TCOTNK 13 Want Nothing
Want nothing
Her heart was beating wildly. Her insides were in turmoil. The voices in her head were all tangled up. Sensible voices, sounding like her mother, her sisters, reproachful insecure words that talked about later, about what could happen. They connected imagined and real scenario’s dug up from the inner archive of the very worst.
And yet she was also something of an observer. Looking at all that hassle of her busy head from a distance. From the place she had been so much in recent weeks. That space was much more pleasant. From there she saw things as they were. From there she understood that her senses tried their best but often made a mess of it. That her own filter was always in between. What you see is all you. That was what she had realised these last weeks. What she saw and felt was mainly her own fear. Old fear, she thought she had already left behind.
That helped. A little. All this happened outside of time. Compared to what would be registered on a stopwatch, it was instant. The exchange of the energy, the pressure difference, and the inventory of the set-up. That's why her heart was beating so wildly. It was an intuitive warning, not of the clichés of her fear system, but of that which between the senses was just beyond reach of her consciousness. And right there in that moment there was something very important that she couldn't put her finger on. Something that was visible, present, yet not directly perceptible. Despite the heavenly appearances of the place. Or maybe because the appearance seemed so perfectly innocent? More than real? Was that possible?
She had left the bow. This sudden realization pulled her out of the maelstrom of her thoughts. Her head jerked slightly in the urge to look toward the shore. And she saw that Picasso recorded that. He was fully concentrated on her. Knew her name. Was apparently well prepared. Which of course was scary as hell, but that gave Scarlotte, the new Scarlotte, a grim kind of stubbornness. It lifted her. She stepped closer, so the sweltering orb of her expanding energy field would slide through his.
“Last word?” she asked, plopping into the comfortable lawn chair opposite the man. There was a tray of glasses and a pitcher on the table. She picked up the glazed pottery and smelled the contents. Elderflower. She looked at him questioningly, “Do you want some too?” she asked.
He picked up his book again and nodded, was used to being served but not being asked about the last word he had read. She poured the cloudy lemonade spiked with crushed ice and petals. All tinkling and very aesthetically pleasing. Two glasses she poured.
“Now you're out,” said Scarlotte disappointed, “because you had to check. What are you reading then?”
He sighed with a cynical look at her, found the loss of initiative amusing.
"Human nature is..."
Bullshit, Scarlotte thought and didn't listen to the answer, demonstratively turning her attention to the surroundings, but really paying attention to changes inside her. Listening inwards and in the meantime drinking from the divine lemonade.
“Prepared it yourself?” she interrupted.
He swallowed, smiled and asked, "Is it good?"
A clear no, and he probably never even drank it himself. “Mmm, heavenly,” she agreed, “you should try it.”
He looked at his glass. Decided it couldn't hurt and with the habitual gesture of a sort of cheer he drank a little.
She was so happy with Chris's advice. Get to know and be open and clear. She stood to look at a wooden statue behind Picasso.
"I've come to ask you to shape the new field of the imagination."
It looked like a totem pole. Stacked human figures. Intertwined to form a tower. Brrr, she thought to the huddled bodies below. She almost wanted to ask again if he made it himself, but that was cynical, not sincere.
“Field of Imagination? What should I imagine?”
“You get a piece of land at the Oucatur Festival that you can work. You then create something that is free from all the limitations of today's society. An ideal spot. Your own little Arcadia, Utopia. A medieval Avalon. Something for the current economy. A playful fantasy about a paradise on earth.”
"And the conditions?"
“None to speak of.”
She sat down again.
“You pay nothing, you get nothing. If you sell something there, you contribute to the festival with a quarter of your turnover. It should be safe, not violent or sexually explicit.”
“How big is that piece I'm getting?” He said, and Scarlotte heard the disinterest between the words.
“How big is that piece I'm getting?”
She echoed his voice like a perfect mirror and went on undisturbed.
“As big as you can handle. We can extend a long way along the river. But time is limited of course.”
"Why would I want this?"
She smiled her widest. Here was the essence of her visit.
"You can answer that yourself."
She eagerly let the last of her lemonade run onto her tongue.
"But of course I can help you a bit."
"So you're actually asking me to volunteer?"
“No, actually I came to ask if we can borrow two cherry pickers? And a few other things?”
Now he started to laugh.
“Good run up,” he said, “may I think about it for a moment?”
She nodded.
"Do you have anything to eat, I'm starving."
"Hold," he said.
She looked questioning, "What?"
"The last word I read." he said.
They ate vegetarian. A pie with wild mushrooms, cheese and definitely not supermarket puff pastry, and a salad that had been in the garden ten minutes ago. Prepared by invisible highly skilled hands. The outdoor table at the side of the house was set with a view of the sun setting over the small bay. In the middle of the magical garden. He drank wine from an old bottle with a faded label. Scarlotte stuck to the lemonade. The filled pitcher was an exact copy of the first. It all seemed perfect.
She asked questions and listened to his answers. At least some kind of listening. She was still wary. Despite the setting, the polite attitude, the incredibly delicious food. It gradually got dark.
