Note: Yes, they’re back— deal with it. This was originally intended for the Wicked Writing contest, which has since been cancelled. I’m in no way confident it would’ve won, but it needed to be written. And I needed some distance from another project… so here ya go! Not really loving the ending but: written in a day, so don’t break my balls about it!
Stacy stood frozen in the shadows. If not for the sheen of sweat on his brow, he might’ve fooled casual passers-by that he was just another piece, relegated to a dank, forgotten nook of the space by some careless attendant. He wanted to move; he wanted to scratch his face and click his teeth— wanted to jump out of his skin, if he was being honest. Instead he stayed perfectly still, while his nerves buzzed and whined.
There was a good turnout. Busy, but not crowded; people wandering from one island of light to the next in the cavernous hall, while house music played and intimate, shifting colours painted the floor and walls. Waiters weaved between the patrons with trays of wine and cheese. Here and there, people clustered together— engaged in deep conversation with the artists, no doubt.
His own pieces stood across the room, in the back left corner of the gallery. Three of them, arranged in a loose triangle that might appear casual yet was anything but. Stacy had spent weeks fretting over it in the privacy of his workshop, experimenting with different setups and lightning, dragging and turning his sculptures this way and that before spending hours studying them, trying to decide if this would have the right impact. If this was the right experience. For the patrons, yes. But mostly for him.
From the corner of his eye he saw Mika holding court. Even in the low light he could see the enthralled expressions on the faces of his audience. Judging from the wild gestures, Stacy wondered if he was telling them if his inspiration has come from the divine. He supposed that was more delectable than the truth Mika had once confided to him over one too many cabernets: that his pieces were all based on the torso’s of the random gym bros he plowed through on the daily.
Still, he didn’t begrudge Mika his attention. Perhaps he was the only party here Stacy wasn’t begrudging anything. Like him, the boy was struggling, looking to make his mark and mostly failing. And, really, he should be following the boy’s example, try to chat up some interested parties. It looked like a buying crowd, and he could do with some business.
But not before he saw him. And not before he watched him seeing them. Only then would he be able to relax. From his vantage point he would know the second he arrived, and then— Well, then he’d find out, wouldn’t he?
Time crept by with agonising slowness. Stacy had about decided that he’d skipped the exposé, when there was a stir at the entrance. The crowd parted before a tall, bald man. The lights seemed to have trouble deciding the color of his suit, but he knew it was white. It was always white. The man rubbed his hands together, smiling, pleasure evident on his face. Then he pointed at one of the exhibits with a look of fortuitous discovery and strode over, the girl accompanying him trailing after.
So Lucas Fairbanks began to make his rounds. From the shadows, Stacy watched as he considered each offering. He knew enough about the man to know his tells by now. Had seen him at a handful of happenings over the years, read his reviews like they were sacred texts. From the way he leaned his head, squinted his eyes, and plucked at his lower lip, Stacy could tell which artist would get a passing grade… and which one would get the hatchet job.
He could be brutal, Fairbanks, and in more than one case, his reviews had turned out to be career killers. There were some on the scene that thought he was a real piece of shit for writing such scorching reviews but if you asked Stacy, some of those he burned still got off easy. Only—
Only, now he was here, at one of Stacy’s shows, for the first time ever. And so— the sweating.
As Fairbanks meandered through the the room, Stacy moved along with him, creeping along in the shadows. With his knowledge, he watched one maybes, two passables, and two future bloodbaths. One of these, unfortunately, was going to be Mika.
Oh, well. He still had his hookups.
His pulse quickened as Lucas drifted toward the back. After consulting his brochure, he looked from one side to the other.
Then made for Stacy’s pieces.
This is it—
That was as far as got before he watched the trademark head tilt, coupled with the pained expression.
No. No, no, no—
Fairbanks said something to his female companion behind the brochure. The girl parted her pouting, glossed lips, splayed a hand to her chest and laughed.
Turning away, Fairbanks shook his head.
The workshop was dark, apart from the single light burning in the middle of the ceiling. It threw an island of white onto the concrete floor. On that island, Stacy stood, hands curled into fists, his head pulled down by the gravity of his thoughts.
At the edge of the circle, pale shapes lurked, carved deep with shadow. His pieces. All the blood, sweat, and tears of the last two years, moulded and encased in stone. All of him. All of his pain. All of his suffering. All his fear and doubt and anxieties, regarding him from the gloom like silent witnesses to his failure.
His chest heaved. Breath tore in and out.
Before he knew it, the sledgehammer was in his hands. Hefting it, Stacy didn’t see the scuffed and pitted steel head but Fairbanks, turning away from the work he had poured his soul into with dismissal and disbelief clear on his face. What the hell was he thinking? the look had said. Hooked fingers had dug in, emptying his gut. And the review— Thinking about it now, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a miserable grin. How dare he? How DARE he?
