Magnum Opus (short story)
By Luke Labern
I
I have always expected the best from myself. Whether in the effort needed in individual tasks or the results of a conquest, its success is measured not only in the objective outcome but (more importantly) how much of myself I dedicated to the task – how much of my identity was dissolved in that time.
It would, however, be a lie to say that I have always felt this way: more specifically, this axiom was developed simultaneously with the identity I carved during my early teenage years. During my childhood I was plagued by the disease of mediocrity. Average results, average height, average ability. Average. Average personified.
To my more developed mind and sense of self, nothing could be worse. I would truly rather be the supreme achiever – the best – or, failing that, the worst.
But, the worst in what sense?
This question had always stayed with me. It was a seed which sprouted into a tree of doubt, its roots disturbing the confidence I had in my character, my nature – even in my inclinations.
There is no doubt that universal labels were a vital factor in my metamorphosis and, coupled with what could be described as a noble inclination or narcissism, became a heady mix of pride intertwined with potent (if not poisonous) expectation.
Why do we describe men as good, or bad; frivolous or sensible; ignorant or wise – insignificant or great? As for as I can comprehend, man is an ever-fluctuating soup, bubbling over with contradicting ingredients which taste at times miraculous, and at others, putrid. Never static.
Perhaps the inner-workings of my mind are beginning to let themselves be known: I thought of myself as a good man, a proud man – one who acted out of sound intention and who, even in failure, always put maximal effort into the situation. These labels were always pointing me in a dangerous direction. I am not a man who believes in God, or fate, but I strongly believe that such grandiose notions – which are integral to the fabric of who I am – could only ever yield two outcomes: a man of virtue, noble accomplishments and wisdom – or the man who is the antithesis of that; a mirror image of him, becoming so profoundly different from him that he almost became him. Or rather, his shadow.
At the time, I only thought of the former: greatness. What I know now, in retrospect, is that the only difference between being the best and being the worst came down to one factor: luck.
II
I am at the age where, two years ago I was considered a young man, and great achievement would be a double-success because of my age, where now I am required to have something to show for my efforts and time in existence. Perhaps that is my stringent, self-critical nature piercing through again, but it feels as if I have been dropped from youth into adulthood in a remarkably short period of time: it feels as if I have landed on my head after a fall.
I am twenty and I am an aspiring artist. I have particular fondness for paintings: classical strokes on a page are what sets me free, more so than most modern, physical art. I may at times sound bitter or prescriptive, but my particular persuasions cannot be helped. I feel attached to, and regularly submerge myself in, the arts as a whole. Music, literature, theatre – the human condition fascinates me. And yet, the sciences are equally stunning to me: I am adept at certain areas of scientific study but have a natural talent for realism on a canvas. This is a mirror to what I see as the bivalent approach to universal labels: either you are a scientist or an artist. Whilst this runs directly in the face of my wishes, I have reluctantly come down on one side. I chose the bohemian, creative lifestyle – though it may be more apt to say that it chose me.
At age eighteen I had a hundred paintings, around a dozen of which I was truly happy with. I had put my all into each one; stamped it with a piece of who I was at the time of its creation. A few of my pieces had been picked up by art dealers and I was rapidly making a name for myself – all the while reinforcing my thoughts of grandeur: that I was able to – and would – achieve great things. I was becoming that man of virtue – I was becoming the best. With works, accumulating wealth and incrementing notoriety, I was heading towards something sublime, fuelled by my youthful confidence.
III
Winter. Snow was falling for the first time in years; the cold bit at your fingers if they were not gloved, and this made the house – and my room, which doubled as a studio – even more of a sanctuary. I was recently nineteen and was cherishing the weather: winter inspired in me a melancholy which was almost cathartic – I do not think there is a greater time for an artist than the chill and gloom of winter to bring out the best in a creative mind.
I had embarked on a self-portrait: my first ever. I had never had the confidence to attempt to describe the nuances of my face; I had relied on my art to convey my image. At the time, however, I was feeling better than I ever had — this was to be my greatest work yet.
