No. 7 in the series Tuesday’s Torrent.
Photograph courtesy of Tim Corbeel.
“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” ~ Rumi
“Much easier to draw or paint than write, Kristo.”
“Here you go again. Putting my art down.”
“I am not putting your art down—I am trying to bring your attention outside of your self-absorbed-narcissistic-selfish-self that what I do is hard—hard work.”
“I never said you didn’t work hard, Lidia”
“You don’t even listen! That is how full of yourself you are. I didn’t say work hard but how much harder writing is than dabbing strokes—meaningless fucking strokes which turn into a ‘tender, new sensation of the lost art of Art.’”
“Oh God. Please tell me this is not about the painting ‘Fractal.’ That was three years ago, Lidia. I am tired of going through this every few months!”
“Three years ago that changed our lives.”
“That is art: it takes a life of its own.”
“Yeah and she lived—and probably still lives—in your head in order to take life into that form.”
“There is no she, Lidia. How many times—”
“Of course there is! ‘Fractal’ is she. Every review even said so— ‘alchemy possible when an object moves even the muse’ —And even everything after ‘Fractal’ has smudges of her.”
“Reviewers review artwork however they want! I have no control over that Lidia!”
“Yes you do! You could have said something in any of the interviews—any—Kristo!” bawled Lidia. She walked over to the coffee table, knocking over some cushions from the edge of their oversize sofa, picked up the latest edition of Art in America magazine, and tried opening to her husband’s latest interview. Her frenzy made her unsuccessful and so she tossed the magazine on the floor.
“I don’t need to find it. You know what you said.”
Only a few are lucky enough to marry their muse, a muse they love a lifetime, Kristo had quipped during the interview and then had added, This was just right out of a memory I don’t recall but dreamt again and again.
“Nothing ever happened with Sophia. We know this. You know this. The so called ‘evidence’ you found even spells it out: nothing ever happened with Sophia. She was just a stranger you run into a few times. And then they are gone. She wasn’t even a fan!”
“What else you got before ‘Fractal’ then, huh?” screamed Lidia.
“I’ve got lots before. It’s not about “got” when you create. You should know this. You write for Christ’s sake!”
“I don’t believe in Christ.”
“Well, then for f—”, Kristo didn’t finish for Lidia had already left their living room that spilled with family photographs, books, art magazines, old records, and the fine line between responsibility and love.
*~*~*~**~*~*~*
All affairs—those imagined and real—find their beginning in the way someone says a name.
“No one calls me Kristo.”
“Would you rather I call you Kris?”
“I like how you say my name. I like that you call me Kristo.”
Sophia smiled.
“I like your name because I can turn it into an infinity symbol,” Kristo told her, amused.
“You can’t turn my entire name into it. Just the letter ‘S’.”
“I love your name, Sophia. Sophia. It sounds like someone’s wife’s name. Hopefully my future wife.”
“You already have a wife, Kristo.”
Kristo ignored Sophia’s last comment.
“I love saying your name. So-phi-ah: a pastel whisper rolls and lingers to be longed.
*~*~*~**~*~*~*
“Is your wife an artist too?”
“No. She is artistic but not quite an artist.”
“There is a difference?”
“Yes. Sure.”
“What is it?”
“A difference between lines, forms, and shapes. Both perceive the lines and shapes similarly through the eyes but for one they eventually bend and contort by the time they reach here,” Kristo took Sophia’s hand which he wanted to kiss but didn’t and placed it on his heart, “and what comes out is not exactly of your own volition.”
“Like you are possessed?”
“Yes.”
Kristo took in Sophia’s disturbed countenance.
“I am only possessed by you, Sophia.”
*~*~*~**~*~*~*
“I came to give you something. Read it after I leave,” Sophia said and got up to leave Kristo along with her unfinished cocoa-cola drink diluted by ice cubes.
He opened the card. It read: “Dear K. It matters not if I say I love you because you already know I do. However, you are wrong, love is not like infinity, it is like gravity.” And then a quote by the poet Rumi printed in the middle of the card, “There are lovers content with longing. I’m not one of them.” Then Sophia’s handwriting continued, “Please don’t contact me again. We didn’t have a beginning and I want to keep it that way. Let’s sublimate and forge something another way. Hope you understand.” She had signed the card with her first initial “S,” as a vertical infinity symbol.
*~*~*~**~*~*~*
The painting titled “Fractal” sat in a small gallery, Luca Fine Art Gallery, in Morhall for three months without anyone noticing it. The art gallery was in the middle of hilly Bright Pine Street, the elevation just enough so as to make parallel parking challenging on both sides of the street, but the green drenched trees in the summertime made up for parking provocations. And then, just like it sometimes is, the reviews of “Fractal” provided a vivacity for Kristo’s art from which he could never again return. The arts section of the local newspaper reviewed it as “tender, new sensation of the lost art of Art” and in the next few weeks Kristo found himself part of an international commotion he had never desired as an artist. “Fractal” was soon showcased at various galleries through different cities.
It was an acrylic piece of an ordinary face sprawled on a large canvas but it held you hypnotized. It was going to stay and pass the test of time.
Fractal is a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. It can be magnified indefinitely without losing structure and becoming smooth. Fractals are good at describing partly random or chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth, fluid turbulence, and galaxy formation.
At the foothill, Bright Pine Street curved onto another street which lead to an abandoned railway station. Although the area was deserted during the day, the waiting area near the tracks hardly felt empty at night given it was very well lit.
