Because Of Joan

Chapter 5.

Since my idiotic escapade beneath the hospital, I refused to leave my hospital room. This was mostly successful until I was allowed to go home. Of course, it's not recommended that I go home, but it's the way things usually go. I have another fainting spell, Adaline brings me to the hospital, I'm hooked up to all the equipment and monitors, and after a few days of staying I demand to go back to the house, and Adaline relents. It's there, where I simply continue the routine within the confines of my room. My room is, in its way, my own hospital room, and is unlike many others of the human race, because I don't find it necessary to fill my room with foolish decorations. Maria enjoys mocking the walls, which I have adamantly refused to paint. I explained to her that the concept of lathering pigmented liquid onto a vertical surface merely for enjoyment was ludicrous. It serves no purpose to our health or well-being, let alone my health or well-being. Maria only mocks me further, and still she continues to mock me, unless I remember to lock the door. In these days of careful seclusion, I always remember.

The door is locked when Maria knocks to remind me for the the fifth time in the past few days, that she is going out with her best friend Paula, who I could care less about. She knows I don't care, and that's why she tells me: to annoy me. I'm certain of it. She asks if I'd like to join the two of them. This surprises me at first, but I suspect immediately that some money has exchanged hands somewhere within the few seconds it took for Maria to cross from her room through the kitchen where Adaline is. I say "No" as quickly as I can, and Maria leaves. When I'm certain I will no longer be bothered, I take my laptop and open it up.

Ever since the escapade, the word Umlaut has haunted me every time I've fallen asleep. You can imagine the misfortune this has caused me. I do not usually encounter dreams, but somehow the painting Umlaut has brought about my first string of them. It is almost always the same dream. They are merely subconscious echoes of one's' waking life, and I've always laughed internally at the people who believe they mean anything. I know that I've made a hypocrite out of myself as I type Umlaut in the search engine bar.

The dream always goes as follows. I am standing in a room as small as a closet, with one of the pictures in front of me being the black canvas I had seen earlier, with the white dot in the middle. On my right is the one with the line and the triangle. On my left is the circular canvas with the cross-hatching. Beside the black painting is always an intercom system with a button. My goal is always to inform the artist that her paintings are atrocious. It is just an everyday thing for me. When I press the button I summon the artist to come to my office, which is the closet-like-enclosure I am standing in. I always grow frustrated because she doesn't come, when it's absolutely dire for me to inform her that her paintings are terrible. I'm also aware of the painting Umlaut. However, the painting belongs to another artist in my dream, one whose name is always withheld. Sometimes in the dream, I try to add my left foot beside the other five, only for the canvas to be unmarked by my foot: the same as before. This further frustrates me, and then I press the button for Ruby Taylor once more, only to wake up exasperated at this artist and the seed that Joan's scrapbook has planted in my brain.

As I scroll through the results that have come up, I feel as if I'm in that closet again, summoning Ruby Taylor over the intercom, only for her to not come, because all I see before me is information on a type of German symbol placed over some vowels. I nearly close my laptop again, but decide otherwise, as my curiosity must be appeased. I've already concluded that I will never meet this Joan character again. In the search engine bar, I search Umlaut-Ruby Taylor. Up comes several facebook profiles, obituaries, and finally, a link to a video interview with "The Genius Behind Umlaut".

I click it and find myself staring at two women. One of them I recognize as Ruby Taylor, the other I can only assume is the interviewer. The interviewer looks about my age, with a large gap between her two front teeth, and dark blue braces that obscure the darkness between. Her mouth, meanwhile, is coated with an unbelievable layer of gloss. So much so that when she speaks, strings of it stretch between her bottom and top lip. I gag with revulsion. Ruby Taylor, the atrocious artist, grants me the relief of normalcy to some degree. Her only abnormality is the coat she wears. It is covered in so many differently shaped buttons, patterns, and stitches that she looks like she's wearing a quilt. Still, her face doesn't make me feel like emptying my stomach of its lunch, so there's that. It is simple and round, with brown eyes that give me a sense of deja vu and hair so red, that I wonder if she was named Ruby for that exact reason.