MID-19TH C. AMERICA

He left the room maybe once or twice a month. Fritz was occasionally spotted by townspeople at the market not far from his shop. The room was a small, comfortable place, and Fritz was the only painter in the area. The building stood out in the slowly industrializing town. The brick was corroded and the wooden door chipped progressively with each day. There was one small window where, if one were lucky, Fritz’s eyes could be seen watching the streets.
Fritz saw the townspeople speed walking across the cobblestone paths as if they had somewhere important to be. His eyes would follow one person, then the next, until he or she was out of his line of vision. He liked to think that he was searching for inspiration, but he truly had no interest in the outside world. Everything he needed was in his shop. Paint cans bordered the inside of the room in pyramid-like stacks while the actual paint on the wall was dark and cracking. The only light came from the lone window, unless Fritz decided to light some candles. He bought them months ago, but they were barely melted. On the floor there were two pillows and a blanket, functioning as the bed for Fritz and his wife.
When a customer entered the shop, all he or she could see was a wooden wall with a door, always locked, and a screen. When Fritz heard a customer, he slid a panel from the screen and spoke with the person. He saw no meaning in making friends or socializing; every customer was just a means for him and his wife’s survival. Oddly enough, it wasn’t always this way. For years he greeted customers and chatted about color schemes, but few people remember those days. Many have left the town or have no use for Fritz anymore.
It didn’t matter to him because the only thing that did was his wife. He knew she would never leave him, even as his gray hair and beard grew wilder with each day. She didn’t shudder at his wrinkles or mind his horrid stench. She didn’t care that he wore the same paint splattered overalls almost everyday. Yes, Alma was the perfect woman for him. She could never abandon him.
She had lost her ability to speak about a year ago from a case of bronchitis. This didn’t stop Fritz from excitedly yelling observations about the town and asking her what she thought. Despite caring deeply for her feelings, Fritz never let her out of the room. He always figured she never wanted to leave, anyways. In this manner, Alma was dragged into his spiraling evolution as a recluse.
Alas, they had to eat. Once a month Fritz mustered up enough courage to walk one block down the street and buy groceries. Everyone looked at him and covered their mouths from releasing laughter into the stale air. He shuffled to a fruit stand twiddling sections of his beard in his fingers. When he went to grab an apple a woman shuddered at the buildup of paint underneath his nails. He thrust his head in her direction with wide-open eyes; her face went cold and she scurried to another stand. He turned back to the apples, he bought them because the rest of the fruit would go bad too quickly, and everything had to last them. Walking out of the market he spat in the road and snorted mucus up his nose.
The walk was always tortuous. The sky swirled around him and the wind screamed in his ears. He couldn’t hold his pounding head or the food would drop, and they needed the food or they would die. She would never die on his watch. Everyone thought he would kill her, but he never, ever could. He needed to bring back the food or they would die.
The first time the wind battered him this way, he dropped the food in the street. The memory remains vividly in his mind, the apples rolled down the street while the pigeons mauled the bread. He tried to catch the apples but they ran faster until he found himself in the road face to face with two horses jerking in their reins. He raced back to the room and they nearly starved before he found the courage to return. He would not make this mistake again; he would never leave her alone. He would not let them die.
He also had to keep his business up and running. A woman entered the shop as he was in the middle of feeding Alma. He stood up, pushed his palms into his lower back and stretched with a yawn. He scratched his bum and opened the wooden panel.

“What can I do for you?”

“I would like a painting done of my family.”
She slid a photograph under the screen and he scrutinized it with listless eyes. He looked at the woman: middle aged, hair tied in a sleek bun, powdered face, almost inhuman. He could deal with her. He looked back at the photo for an uncomfortable amount of time.
“Impressed? Photography is still a new art form. It’s very hard, especially in this town, to find someone that has a camera- and knows how to use it! Yes, it’s very nice indeed-“
“What size do you want?”
“Oh why the biggest size you have of course! Nothing less for my precious-“
“THAT WILL BE 30 DOLLARS.”

She put her hand to her heart, appalled that he was not interested. She handed him the money.


“One week,” he said, slamming the panel in her face.

He turned around and muttered “b****” into his shoulder. He walked around in circles clenching his fists until he punched the wall with all his might. He turned his wrist and examined the skin peeling off of his knuckles and the scarlet streams dripping onto the floor.


“I’m sorry Alma, I know I told you I would be better,” he said through held back tears.

She couldn’t respond. All she could do was stare blankly from the from the bloodstained floor. He promised her he would clean it up and get to work on this woman’s painting. Nothing could bring him to do anything except a promise to her. Every time he received new business he would close up shop and dedicate all his time to the art. He carried the “Closed” sign to the door and put it on as quickly as possible. He slammed his back against the wood and took a deep breath from the reality he just endured.

He was in the room again. The thumb and index finger of his left hand grasped his chin as he eyed the paint cans. He looked at the picture again and decided to use a neutral background and light colors for the clothing, besides black for the men’s suits. He lifted them all up at once in a stack and placed them next to his canvas with a clatter. Just before he grabbed his paintbrush, he decided inspiration was necessary.

The town looked mad from the window. Sunlight hitting the smiles of children, laughter from groups of men on their lunch breaks, and couples strolling through the town with linked arms. Fritz grabbed a clump of his hair and held on. His eyes shifted uncontrollably until he saw a man pointing up to his window. A crowd gathered around him squinting in the sun at the spectacle. Fritz was an exhibit in a freak show to them. He ducked his head and grunted furiously.

