Magnum Opus by J.H. Long (sad books to read TXT) 📕

Josephine just pulled the gate closed on the utility elevator when she heard the first crash.

“Vulgar!” came Henri’s enraged shout.

Josephine clutched her camera bag and sprinted to the other end of the bare hallway. Henri always neglected to lock his door, so Josephine burst into the room just as Henri hoisted one of his paintings over his head. The crazed man wore only an untied red silk bathrobe and boxers.

Josephine jumped and wrestled with the slim artist. “Stop! Stop, Henri!” she cried.

“Why stop? It’s worthless! It’s all for nothing!”

“That’s not for you to decide, Henri!” Josephine said.

Henri stopped struggling. He glared at first, but then he chuckled. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re right. It isn’t my place to decide.” He released the painting, slunk over to a steel chair, and slumped in front of a blank canvas.

Josephine relaxed her shoulders and inspected the painting in her hands for damage. It depicted a lone young woman in her bedchamber, her expression twisted with ecstasy while she stimulated herself and a small, demonic figure watched her in the night through an open window.

“You were going to destroy Eveline, Éveillée?” Joephine asked. “You know how much I love this painting.”

Henri scoffed. “You should get on the gallery’s board, then,” he said. “Maybe then I would have a chance.”

Henri snatched an open envelope off the easel and tossed it onto the kitchen counter with a derisive, but practiced flick of his wrist. Josephine rested the painting on the floor and went to inspect it. The envelope came to rest atop many other open envelopes just like it, from numerous institutions, like the Miami Basel, the Banff Art Centre, and the North Mountain Arts League.

“I’m sorry,” Josephine said. “Did they give you any explanation?”

“Too vulgar,” Henri said, “too reminiscent of Goya, too much pseudo-religious iconography, and no one wants romantic oils anymore.”

Josephine sighed and took a seat on a box next to a potted plant. The gloom of the twilit sky, admitted by the studio’s large bay windows, illuminated the dreary scene of the artist’s trashed apartment. Henri’s printer, microwave, and coffee pot lay in pieces. His overturned workbench made a swelling rainbow puddle on the hardwood.

Henri clenched his fists and stood. “I moved to New York to get away from the snobs in France!” he said. “Still, no one appreciates me! I tell tales of humanity’s darkness with oil and brush, and I toil in obscurity while that twat, Cattelan, sells bananas and tape for a hundred thousand dollars! The world of art has become a sham, nothing but a racket that raises up the mediocre so their ‘art’ can be used for money laundering and tax evasion! It’s a joke!”

“It always takes time to earn recognition,” Josephine said. “Van Gogh’s work didn’t earn the notoriety it deserved until long after his death.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Henri asked. “That I might finally get some recognition when I’m in the subterranean genius’ club with the rest of the failures?”

“You think Van Gogh is a failure?”

“I think Van Gogh’s next door neighbor would be famous today if someone with marketing money defiled his corpse for profit!” Henri said. He ran his hand through his long, curly hair and he fixed his gaze on the low sun. “Is that the only way? Death?”

“Well, maybe you should paint something you think they would like.” Josephine said.

Henri whirled on the pale photog. “And what?” he asked. “Admit that my honest work deserves no regard because it has the unfortunate effect of reminding a bunch of aged, anal-retentives of their own shameful genitalia? I mean, don’t you get sick of it?”

“Sick of what?”

“Of taking your little pictures and hoping that someone deigns to offer you a scrap for your work? Of baring your soul like an offering to gods? Of having to live with your hand out?”

“Everyone suffers for their art,” Josephine said.

“Listen to yourself! Listen to the things you must tell yourself just to keep going! It’s suffering for no reason!” Henri said. “It’s not the tides of fate, or failure within a system of merit, but the whims of men! They are not gods, just normal people with money who have no right to decide who succeeds and who fails!”

Henri fixed his gaze on the window again and muttered, “Pure art cannot survive in such a world. They want a puppet?”

“What?” Josephine asked.

“They want a corpse they can exploit for their profit?” Henri shouted. “They want art? I’ll show them art!”

Henri marched toward the window. Josephine hurried to stand and follow.

“What are you doing?” Josephine asked.

Henri threw a window open and took one big step onto the sill. “I’m going to create my magnum opus! Prepare your camera, Josephine! I’ll carry us both up the ladder!”

Without an instant of hesitation, Henri pitched forward and disappeared beneath the window. Josephine screamed, and another scream echoed it from outside.

Josephine ran to the window and braced herself against the sill. Three floors below, Henri lay motionless on the sidewalk, blood already pooled around his skull.

All sensation drained from world, and the room tilted as Josephine watched people gather around her friend’s last great work.

“Get help!” someone called.

Only after Josephine backed a few halting steps from the window did she remember to breathe. She tried to walk to the exit, but her legs failed, and she stumbled into the counter, where Henri’s collection of open envelopes confronted her. She leered down at the camera bag hanging off her shoulder, and then at the open window across the room.

When Josephine left Henri’s studio hours later, after the police had their fill of questions, the camera stayed behind, auspicious atop Henri’s pile of rejections.

Publication Date: 10-01-2020

All Rights Reserved