There’s something peculiar about the gallery on the corner of 25 Oak and Smith. Something different about the temperature-controlled air, the way the pieces watch passers by from their perches and pedestals. The trash cans filled with lipstick-stained coffee cups and gum wrappers, the lost and found holding misplaced cell phones, and stranded toys. We stare unblinking at those who come to stare at us; dissecting our oil-based pallets and brush strokes, red dot stickers pressed to our labels until we are pulled down from our displays, packaged, sent away.
But when the sun gilds the room in its last rays of light, when the trash cans are emptied, floors swept, frames dusted, and the last deadbolt locked; new life breathes within its white walls. Subjects pull free from their canvases, an array of moving colors that stretch and sigh. Sculptures crack stiff joints, and step down from their pedestals, each piece free, except for me. I watch from behind my linen mounting, cheek pressed to the glass, careful not to smear my charcoal. It is the same as every other night. I have counted all the seconds of the day until the sun leaves the sky; until I can watch her dance.
She descends from her canvas, like Venus reborn every night. A vision of beauty that demands to be seen, lips that flush, a chest that sighs. She is so much closer to human imperfection than I will ever be. I hope against hope every night that she will gaze upon me, if only once. That one day she might give color to my shapeless lines.
I remember when I was first brought here, hung on the wall, mounted under the golden gallery light. She had been part of a live exhibit and I watched as she came to life on canvas, pulled from nothing but pigment and her artist's hand, every line given a purpose. Oh, how my bones would ache with want if I had them, but I suppose every beauty needs an observer. So, I wait every day only to watch her return every evening and never know me.
There is a young man who stops by the gallery most evenings at five. He walks up and down the rows of artwork, around and around the maze of white walls, but it is not us that he is here to admire. It’s the woman who sits at the desk, I think, perhaps she is his beauty. Though she is only flesh and bone, no oil or gesso, no acrylic or ink, yet beautiful all the same. There is a sadness in her eyes, something there that he can’t quite chase away with easy smiles and soft touches. His beauty does not dance, she sighs, and sniffles, and stares, but not at the canvases. She stares at me.
“It looks similar, don’t you think?”
She asks, standing before me. Her blue eyes dull as dishwater, purple half-moons blooming beneath them, overlapping her freckles. As if the sadness is spilling out of her body, purple ink on her paper skin. She looks delicate, frail.
“To what?”
He asks, brow furrowed, hands shoved in his pockets so deep he won’t be tempted to reach out and touch her. As if he’s tried before, as if he’s failed.
“The sonogram.”
The man bristles. Jaw clenched; breath held. She has made him uncomfortable. His shoulders pull inward as if he might be able to disappear into himself. Her eyes soften till tears spill over the edge of her lashes. She presses a hand to her pink, wet nose and sighs. It’s a quiet sound that holds more pain than I have ever witnessed. My scrambled black edges and blank paper spaces usually do not evoke such emotions, though it’s a reaction I’ve often longed for. I now feel ashamed, horrified that I could make someone feel such a wealth of sadness.
“It's beautiful.”
She whispers, her voice watery. He looks at the ground. I do not want to watch them anymore.
Behind them I notice a red dot sticker is pressed to the label of a familiar face. I watch as they pull her down from the wall. I watch as they carry her away and something in me squeezes, wrenched from the body I do not exist in. I wonder if this is how the woman feels. I wonder if this is the pain that she lives with, this walking wound screaming at me that something is now missing. This life I witnessed forming before my very eyes, taken away from me. My love, my beauty, the one thing that made this life worth living, spirited away in the flash of a second.
And I’m powerless to stop it.
I look back and the man is gone. The woman has returned to her desk, fingers worrying at the edge of a square piece of paper. She stares and stares and stares. Is this her beauty?
The trash cans are emptied, floors swept, frames dusted, and the last deadbolt locked. There is no dancing, at least not for me. I do not watch as subjects pull free from their canvases or as sculptures rest weary bones. There is no beauty in the world before me anymore. It is gone.
I do not know how much time passes, how many days, or how many nights. A red dot sticker is pressed to my label. I am pulled down from my display, packaged, sent away. When I am unwrapped again, I am placed on a well-decorated wall. A space made just for me. The woman stands before me, her half-moon shadows now more transparent than before. She tucks a frayed square of paper into the right corner of my frame, steps back, and smiles. It’s small, almost invisible if you aren’t looking for it.
Her hand rests on the small swell of her belly. And she is beautiful.
