Crooked Painting

Ch 4

Flashback

The hustle commenced as soon as the gates opened. People started lingering over the art pieces. Some stayed, some passed, some flashes lights with their cameras, some posed beside them and some probed. The first high ceiling spacious rooms were now cramped with students and professors, hovering over every painting.

It was absurd how people were lining up to hurl those judgments on the face of the maker. It was the bitterest irony how the artists were feigning smiles over receiving their cynical criticisms. And it was a stinging reality that they were constrained to put a price to their piece of heart; their blood, sweat and tears. They were depreciating their love. They were selling it. They were entrapped.

A long, desperate breath released as she sat on the bench that was placed in the middle of the left corner studio room. She could see her painting right in front of the wall. A soft light was flickering right above the canvas, which was giving a warm, bleak ambience to the murky surroundings.

Her eyes were fixed on her lap where a book was rested on her thighs. It's been ten minutes and she didn't turn the page, her mind solely focused on her surroundings as her gaze was lost somewhere in space.

Her ears engrossed hearing footsteps, some were just loud and rapid, some were heavy but stagnant and several were clacking on the white tiled floor. Her gaze shifted from her lap to the floor but her head still hanging down and her eyes were still lost into the void.

People were still roaming, in and out of the room, but it was getting quieter than before.

Few whispers could be heard from the corner of the room, where some people were standing near to a painting, probably discussing the odds.

She was mulling over to finally head to the classroom where she would be expecting few senior professors who were going to give some constructive criticism about the art styles, when few sluggish footsteps approached the doorway of the room, and she again settled her muscles, sinking back into her place. They stopped in front of her painting as she slowly moved her gaze upwards.

There were four legs.

Both were wearing denim jeans and converse. She retreated her eyes back to the book.

"Nice one," One of them said.

"What's nice in this?" Another manly voice asked.

"It's mysterious"

"It's annoying" He defied.

"How?"

"Her luxurious body is covered too much with these snakes popping up from nowhere, such a waste." He clicked his tongue on his teeth. "What was the purpose of drawing those bunch of snakes on this beautifully drawn body? It should be exposed. And why is she crying but smiling too? That doesn't make sense. Also, why is the painting crooked? That illusion is engendering exasperation in me. It's just disturbing" He analysed the whole painting, nit-picking every detail according to his liking. His entire being shuddered with irk as soon as he laid his eyes on the painting, oblivious to the fact that his every word was filling the girl behind him with immense wrath.

"It seems like you have a personal resentment to it" The first guy chuckled.

"I wish I could meet the artist, I bet he or she is as crooked as this painting" Both the guys laughed, and she shot her eyes up to see the back of their heads. Her eyes burning with rage.

She glared as if her eyes would shoot red lighting and bore a hole in their heads.

At least that's what she hoped.