The Crooked Mirror

Chapter 1. The Painter.

The easiest way to hide loneliness is to put it in the plain sight. That's why Alice liked to go out. Fleeting conversations, fleeting eye-catching or fleeting travel. Alice liked to get lost in other people. She didn't have to worry about herself or her problems. There will always be time for that. Despite this, she somehow managed to keep in touch with two friends from elementary school. They had nothing in common except the fact that they were in a certain place at a certain time. Alice couldn't tell if it was a good time or a bad time. Maybe someone will judge it someday, maybe the future will answer her. Rita took her and Claire to the National Museum. Witkacy's new exhibition attracted crowds as usual. Alice was standing in front of a portrait of a woman with a hat. There was no point in remembering the name because he had painted hundreds of them in his studio. Alice wished she had lived at that time. Life of decadents, crazy parties and crazy ideas. And she's never even tried absinthe. She checked the initials written at the bottom of the painting. Witkacy wrote down the chemical symbols of the drugs he was taking. Alice tried to read the uneven black letters quickly sketched in charcoal. E.G.... N and a letter that looks like PI. Then l934. It ended with TIE in bracket. It meant nothing to Alice. The portrait itself was uninteresting. The lines were messy, as if they hadn't been touched up even once. Other portraits hung nearby. Most of them were colorful and nystagmusly. Alice thought that she had not seen anything so vivid and colorful in modern art for a long time.

„How fucked up you had to be to do such brilliant work" said Claire with admiration. The hammer and the sickle slipped slightly from under Claire's sleeve. A black high-neck t-shirt and baggy jeans made her feel comfortable in any space. Shout, what that was her surname, often allowed herself to neglect herself. She was from a very wealthy family and didn't have to care what other people thought of her. She even enjoyed it when someone tried to humiliate her for her feigned status. She would then take a her black card, curtesy of her parents, and pay for everyone at the table. She liked breaking patterns. But she didn't see that sometimes she allowed herself to be too much. Beside her stood a tall blonde in tight white jeans and a baggy navy blue sweater. Margaret, or Rita, as the girls most often called her, stared intently at the portrait next to her.

„Well, I don't know, girl. It's too spicy for me." Alice and Clara looked back at once.

„Are you kidding?!" exclaimed Alice. „After all, this is Witkacy. Everyone likes it."

„Exactly!" Clair echoed. „How can you not like it?" At these words, a few people looked in their direction with slight interest. A faint contempt flickered at the corner of the mouth of a woman next to them. Rita startled.

„I'm not saying it's bad...." More heads turned towards them. Rita lowered her voice. „It's just that it's so vulgar... But Charles would surely like it." Both girls' ears burned at the name. Charles studied architecture together with Clair. They used to stick together, but since he got an internship at a renowned studio, the relationship has changed. Alice, on the other hand, continued to persuade Clair to invite him to house parties. Both of her friends knew why.

„Of course," said Alice. „Too bad he couldn't come today." Her friends looked at her slightly sadly. Gośka nudged Klara. She reluctantly started.

„Maybe he'll drop by your house party next week?" Shout asked.

„He said that he would try. But you know how it is with him..." Alice replied with a slight note of hope in her voice. To change the subject, Clair started down the hall. They passed paintings The Temptation of St. Anthony, Creation of the World and General Confusion. Rita was the first to reach the exit, because she stared maybe five seconds by the paintings. She tried to widen her perspectives, but today she felt she had broadened it enough.