The painting was a brooding, seething concoction: it portrayed fire in the eyes of a young man who knew his calling and was in the right place at the right time, headed for greatness. The piercing grey-blue eyes were aflame with confidence; his lips verged on a smile at their corner; the stubble on his face foretold wisdom beyond his years, whilst his neat complexion and organised, yet messy dark brown hair expressing his youth; his eyebrows, somehow, captured his drive and ambition in their definition. A determined expression. It was not yet finished: there was still a dark background with simple lighting to be added to juxtapose with the light hues of the eyes and skin in the foreground, and definition to be added in various areas. All in all, however, it was the greatest thing to have been constructed by the strokes of a brush in my hand.
Having worked on the self-portrait for several hours, I took dinner and then decided to immerse myself in the December air – what could a final breath of inspiration do but cement my best work so far?
I was no more than then minutes into the walk when my nose and extremities had become numb. My mind, however, was enlivened: the moon was almost full and lit the tufts in the air revealing a blue-black lining where the sky was peppered with stars, each a wager into a galaxy where life might exist – where another artist may have been staring up at the sky staring at our sun wondering the same thoughts I was.
I wasn’t so much walking as gliding, the roads being safer than the pavements. I passed a few people, but the truth was I was in my own world, lost in my thoughts, storing images and the ambiance that I wished to translate into paint.
It was during these musings that I slipped and shattered my wrist.
Two hours later, after a disturbing ambulance ride on icy roads, I prepared for surgery on my right wrist – my painting wrist. I had already considered the impact this would have on my unfinished self-portrait. By the time I would have recovered I would be a different person – I wouldn’t look the same. I remained confident; determined, even. I would paint an even greater portrait, encapsulating the determination of my recovery. My noble nature (or narcissism) was in full flow. I thought all of this before entering surgery – this being the last time my personality would rest in peace before coming to terms with its fragile nature.
IV
As I awoke in a stiff hospital bed, the first thing I saw foreshadowed everything that was to come. My mother’s anxious face, barely masking a palpable burden.
‘What is it?’ I asked, adjusting to consciousness as the anaesthesia wore off. I was blurry in sight and mind, but could perceive the ominous tension in the room.
The answer to my simple question called into question every decision I had made, the path I had chosen; the time on earth I had spent. A nerve in my wrest had been damaged so severely that I would never regain the use of my right hand again.
I would never paint again.
The nerve wasn’t separated by the fall – but by the surgeon. During surgery he had accidentally cut the nerve trying to reconstruct my wrist. Perhaps he was focusing on his failing marriage, his dinner, or his affair – all I knew was that I was the victim of bad luck.
What could maximal effort on my behalf do to change that? For all my aspirations, my life had been irreversibly changed. It was as though my talent, my passion, my lust for life was cut too when he sliced through that nerve.
How fragile the body is. How fragile dreams are. How fragile life is.
After the obvious barrage of ‘Can nothing be done?’ questions, I entered a stage of denial, following by ‘what if’s: what if I never went for a walk What if I had taken longer to eat dinner? What if I hadn’t looked at the moon? What if I had simply finished the self-portrait?
What if I’d never been born? I thought.
My future was almost set. Not in a literal sense, but metaphorically: my work was gaining attention and garnering acclaim – I had a purpose, one which was roughly in-line with my place in reality. I had lapsed from noble intentions into a whirlpool of self-doubt, flung between rocks of animosity by the currents. Three months later the stitches were gone and I was as healthy as I was ever going to be again – but my mind had never been less healthy.
I was no longer the best. At anything. The word had become a dagger, a religious symbol: something I had possessed but could seemingly never touch or obtain again. Stripped of my talent, unable to paint with proficiency, I was literally a fraction of myself. What does a man become when his confidence is severed by a scalpel?
V
By summer I had lost touch with any sense of future but had become well acquainted with the taste of painkillers. Every tablet was a promise of a brief numbing from reality, positively a moment of ecstasy I considered at that very time I could have been painting the greatest works of my life. The what-ifs never went away, but the painkillers stayed by my side to quell them – as much has was possible.
Every ten days or so I would walk to the pharmacy, along the same path I had once walked with such confidence, sure of my future – the same path where I fell and unknowingly gambled, the stake being my dreams and, it seemed, my sanity. Each restock was the only joy I knew.