He talked easily, but didn't say much. He was the reverse of Michelangelo, she thought. Maybe there was a key there. Both nicknamed after a famous artist. She estimated Picasso was older than Michelangelo. Difficult, because he acted young, but sometimes she suddenly saw a much older man peeking through his smooth-skinned face. Sixty? seventy? Or older?
The subtle garden lighting had been switched on. And they were talking about the festival again. Scarlotte was taking off her lace-up boots. Medieval shoes were not very comfortable. She rubbed her feet back into shape.
"What do you suggest I make?" he asked, very carefully refilling his glass with the last of the bottle.
"It will come naturally when you make the decision."
He sat back.
"I can't decide until I know what's coming, what it's going to cost me, what it's going to bring me."
Scarlotte also slid the very last bit of salad from the large bowl onto her plate.
"It doesn't work like that, Picasso," she said through her mouthful of walnuts, mango, and pepper salad. That was the first time she said that name out loud. She felt as being in some tennis match, hitting back a curveball. Mean and harsh.
He cut a piece of a disintegrating Camembert and dabbed it at the wafers of puff pastry from the pie tin, looking at her a few times in the meantime. Yes, Scarlotte thought, you have to think about that, don't you?
“That's how I work,” he said, placing his cutlery on his spotless plate, aligned to ten past two. Scarlotte looked at the mess she had made. There wasn't a crumb on him. She gave up on it. Otherwise she would snap.
"Then it won't work," she said, pulling her legs up, resting her chin on her knees and looking dreamy as she continued talking naturally.
“If you lay down in advance what you're going to make, it's not new. Then you make something you already knew. That is executing, not creating.”
"Maybe I'm not creative."
“Wwhhaooaaahh,” she pretended to deflate, “how did we get here again? I'm not creative,” she added in the voice of a whiny spoiled child.
“Too bad,” she said, “I'm going to stretch my legs...”, and she flew into the garden like a butterfly, “…and thank you,” she said from further on, “you cook wonderfully.”
And that, she thought, thanks to Chris, was the surprise. She walked lightly but firmly. About back from where she came. Only now did she realize how tense she had been. The paths were subtly lit with tiny will-o'-the-wisps. And the forest was silent now. It looked very different. But it was not very big and soon she found the vegetable garden with the water pump. She went to get the bow. She had borrowed it and wanted to take good care of it.
It was gone. She was almost certain of the place. And also the lid of the roof box was gone with the empty blue garbage bag. Stolen? Cleaned up? By who? She looked around. Walked a bit further along the shore. Shit, it was a beautiful handmade bow and the quiver was a masterpiece. She couldn't just lose it. Why had she left it behind? She walked back to the water pump. I was enchanted by this garden, she thought. And was immediately annoyed at her distrust. Why did she continue to see the man as dangerous? It was so beautiful here. He was just someone with a lot of money.
But it's all make believe, she thought. None of this was real. Not in the way of the past few weeks. Not like the camper really was, and swimming in the river. His was a make-believe existence. Purchased. Outsourced. Just like Karen's life. The life that so many people seemed to long for. To have, to possess, to secure, fences around it, padlocks on it. Stop, she thought I'm not living their life. I can only choose for myself.
Hidden under a rampant vine from which small kiwis hung was a shed. A tool shed for the garden. Next to the door stood the bow. The arrow tube hung on a nail. So there were other people after all. Logical, but it didn't make her happy. Behind the scenes, strings were pulled, knobs turned. Of course, it could be that a gardener was just trying to be friendly. She looked around as she replaced the stock of arrows and bow on her back. The narrow stripe of the moon gave little light. The wild garden was full of shadows. Still, by the starlight, she could see there was a clearing behind the cottage. A round square. Paved with uneven cobblestones. In the center was a stone table. More like a bowl. Even before she stepped between the two standing stones, she felt that something was about to happen.
She couldn't take her eyes off the liquid in the large bowl. The faint light from the crescent moon reflected in the dark puddle. The surface moved. Rippled slow and oily. She cautiously stepped closer. The movement was erratic. She dropped to her knees to get a better look. Weird. That wasn't water. The surface was deep black. Colorless and dark as the night sky. There. It moved again. A subcutaneous storm. Sedate yet nervous. Something stirred the thick liquid from within. She lowered her head. With her nose near the edge looking over the surface, two things happened at once. She saw an arrow sticking out, the end bit, with the feathers, and she smelled the scent. Metallic and familiar. She recoiled and scuffled back on her feet in a second while drawing an arrow from the quiver. No doubt, it was one of her own. Slowly and with a deep shaky breath she let it slide back and stretched out her flat hand. Feeling just above the surface which was now still. Heat radiated. The hand hung hesitantly. And she stood frozen for several long seconds, weighing. She straightened up and let her hand fall next to her body again. The feeling of wanting to grab the submerged arrow was almost compulsive. But she feared what she would draw out of that blood bowl. Because that's what it looked like. A huge bowl of half-warm blood with something moving in it. And yet she didn't want to run away. If someone tried to scare her, she wanted to be unyielding. They could also be aiming at her curiosity to get her to do something. Like a drink me sign. And she wasn't interested in that either.
She dipped her finger into the dark mirror. It felt thick and gooey. A little sticky. There was not enough light to see her fingers. She would go for it. And she stretched out her hand to the arrow.