Stacy let out a tortuous cry, swung the hammer in a clumsy sideways arc. It hit one of the sculptures standing closest, made to look like a posing woman. It had taken him two months to perfect her delicate features. One blow send half the visage flying in a hail of shattered stone. The beauty was only superficial; the crude, formless mass beneath was the truth.
The statue wobbled but didn’t go down. Stacy was pulled a quarter-turn by the weight at the end of his arms. He didn’t hear the yell coming up as he brought the hammer back around. The swing bit a fist-sized hole out of the woman’s shoulder (bowed inward for a vulnerable, abashed look) and this time it did topple, broke apart on the concrete floor in meaningless chunks.
Slipping, Stacy stumbled toward the next one. Burning tears sprang forth, blurring his vision as he brought up the sledge again. Screaming, he went about his work.
She found him sitting up against the workbench. Covered in stone dust, he looked like another one of his pieces. His eyes stared out from their powered mask, unseeing. There was a bloody cut on his cheek where a sliver of stone had nicked him.
All around the room, his work lay, reduced to rubble.
Feeling her pulse beating in her neck, she waded through the silence, lowered herself onto the floor next to him. Her foot slid out, sent a nugget of stone spinning. Cringing, she glanced at him. But he didn’t move. Didn’t even seem to notice.
Her jaw moved, tasting the words before she spoke them. Even so, they had to kick up from the deep, fight the pressure of the tense quiet that radiated out from the stoic form sitting next to her.
“I know this is devastating,” she said. Her voice was soft but still sounded loud in the great space. “I can’t even— I can’t imagine how hurt you must be… but you can’t let that— that asshole keep you from doing what you love to do.” Her fingers reached out, touched his arm. “If—“
She flinched when he jerked away from her touch. His eyes, flat dead stones, turned to her. “What do you know?” he hissed.
“I know I wouldn’t give up,” she said. “No matter what people say.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he sighed, picking up a piece of stone and whipping it across the floor with a snap of his wrist.
“I know that if you give up now, you’ll regret it. Maybe if you—“
“No.”
“But if you’d just—“
“No,” he growled, turning the mask of quiet rage on her. “I’m done, you hear? Done. I don’t want to hear another word about any of it.”
There was a bit of silence. Then she said: “Alright. If that’s what you want.”
He gave a tight nod.
After another beat or two she struggled up, grunting. Her hand went to her abdomen, pressing at the soft meat before she straightened.
“At least come inside,” she said, holding out her hand. “There’s no use sitting out here all night.”
“Just leave me be.”
“Stacy—“
“No, you don’t get it,” he said, looking up at her, and now his eyes were no longer empty but filled with cruel fire. “Do you know what’s it’s like, putting everything you’ve got out there, only to have it torn down by that— that fucking piece of shit.” He spat the last words, fingers turned to hooked claws.
“‘Infantile’, he called me. My work ‘a joyless celebration of the banal’.” Stacy let out a bitter chuckle. “He actually begged me to quit. Begged! He’s never done that before. I should take it as a compliment.” He chucked another stone into the shadows. “I really got to him. And that’s the point, right?”
He raised his eyes up at her, issuing a challenge. She was at a loss. She could see the anger and the hurt burning out of his plastered face, and knew that whatever words she managed to string together would never make it down the depths yawning inside him. Because while the review had been bad, it was nothing compared to that desolate place at the heart of Stacy, which seemed hell-bent to take in only the bitter and the negative— even if it killed him.
“Then quit,” she shrugged.
He smirked. Snorted.
“No, no. I’m serious. You should quit. Just look, one bad review and what do you do? You destroy half your pieces!” she paused. “Fairbanks is right. You’re not an artist. A true artist would never treat his work this way.”
His mouth grew tight. The pain in his eyes crumbled in fire. “Stop it.”
“Am I wrong? Look at you, defeated by a little criticism.”
A let out a strangled sound. “A little—“
“It doesn’t matter! If it’s what you want to do, you do it. If it’s not, you don’t.”
Another length of silence pooled between them. Again, she was the one to break it.
“Maybe—“ She sighed. “Maybe if there wasn’t so much pressure on it, things would go a little easier.”
He’d been staring off again. Now his head swivelled towards her, eyes narrowing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m just saying,” she hurried along, “that you could still do your art while you work. It might take some of the pressure off.”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he whispered, words dripping venom, beginning the next phase of the familiar dance between them, which moved to the dissonant melody of screaming insults and accusations, and a warped logic only one of them could comprehend.
There would be tears and apologies, and in the end Stacy would kneel beside her and say that it was all for them. She got that, right? Once he had that big break— Once he made it, she’d have the life she deserved. They both would.