With each passing day I became increasingly bitter – at the same time I devoured more white pills and subtly rediscovered the question I had thought long before I ever shattered my wrist. If I couldn’t be the best at painting, then what was stopping me from becoming the best at becoming the worst? What was stopping me from becoming the worst that I could possibly be? All the power I had with noble intentions could be diverted into narcissism, selfish and harmful pursuits. Addiction and nihilism were persuasive allies during this time. Immorality would be a small price to pay to gain my confidence back.
After all, a man is nothing without confidence.
VI
The transition from depressed and uninspired to driven and shadowy was a welcome relief. In fact, I relished it. With warming blankets of psychological respite as my fuel (the shattered dream in the background), I observed the world. Why did people consume alcohol? Why did they close their minds down, inebriate themselves, when there are such other choices to make?
Cocaine, to heighten. Ecstasy, to escape. LSD, to perceive.
But I used none of these – only painkillers. No matter the wound – physical or mental, spiritual or emotional, they were there for me.
More so than the paintbrush.
It was around this time that I saw him. I do not know if it was merely a reflection of my self-hate, but when I saw him, with his confidence, talent and (most significantly) good luck, the thought which stuck in my head was: didn’t that used to be you?
I had met him before at an art gallery – we both had works selected. He was of similar age to me and similarly acclaimed. I liked his work – respected it. Which only made me hate him more.
I saw his name circulate in various publications; I couldn’t help but loosely follow the world I used to adore. Certain people would email me from time to time, but I never replied. What did I have to say? I wasn’t the man I was, and I hated using voice recognition software. I stopped speaking; my vocal cords didn’t express my real voice: only my work did. I couldn’t speak anymore, so I didn’t waste words either.
It was when I saw a picture of him with a group of other young, successful artists posing next to a Van Gogh self-portrait in an online article that I had my greatest high since tasting my first painkiller or starting that self-portrait.
I would paint one more time – not on canvas, but on life itself.
VII
Mediocrity seemed so far away. There was greatness wherever I looked: either true greatness (rare) or great depravity, the sort I saw when I looked in the mirror, or set my old self-portrait on fire. No one would be as deprave as me – no, I was the best at that.
He, though, he was great in a different way. The way I used to be. A man following his passion and talent. I was to give him something he yet lacked. For all his undeniable talent, he was still out drinking alcohol, wasting his time with promiscuous girls – he was doing the wrong things. He was wasting his talents. The same talent I couldn’t even express.
Yet the more I studied him – as I did with any piece – researched him, the more I discovered that he always expected the best of himself too. Every subsequent painting he produced was greater both in its scope and its technical mastery. Why couldn’t I be the one improving his art? Why was I the one forced to swallow and choke on his shattered dreams?
Boxes of pills came and went as I gathered notes – a thousand effervescent moments all building towards my final piece, my magnum opus. What subtle strokes I would use, what an impression I would have on my audience!
The most nerve-wracking time during my preparation was making contact with him. Of all the people who sent me their condolences (on the death of my artistic career), he was not one: too busy furthering his career. I respected that. I hated that.
I contacted him electronically and told him I was working on a new genre of art that combined the classic tendencies we both admired with a frank approach to the role that luck plays in life. I had to word it perfectly; the balance had to be struck between interesting subject matter and a certain nonchalance – as if I didn’t care if he wanted to see my piece.
Even though he was the star of the show.
I told him it was a physical piece, situated in a rough estate in London. I told him I was being sponsored and that if he was interested we could work together. I told him there was no rush to reply to me. He didn’t.
Weeks later I received a two-line email from him:
“Will be in London next month for my new collection. Let me know a time and place and I’ll have a look.”
My face hadn’t been so close to that enigmatic smile I traced in my self-portrait since that very day in December. We exchanged a few more emails and hte time and date was set: November, at a particular estate in London. I looked in the mirror and discovered the first smile I had manufactured since the surgeon made that incision which had flicked the switch from white to black; hopeful to hopeless, content to contemptible.
