid stroke. “I said, Shut. Up.”
“Oh, are we paying attention now? Well, that’s a change, isn’t it. Tsk, oh,what have you done to those flowers, Vince? I did mention UPWARD strokes, not down. They look unbalanced now.”
Vincent slammed down his brush. “STOP it.”
“I’m trying to help. You do want to sell one of these paintings, yes?”
Silence.
“You’re angry. I get it. But I’m only trying to get you to step out of your usual rut. “
Vincent stared at the canvas, unmoving.
“ Vince. Vince? Come on. You know you can do better than this.”
“Shut up or so help me…”
“ Or you’ll what? Hmm? What can you possibly do to me? Cut me off again? Mail me to the blonde in the café instead of that trollop…what was her name again? What can you possibly do to me?”
Vincent bit his lip. He felt the wood of his brush snap in his grip.
“Perhaps you can throw me onstage when the local players present Julius Caesar. FRIENDS! ROMANS! COUNTRYMEN!”
“Are you quite finished?” Vincent said with enormous but frightening calm.
A deep sigh. “Yes, I suppose I am.”
Vincent breathed deeply, eyes trained on his palette.
“Like a mad bunch of crows in a cornfield. That’s you, Vince. I’m going to go play the piano. See you at dinner.”
There was only the sound of the wind through the grass. Vincent sighed quietly, and sat down.
He closed his eyes for a moment hoping for darkness, but got sunflowers instead.