She’d nod. But she hesitated longer and longer each time. It’s not that she doubted Stacy’s love for her— because she didn’t— but she’d come to suspect that the deep place within him was his true home, and that the lure of its despairing song was too strong for him to resist. Sometimes, she feared that Stacy might not be able to be happy— or worse, might not want to be happy. From which followed that she would never be, either.
She had no doubt he’d be at it again tomorrow. Now that the crisis had passed, another period of almost manic production would follow, and he would be safe and content in his labours. For a while.
As he showered, she watched television. At some point she grimaced and her fingers went to her lower abdomen, pressed at the dull pain that lay buried there.
In the morning, she was surprised to find him at the breakfast table, watching TV. But when she poured herself a travel mug full of coffee and asked him if he was going to work today and he shook his head, she got irritated.
“Don’t do this.”
“Do what?” he said with a look of confusion.
“Are you going to spend the entire day moping around the house feeling sorry for yourself?”
He chewed his mouthful, swallowed. “I’m just not feeling it today. It’s that alright with you?”
She shook her head, winced when another dagger sank into her.
“Hey, everything okay?”
“Fine,” she said, waving him off. “I’ve got to get to work. I’ll see you tonight.”
Maybe if she got back, he’d have snapped out of it.
But when she got in that night, he surprised her again by having dinner ready. The house was clean and the back lawn had been mowed.
“Is everything okay?” she asked him again and this time his smile didn’t seem to contain any trace of its usual pain or deflection.
It unsettled her a little.
A lot when she went out to his workshop later. Because although the rubble had been put in the dumpster and the floors had been swept, his tool bench was bare and there was no new project standing in the middle of the room. In fact, most of surviving pieces had been moved to the corner, like frightened figures shrunken away from some menacing presence.
Looking around, the space didn’t feel tidied. It felt squared away. Even the air had changed, as if some essential quality had dissipated and had left behind only this vast, gloom-filled room and its abandoned denizens, whispering in the far corner.
It was freaking her out, this quiet, unmarked desertion; the uncharacteristic calm with which it took place. Later that night, watching TV, she couldn’t take it anymore. Muting the sound, she turned to him.
“Okay, what’s going on?”
Again that look of puzzlement. “Whatta you mean?”
“Cut the shit. I saw the workshop. What— you’re, like, done now, all of a sudden?”
He looked thoughtful. Nodded. “I might be, yeah.”
“Why?” she demanded.
“Because—” he sighed. “Because it’s time?” He shook his head. “I’m just not feeling it anymore, B.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please. I don’t want to spend the night having another pity party.”
“It’s not,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, what that— what he said and, you know, it’s time.” He shrugged this last. “It’s never gonna happen for me.” He took her hand. “I need to start thinking about what matters most.”
Staring into his eyes, she saw he was being serious. But despite the serene surface, she sensed trouble beneath. Despite his sweetness, there was an emotional distance about him, some subtle folding inward he’d done to cover up the hurt of what had happened after the show.
She opened her mouth to say something along those lines, but all that came out was a strangled cry when another knife of pain plunged itself in her gut. It passed, taking all the blood from her face with it. But when she got up, the knife was back, rusted teeth sawing. It drove her to her knees.
She was aware of Stacy’s voice, yelling. She wanted to tell him to stop shouting, wanted to ask him why he was always so damned negative. But she couldn’t get at the words. They drifted down with her, into the dark.
They sat in the small office, both stiff in their chairs. The words had sucked the air out of the room, made it almost impossible to focus on what came next.
Stacy stared out the window, into the grey sky beyond. Blinked when she nudged him.
Sitting forward, he cleared his throat. Tried to speak. Had to clear his throat again. Asked the question that thew its long shadow over their minds.
At home, they ran the numbers. Insurance would pay for some but not all of it. They’d sell the house and the workshop, move into a smaller place. The second car could go, too. Maybe some jewellery and useless gadgets and furniture.
And his sculptures, of course.
When he said it, she started to argue. But he wouldn’t hear of it. They needed the money. And besides, they wouldn’t have room for them at the new place. It was fine, he assured her. All good.
Even so, it was a bitter moment when he sold them. Not on one of the auction sites or through one of the dealerships he had some pull with. No, in the end he was reduced to sell them to a company that specialised in lawn ornaments. When the guy tried to dither about the price, it took all he had not to lose it. But what would’ve been the point? So he took the pittance and added it to the rest they made from the garage sale and selling the car. The house had been put up for sale but the realtor cautioned them that it might take a while to find a buyer willing to climb up to their minimum asking price. If and when, they might have enough to cover treatments— they hoped.
In the meantime, Stacy cleared out the forgotten nooks of the house, looking for more stuff that could be sold, and looked for work. There wasn’t much use for a forty-one-year-old failed sculptor but he thought he had a line on some entry positions opening up at an insurance firm downtown. Shit pay, of course. But beggars couldn’t be choosers.