Kristo learned astronomy from his late grandfather who had once worked in an observatory. “See all those books about stars? All that knowledge in them is no good unless you can tell some woman about them,” his grandfather once told him as he pointed Ursa major to Kristo’s nine year old fascination.
It was also Kristo’s grandfather who told him the story of the abandoned railway station. If a person walked upto and sat near the railway at the deepest hour of the night, memories and dreams packed along, he might see a train flash by that decides he is the last passenger it forgot to take along. And although you didn’t get on board literally, it rushed along, a quicksilver flash, suspending all thoughts so you could see a vision.
With every breath Kristo drew Sophia closer. The only form of communication that doesn’t have a limit consumed their every nerve. Kristo had drawn her several times before, mostly in his dreams, but now he could trace each curve and crevice beyond the stroke of the brush. Sophia, saturated in meteoric motion, became a fishnet for understanding that defies articulation. He loved that she liked his shoulders. Scanning each others’ thoughts simultaneously dipped them into an unexpected laughter: ecstasy borne out of the knowledge of being adored for exactly the secret blueprint held inside one’s head for what a beloved should notice—shoulders, lines on a lip, long fingers, and even something like handwriting…
Kristo began working on Fractal soon after. The months that followed, every night, Kristo waited as the last passenger near the railway track, to draw Sophia closer, so he could finish Fractal. But Sophia continued to come to him long after Fractal was finished as long as he was not afraid to be the alone last passenger.
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This story was nicely concluded but I am interested in what happens next! I hope you had as much fun writing this as I had reading it. Thanks
I am captivated by how you have painted the story with your words. Like a fractal with it’s detail, you have rendered the scene beautifully.
“Diluted by ice cubes” has a feeling, a softness, which is familiar to all, and vastly more powerful than if you had left off that detail.
The conversation with the grandfather distills the essence of life for me. “See all those books about stars? All that knowledge in them is no good unless you can tell some woman about them,” I can not imagine any artist achieving greatness without having felt this way.
The best part of your stories is that when the end comes, there is always the part left untold, and as such, makes it feel as if it hasn’t ended at all.
Brilliant!
@Brian Meeks – thank you for your generous comment and feedback Brian.
I wanted to share with others an exchange via email that we just had. Thanks for allowing me to post it here. I think it might provide even more food for thought.
Essentially, a summation of it is as follows:
You said: Catching Sophia is like tryign to grab the goldren rays of a sunset.
I responded: But what if one had a Sophia and still let her go? Most do. Don’t know why. Perhaps more in longing?
You replied: I can’t imagine any man letting Sophia go. She is the unattainable dream. She is hope, longing, and inspiration all in one. But if a man did have her, and let her go, well that is more a commentary on him than her.
I didn’t respond and I am now.
What if this letting go was a choice? What reasons can you think? Youth? Naivety?
Moreover, how many chances does one get to ‘have’ or ‘meet’ a Sophia? And I mean that for both genders…a male Sophia per se as well…
Just some thoughts.
Although the original drive for the story was to explore what is art, the characters sort of took me elsewhere.
~a
…you have to know when to blow and keep them wanting more.
i love your stories.
@annie – The perceptions of youth often lead to folly. I would imagine that a young man, letting Sophia go, would be blinded by the vastness of the road ahead. He would not consider how it might be to travel it without her. It is the inability to perceive how life might be that leads to all sorts of poor decisions in life.
I see many people who are married, who shouldn’t be, who are parents because it is what everyone is doing, who simply strive to achieve a life defined by the masses. These people could never appreciate Sophia, she is a precious gem, and the masses cannot tell glass from diamonds.
I don’t believe that anyone who has let Sophia go, would bother her terribly, as she is much too clever to care about such a person. A person without vision or understanding, is hardly worth her tears.
That is how I see Sophia, but alas, it may be possible that my glasses are rose tinted a bit, by a life of inflated romanticism.
“That is art: it takes a life of its own.”
Just love that line.
As well as your story.
I understand why Lidia is upset even though she knows that nothing happened…physically, that is. It’s the emotional happening that is the hardest to accept.
very well written story… one can feel Lidia’s emotions so closely that you feel like giving her a hug and letting her know that this will also pass.Time is the biggest factor in moving on in life…and believing in that good things will happen again as Nature likes people to be happy.
“What if this letting go was a choice? What reasons can you think? Youth? Naivety?”
Maturity…
I hope I don’t come across as cynical about passionate romance lol,I see it’s allure. However, I would choose love before romance (this is not as obvious as it sounds, many people would choose partners with whom they can find romance, rather than love or friendship. we have ‘romanticized’ romance)
i think the reason romance can be difficult for artists is because it’s too strong and external of an attachment to another, whereby an artist needs to be strongly attached to the self, and the spirit, to create.
romance, and lovers, can be inspiring, but also crippling because what happens when Kristo no longer wants Sophia to be the muse?
When he looses faith in his ability to create without her?
You always bring up great topics to reflect on, and be inspired by, with such talent to capture the underlying emotion.
yeah, no doubt there are many ways of looking at it. romance can also lead to love of course.
…what happens next someone asked? I would hope that Kristo gets over it- over Sophia this is. Someone once said that there is an expiry date for blaming your childhood for everything wrong in your adult life, and once that expiry date comes then you must acknowledge that your childhood is over, get over it. I believe the same is true for love/romance/passion, whatever heighted experience or emotion between Kris and Sophia..whatever brought it about etc..in the end it ended and they must just get over it. That’s the only way Kris will be able to keep living with Lidia…