Madly Exciting

Chunky patches of deep red, my shirt drooped stiffly with crusty blood, sticking to my body. Like a map of somewhere very far away. My hands were bleeding, adding to the mess, dribbling painfully from the crater created by crazy little dog teeth. I felt I needed to wash up a bit.

I remember I walked down the road slowly, making my way through the Friday commotion. Bass in my chest, drunken shrieks in the air, broken glass crunching pleasantly underfoot. I felt ok. I thought maybe a drink would settle my still shaking hands, but remembering the colourful arrangement of my clothes underneath the trench coat, I changed my mind.

At home I took a shower, checked the mail, watered the plants. I watched some TV and smoked a cigarette sitting in the window. I thought maybe I could do with some money to repaint the sitting room. Ochre, perhaps even a rusty red.

It had been easier than I had expected, taking a life. More fluid, more gunk and bits than I had thought, but still easier. More pressure in the veins. There was red inside, but also blue, green, various sickening yellows. The knife had sunk in as though into a taut pillow of the ornamental sort.

Painting that night was more difficult, I was exhausted. But I felt pleased, I had my motive. Inspired, I drew out an outline on the large canvas. A young man sprawled, twisted and reaching, a frozen spasm, a sickening smell of iron. It came out rough, not hurried but with calculated urgency. Thick charcoal lines, smudged. Fur with skin attached, a tiny broken spine. Murder. I think I went to bed at dawn.

I awoke with the feeling of being in the middle of a conversation. I swallowed my pills dry and smoked a cigarette in the window. It was 2:30. I had slept on a stick of charcoal and it had made a long and curved stroke on a leg of my pyjama trousers. With the remaining shards, I made a matching one on the other. I felt tired. I made coffee in the French brewer and sat down in front of the drawing.

It had, I concluded, a nice feel to it. The curve of the figure was pleasant, limbs curled cruelly and the head jutted out at an alarming angle to the rest of the body. Good rhythm. Within the arch of the body, the tiny dog stretched painfully, the fur still left on was wet with blood. Quite a good composition. I decided it was time to take paint to the canvas, any more consideration and this terrible fluidity would be lost. It was important to keep the spontaneity, the feeling of a sudden murderous impulse.

 

I painted with my hands that day, while the rain whipped at my window. I used acrylics rather than oil, because I needed to do it with my hands. There was no time to waste and I did not want to be separated from the surface by a millimetre, this was tactile work. A mug of deep red was sloshed onto the canvas, and this was deeply exciting. Madly exciting.

The front door opened and in stumbled The Writer. He said Can I have coffee and I said It was in the pot. I wiped my hands on a the rag I had in my pocket and lit a cigarette, and we stood in the room looking at each other. He looked so tired. I said he looked tired he said he was. Oh, I said. He looked like he had put make up on then cried, and teased his hair to look like that. The Writer had a notebook with a fox drawn on it, which I thought looked stupid. I said Do you like foxes and he said Not really.

I was feeling a little edgy because I can't paint when there are other people around. I wanted him to leave. I said, I think I'd like you to leave. He ignored me and picked through some drawings on my bed, holding them up but not really looking at them, then putting them back in the wrong order. He was wearing socks in his sandals and this made me feel uneasy, of course.

By Danielle Berg

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