VIII
Winter. The sky was a stunning blue, the clouds picturesque as if out of a painting – it was a starry night. I was standing on dirty rubble, surrounded by skips filled to the brim with unwanted materials. Brick walls lined a concrete maze, graffiti being the art of choice here. Sirens wailed in the background, the signifier of various dramatic scenes happening nearby. My heart was beating thoroughly, percolating at the thought of my return to art. On the journey there my mind had wandered in a way it used to only with a brush in my hand. Wearing only black I did not stand out, the most casual clothes I owned fitting the part and my mood. What does bohemian mean anymore? Every style is an amalgamation of popular culture: I wasn’t interested in all of these connotations. I was interested only in the colour – or, more accurately, the lack of all colour. That reflected what my life had become without a dream and without a talent.
Standing, leaning onto a dirty building at its lowest floor in a sort of semi-car park (the cars were burned out and vandalised) I was absorbed into the beauty of the Thames, just metres away. Dirty thought it was, the colours were enchanting. A blue-black river, a fluid bruise melting into the sky, the murky green hue of the city: such charming pollution. The scene enveloped me, and yet it was the picture of the insides of my mind for so many months.
Dwelling on the scene as I did, I felt as if I was waking from a dream as I heard the distinctive sound of tires crunching on small pebbles and footsteps echo round the corners of the ruined estate. It didn’t help that the cat was repugnantly expensive, brash from its engine’s roar to its shadow.
“Hello?” I heard a confident, slightly impatient voice call. Of course he has places to be. But he had stepped onto my canvas: now the background had met its subject – whilst I, the artist, fiddled with the tools in my pocket.
“Hello, hello! I’m just round here,” I shouted, making my way towards the edge of the embankment. “My masterpiece is right this way.”
I heard him chuckle to himself did he think I was so unable, so impotent an artist as to unrightfully utter that word? We would soon find out.
I edged backwards, away from the river, into a dark alcove just behind. He took my place and stood with his hands in his pockets facing the magnificent scene: “I could turn this into quite the piece.” His confidence, so reminiscent of my own, nearly made me lurch forward. I managed to keep my cool.
Creeping up behind him, I was the embodiment of a shadow. Silently, I placed my limp hand on his shoulder. He jumped as I did so.
“Isn’t it incredible?” I asked him.
“Very much so. But where is your piece?”
“Well, it has been brooding within me for quite some time. Ever since I lost the use of my hand – which rests on your shoulder as I speak,” I said, removing it, “I have looked into myself and seen nothing but a half of mirrors, endlessly reflecting one single beam of light. I have been after the source of that light, in an otherwise black world. And now I have found it.”
“Very poetic. As much as I would like to enjoy standing here discussing the imagery of our lives, I have things to do. I think I might take a picture of this scene so that I can recreate it later – “
“But don’t you see,” I interrupted, “you are the light.” I began to whisper into his ear as I simultaneously brought the shimmering metal out of my left pocket and let it hover below his ear, reflecting the moonlight, unbeknownst to him. “You, in all your glory: the combination of talent, confidence, inspiration and… luck. You have everything – you even have the ability to turn down the chance to help others when it would take but a second of your time.”
Without turning his head, stilling looking at the scene, never once seeing my face or being bothered by this fact, he remarked: “but that is all that I do: my art is purely to express the pain of – and provide escapism from – the pain that is existence.”
The blade I was holding was but a millimetre from his ear, the sharp edge upturned, staring at the stars. I held it there, reflecting on the truth of his words and the juxtaposition of the silver knife against the starry night. I could have stayed there forever.
“You of all people should know that,” he continued;” You used to be an artist.”
Used to be… How those words ripped through me.
The moment I heard him describe my torture in that one, past-tense sentence, I grabbed his left ear and held it taut, slicing from beneath, upwards: with three jagged strokes I was done. Seconds later I was holding his ear in my otherwise useless right hand, confronted with the disfigurement of the artist before me, red paint streaming down the side of his face.
I closed my eyes and revelled in my final contribution to art.
When I opened them, all I could see was an emotionless horror as I stared in the mirror, looking at my reflection, stood with a bloodied knife in one hand and my left ear in the other.
My self-portrait – my masterpiece — was complete.
A Short Story,
Published 01 March 2012
Published 01 March 2012