Paint Fumes

“Wow, it really is strong in here,” I commented as my lungs filled with the acrid stench of wet paint; I’d only been in the room for a handful of minutes and already there was a catch in my throat. I admired the painting Evie had been working on last time I visited and attempted to understand the hidden meaning. Under no definition of the word was I an artist. Maybe that’s why it looked mainly like a colony of birds had infested a cathedral. Perhaps the little spattering in the far corner was a fish, but it could just as easily be a tree or even a series of bells lined up together.

Chuckling, she waved a stained palette, dripping a few red drops onto the corner of her new work, and retorted, “I suppose you get used to it over time.” Her eyes twinkled as she brought her brush across the canvas, smearing the drips, and bit her lip. I watched as she glared at the blank spots and tilted her head slightly. It was a powerful stance; like she was going to war against the cotton fibres with only her brush for backup.

For a good half an hour, I leaned on Evie’s worktable as she layered colours, swatted at the canvas, and added fine pencil lines for haphazard definition. “So,” I began sheepishly, stepping out from behind the paint-splattered counter, “what’s this one supposed to be?”

When she turned to me, she had this wild look in her eyes that was just beyond anything I could describe. It was the madness of a scientist and the passion of a poet and the strength of a lion. It was a feeling more than I look. Grinning from ear to ear, she set the palette and brush precariously on the edge of a dried paint can. She took my hand, instantly turning my fingers deep, blood red, and pulled me to one side of the splotches. As she adjusted me, holding her body tight to mine, she whispered, “Can you see it now?”

Like I said, I am no artist. Like, at all, at all. I look at great pieces and think, “meh,” but when I looked from that spot at Evie’s unfinished canvas, I could see it. My throat caught again, but in a good way; in that way where you feel emotional tears coming and can just lean into it. Turning in her delicate grip, I pressed my lips on hers, pulling her into my arms and remained there for several minutes, enjoying the feeling.

When I finally broke away, I whispered, “I love you, too.”

Evie grinned, forced air out of her nostrils like she did when she laughed, and went back to the painting.

To this day, I couldn’t tell you how I knew what she’d meant. Looking from anywhere else in the world, the canvas was just a conglomerate of red stripes and drops and splashes with a few light grey lines scattered about. The yellow on the side was just a distraction, and the purple seemed to have no place at all. But it, all together and standing in Evie’s arms, was the epitome of passionate longing.

Simple Selfishness

“Okay, look, you all keep telling me that every single action he took was purely selfish. But he wasn’t, isn’t a selfish person,” I declared emphatically, ripping open the buttons on my jacket. Sucking in a breath that burned in my raw throat, I added, “Maybe the whole obsession with life-extending medicine was born because our mom died at twenty-two, but that doesn’t discount the research he did.”

Josephine, who’d been standing beside the door, behind her colleagues, suddenly stepped forward and cleared her throat. Raising her hands and stepping up to the glass dividing me from them, she replied, “No, it doesn’t. But, he wasn’t entirely honest about everything, either. We didn’t learn about your mother until he left, and he never talked about you being ill.”

In the last three days, I had not only learned my time was almost up, but that my brother had suddenly disappeared, along with half the vials of his formula. In that span, I had lost everything. I had nothing to lose.

Scoffing, I tore at the sleeve and draped my coat over the nearest chair. I eyed the remaining vials as the world spun and my head began to throb. As I leaned against the chair, gripping the hard plastic with all my strength, the door opened and shut. Unable to open my eyes, I held up my hand and breathed, “Please, just let me try it.” Everything my brother had been working his whole life towards was on the shelf, deemed too dangerous for human experimentation.

When I finally opened my eyes, Josephine was standing over me, hovering like a worried mother. Smiling sadly, she reached her hand out and replied, “I’ll do it. Half a dose. It’s a simple experiment. Chances are, nothing happens.”

Tears stung my eyes as I took her hand and she led me to a stable chair. Behind the glass, I could hear her colleagues muttering and jeering, but none of them made a move to leave; curiosity really was a terrible inconvenience when you were standing on principle.

“Thank you,” I whispered as she prepared to give me a shot. Sitting down was helping a little with the nausea, but lately, nothing had been making a big impact on the headaches.

“My uh, my mom passed a couple of years ago,” she chatted quietly as a syringe clattered in a metal dish, followed closely by a vial and some cotton balls. Taking the seat beside me, she continued, “To hear David talk about your mom, she was similar to mine; very driven and independent. Neither of them would have handled the diagnoses well. I feel like I really got to know her through your brother.”

I’d been four and he’d been six when our mom died so I didn’t have much memory of her. Our dad practically never spoke about her or the years before; it took some serious cajoling to get a sentence out of him, and even then, you had to see the agony in his eyes.

Gently, Josephine rubbed alcohol on my arm, trying to make eye contact with me. The tears that were streaming down my cheeks burned slightly and I could tell more would come if I looked at her, so I just stared at some kind of expensive machine. “Alright, so, best case, this is gonna hurt a bit and then you’ll start to feel better in an hour or so,” Josephine explained, drawing up some liquid into the syringe and taking a deep breath, “According to your brother, anyway.”

After a few seconds, I realized she was looking for confirmation of consent so I nodded and muttered, “Yeah, go ahead.”

Relaxing my arm, I shut my eyes and winced as the needle slid in. For a moment, nothing happened other than a little tingling. I breathed deeply until something started to burn on my arm. Opening my eyes, I looked down as my skin broke out in hives. I didn’t even have time to be itchy as my throat closed up and I clawed at my chest. Blackness pulled at the edges of my vision as the reaction deepened; it seeped in as my mind was full of ringing. When everything faded, it was a relief.