She watched him go at these tasks with wonder. The change in him had been remarkable. The way he put his shoulders under it when she had been grappling with the news, his attentiveness, his constant worrying over her. She didn’t even recognise the man she’d married.
So when he started about selling the block of marble, she balked.
“No,” she said. “I don’t want you to sell that.”
“We can’t take it with us. It’s useless. Why would we keep it?”
“It’s not useless. You can use it.”
He gave her a look. “I thought we were clear on that. I’m done.” He crossed his hands. Finito.
“Not yet. I want you to use it… to make a sculpture of me.”
Stacy frowned. “What are you talking about?” he said, irritated.
“I want you to capture me. You know… just in case.” Her voice lost its strength at the end, fell to a whisper.
“Stop it now,” he said in a warning voice.
“Neither of us knows for sure how this is going to go, Stacy. If— In case it does end badly, I want you to do it now… not when I’m looking— you know.”
Anger and misery chased each other on his face. Until he whispered: “God damn you.”
When she’d taken place, and he’d taken his time, he peered around the block of marble, brought up the hammer for the first strike, when she said:
“Wait.”
He stood back, watched as she began to undress.
“Like this,” she said.
His face crumpled, and he went to her.
“Don’t cry,” she said, patting him through the desperate hug. “Don’t cry, now. You have work to do.”
He nodded, wiping at his eyes. Made a choked sound as he walked back to the stone.
The work was slow.
His hands, which once moved with a sureness that seemed to flow from a bond with the stone itself, had forgotten everything they’d learned. Blunt and stupid, they chose all the wrong angles in which to plant the chisel, breaking off large chunks of precious marble, making mistakes in the roughing out of the shape that would cost him days to repair.
A part of it was the pressure put on the project, of course. But it was more than that. Stacy knew that she thought his behavior after the show was brought on by nothing more than self-pity. But it wasn’t. His art had always been a delicate, fragile thing. He’d always known it. Doing the show had been a mistake. Because in the wake of Fairbanks’ scathing review, he had neglected his work. Now that he had taken up the chisel again, he’d found it shrivelled and dying. His senses had dulled, blind to what he used to see even before it was, felt before there was anything to feel. And even what he did managed was a cruel facsimile of what it might’ve been, once.
It took weeks to get a quarter of her form free from the marble. By then, the treatments had started and she began to get sick. Again, he suggested to quit the endeavor, knowing she wouldn’t allow it. Again she told him to keep going, knowing he would.
Graceless tools scraped and carved; got more wrong than they got right. With every blow of the hammer, the words pounded in the dark behind his eyes. Metastasis. Survival rates. Experimental treatment.
In time she wanted to cover up. Gentle, he stopped her. When she cried, he held her.
“I love you,” Stacy whispered. “I’ll make you beautiful. You’ll see.”
He didn’t believe it himself, at first. But then, one day, he stood back and let out a sound of appreciation.
“What is it?” she said.
“Uh— nothing,” he said, stammering. Too soon. Too soon, just yet. “Just— give me a minute.”
“I’m getting a bit tired.”
“I know, I know,” he said, breathless. “We’re almost done.”
Fascinating, the way the work blew across the embers of his artistic fire as it progressed. Such complexity; such challenges it continued to present as the days went by. Forcing him to dig deep to find the skill needed to capture the subtleties of her ever-changing form as the sickness ravaged her body.
Hands regained their former mastery as they dug out hollows and crevices, moulded the climbing ranks of her veins as they dug out from the soil of her flesh. Shrank back the skin until it stretched tight against the bones. Sanding and smoothing layer and layer from her to keep up with the ravenous growth inside.
Impatient, she was. Too long. It was taking too long. She didn’t understand. Why couldn’t she understand? Real art can’t be rushed. It has to progress.
“I’m doing this for you,” he said around the sculpture. “I want to get it right. For you.”
He worked. All day and night, he worked. Carvers sucked the meat from her bones, unearthed the curves of her ribs. Scooped and gouged and peeled. Still more angles and depths.
Shrinking.
Descending.
When she couldn’t hold the pose anymore, he lashed her to the chair.
When the pain got too bad, he turned up the music.
Mika turned when he walked in. “Hey, man. Aren’t you— what are you doing here?”
“I’ve got a piece here today.”
“Yeah, but—“ Mika looked at him, worried. “Are you okay, man?”
“Fine,” he said, removing the hand. “Just fine.”
Stacy stood by the covered piece, waiting. Now he’d see. Now he’d know.
Fairbanks came in.
Stacy took a deep breath. Looked up. “All for us, baby. All for us.”
Agh, this was great. The way he can't really love her until she's a statue... but that's still not enough, he needs the critic's approval - so good. Beautiful and horrible (in the horror sense, definitely not the technically bad sense!) at the same time.
This one probably would have won the contest imo. ❤️