The stool in front of his canvas was a retreat. He drifted to the paint, inhaling the familiar aroma as he placed each color onto his palette. He took a long, hard breath, and began to work. The skill had come naturally to him since he was a child. When he was only ten, his remake of the Mona Lisa rivaled the original. Still, nobody ever cared about Fritz, and that was the way he liked it.

This family portrait was coming to him now; he could picture it in his mind so intensely that opening his eyes was hardly necessary. Strokes of green brushed perfectly against the canvas, meeting lines of black, gray, red, and boundless others. The dress of one woman in the picture came to life through a textured ivory design. Shades of blue blended to become the sky and the sun shined brighter than the light coming through the window. He dipped his paintbrush into a glass of water to rinse it of an unneeded color, and then proceeded to chew and suck on the coarse bristles. He glazed his gums with his tongue, feeling their roughness from this yearlong habit.

“What do you think, Alma?” he said.

She stared blankly at him from the floor. He smiled more helplessly than she was.

“I like it, too. But that lady doesn’t deserve beauty in her house.”

He looked at her and began to remember their youth together. They met in elementary school in the very same town, practically on the same street. He looked at her dying gray hair on the pillow and remembered watching her golden locks dance in the wind on the playground. That energy never waned as they grew into awkward teenage bodies. He had to drop out of school to help support his family, but Alma stayed in and became brilliant. She would come into the store where he worked every day after school and help him with change counting money. He would stand behind the counter dreaming of her slender figure stepping through the door and gently searching for a snack. Then, his anticipation would kill him as he awaited her approach to the counter. He remembered how nervous he was to ask out on of a date, and how miserable he was when she rejected him the first three times. She only gave him the time of day the fourth try because of his persistence. He remembered how she fixed his hair and how her touch gave him chills. He remembered kissing her for the first time, and then wondered where all that passion had gone.

He settled in next to wife that night, exhausted from reminiscing. He wrapped his around her and kissed her right beneath her ear. Dry lips upon dry skin. When he was sure she was sleeping he rolled over onto his back and rubbed his hands across his face. He stared into the darkness for what seemed like hours, tossing and turning with restrain to avoid hitting Alma.

He could never sleep, or stay asleep, because of the darkness. Its black grips locked him down into the floor while he tried, in vain, to reach the moonlight from the window. He gasped for breath and his eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head, but he used everything he had to avoid confronting his brain. He didn’t want to see the monster creating every image that tortured him. He closed his eyes tightly and his paralysis was released. He stood up and felt invincible, shaking Alma and dancing with her around the room. The room was spinning like the sky and his mouth was constantly in a gaping smile. He led her while he waltzed silently and bumped into paint cans and walls in the dark. He didn’t care. Alma went back to the floor and Fritz ran outside quietly. The moon was so bright and the streets were so empty; he had never seen the world this way. He peered into store windows and saw his reflections; it was like they were the only folks in town. His bones wouldn’t allow him to run but that did not stop him from twirling like a beginning ballerina. Then, he was sitting in the middle of the road laughing with the air around him. The laugh turned into a phlegmy, hard cough as he rocked his body on the cobblestone. He and the shadows dominated the land for that time.

The buildings were laughing with him, not at him, as he journeyed two blocks back to the room. He rambled into the building forcing sudden breaths to calm the laughter- something he never pictured himself doing. He walked into the room, ignoring the paint spilt all over the floor and instead splashed in some of the puddles. He laid his head into a paint-soaked pillow and finally fell asleep.

The clatter of several cans falling woke him the next morning. His skin was caked with dried paint while the floor was still damp. He fancied it his greatest work ever, and almost felt snooty enough to find a photographer and re-paint the picture himself! He moved his gaze from the floor to the window, and he waved at the next crowd that beheld him. His silent Alma laid gingerly on his artwork, operating as the focal point of the piece.

Soon he heard the door of his shop slam shut. Footsteps clanked on the floor while Fritz panicked, wondering how anyone could defy his “Closed” sign. He knew it had to be the woman, that dreadful woman. He froze and stared at the panel and the door. Questions raced though his head. Which would he open? What was she doing here? Had it been a week already?

She started banging on the screen in front of the wooden panel. His voice was stolen by fear and he couldn’t speak a word. She shouted “Hello?” several times, and each one grew louder and angrier. She walked again and started jiggling the doorknob. He let out the breath he’d been holding when he realized he remembered to lock that door again. She stomped around the room demanding an answer from Fritz. He managed to mute her voice and he ogled the town through the window. He thought about taking Alma out to dinner, or buying fresh fruit at the market, or maybe even going to the pub like he used to when he was a young man.

His dream broke when he heard a crash on the other side of the room. The woman had pushed through the door entirely. He turned and froze again. His hair was coated in red paint on one side and her eyes widened. She stared at the body lying on the floor and grabbed the wall to stabilize herself. She clenched her hand over her heart.

“Oh… oh my… she must be, she must be sleeping, is she… sleeping? WHAT IS SHE DOING?!”

Fritz grabbed his head and couldn’t give her an answer. She fell to the ground and screeched for help. She looked back at him, terrified.

“DO YOU REALIZE THERE IS A CORPSE LYING ON YOUR FLOOR?” she squealed.

He searched the room frantically while she stared at Alma.

“What corpse?” he replied.