Drawn Out

Her sketches were made up of patterns on a page, shaped to form her view of ordinary people. She exhibited her work in galleries, libraries, restaurants and even once on the walls of the local public toilet. She was not particular about the location of her completed drawings, she wanted people to see them, but she had her own strict rules about where she would create her work and top of the list was to be out of sight of her subject’s view. She managed this from behind coffee cups and sauce bottles in cafés, on a bench in the distance in parks, in the secluded shelter of a bus stop or anywhere at all that allowed her to merge discreetly, blend into the background, a cover up job like magnolia on woodchip.

She watched from places where hours passed like clouds, drifting out of time with the fast changing shape of life, never quite catching up. It was a way of stopping, casting a net over the present in a search for intimacy, or as close to it as a pen would allow her to go at times of loneliness. She became lost in the discovery of others, still and   completely absorbed.  Images materialised as her subject was brought to life, features developed expressions revealing more, telling tales. She sometimes altered the story by raising an eyebrow, curling a smile or adding a tear. She encouraged questions and challenged the expected. These were her portraits, faces she would never know, touching her from the distance of the drawing paper on the table in corner, always in a corner.

It was a wet Sunday afternoon the day the boy sat next to her. She was in a café she escaped into on days when it rained, it was a quiet enough space, and she appreciated the heads down style of the waitresses and the cheap prices. There was a window seat at the rear of the room, overlooking the busy street. She took pleasure staring out at the stream of pedestrians passing, most of them plugged into devices that diverted the mind, phones or music, constant connections that achieved avoidance, socially acceptable isolation. The contradiction amused her and she wondered if recreating it on paper was possible.

Inside, the room was almost empty, in the background a coffee machine hissed steam, the noises hushed the stash of crockery and hushed the hum of shared voices. She had little interest in the conversations, she was looking for faces that bared the emotions of them.

Garlicy bread and sugary doughnuts were on display, the smell mingled with bacon from the grill, the familiar comfort of it was removed like a blanket when the door was held open longer than need be by the young man who was now sitting opposite her, removing his sodden jacket, running a hand through his hair. She was beginning to stand up ,an objection to his intrusion on her lips when he calmly said, “My name is Asa, and I would like you to draw me.” He did not smile or explain, he simply handed her a box of black and white charcoal pencils from his pocket and pointed to the pad of paper on the table. Her resistance was over as immediately as he had appeared, and she lowered herself back into the chair. It was an opportunity, and it did not have to make sense.

Without an exchange of words, she took the packet and began to create an image on the blank paper. The surprise of the untoward excited ,rather than irritated. She was unused to the chance to search her subject openly and her gaze was uncertain at first, but soon she forgot and gave her full attention to the job she had been asked to do. She was breaking her own rules, enjoying the connection she felt with the young stranger, who sat motionless and speechless.

After an hour he said, “That’s time enough.” and he stood up. “I will come again tomorrow when I expect you to draw me in colour.” It was not a question.

The next day she sat down at the same table. She ordered an expresso and a glass of water, she was not in the mood for food, her stomach churned with anticipation. Asa arrived at eleven O’clock, exactly on time. He handed her a box of colour pastels and posed as he had done before. He stared directly at her, inviting her absorption, his eyes demanded her scrutiny and expected fine attention to detail. He was a bold muse, and she was rising to his challenge. Her confidence increased with each stroke of chalk. Within minutes she had captured his likeness and without haste she continued, eager for more detail, finding textures, using the light. She was accepting, at last, of permission to take and she gathered her subject in with her eyes. The image was layered, thick like the greed she felt; fat, generous coloured lines merging to form his face, full and bold, without guile, without secrets.

When Asa stood up to leave, he handed her a piece of paper with an address on it.

“Tomorrow, same time, but this time at this address.” He glanced at the drawing, then at her hands which were covered in yellows and blues. “We will progress to paints, more substance, don’t you agree?” He did not wait for her answer. When he had gone, she looked down at the paper, it was blank, and when she turned over her hands, they were clean.

She arrived as ready as the room which he had prepared expertly with easel, chair and paints. The canvas had been primed and he was poised to be drawn, lying on a low chez long by the window. He looked magnificent, with a book in one hand and an apple in the other he could have been from another century, she wondered if he was. The afternoon light shone directly on him, picking out gold in his hair, adding silver highlights to his outline, creating an angelic sparkle which was magical and in contrast with the starkness of the room. She spread the paint onto the canvas with an urgency she hardly recognised. There was no subtlety, nothing guarded or planned in  . Blacks and greys for the background, dark stripes like a fence or cell made to confine a wild animal. When she began to paint Asa, she focused on the subtleties. Delicate hints of peaches and pink, colouring his flesh in and a blood red to add definition beckoning the critic closer, refusing to define the boundary with added smudged margins, broken borders flecked with orange and blue.

Hours passed, as she finalised working on Asa’s hands, she was startled as the book he was holding dropped to the floor. At first, she thought perhaps he had fallen asleep and stepped forward to retrieve the book, but when she passed it to Asa, she was shocked to find that his hand had disappeared.

“You had finished with this hand had you not?” Asa asked.

“Yes, but….” she checked again; his right hand was missing.

“Please continue with the task and you will begin to understand.” He said.

She cautiously continued to paint. The alarm she should have felt was somehow replaced with a sense of responsibility and intrigue. Each limb faded and vanished as soon as her creation of it was complete on the canvas. Instead of responding negatively, Asa’s behaviour suggested relief at becoming invisible, ending, gone. When only his face remained, she hesitated, she felt a duty to make sure that the painting represented what was being lost. She checked that there was fire in the eyes, irony in his twisted smile and determination in the way his head tilted forward, she carefully considered each brush stroke, fascinated as he faded out and formed simultaneously from three to two dimensions.

She stood back from the canvas, satisfied that she had carried out the challenge as expected. Asa was gone. Had he been transferred to canvas for a reason, had he even ever existed? The disappearance of the boy had left her with a strange satisfaction that was heavy and complete rather than weighted in a troubled way. She looked down at her own body to check that nothing physical had changed, it hadn’t of course but that didn’t stop her acute awareness that some sort of transition had taken place. She would soon find out.

On her way out of the studio she found a note taped to the door. The instruction was to visit the same café later that afternoon and to sit at the same table.

When she arrived, she found that she did not want to sit at the same table, the usual corner haunt was dark, it was confining, almost claustrophobic. She desperately wanted to be central and visible, observed and attended to. People were looking at her and she liked it, she sensed the impact she was having on the mundane scene, she was a vision to behold. It was not long before the woman sat beside her and introduced herself.

“My name is Alisha and I enjoy drawing faces, would you mind?” She asked, taking a handful of acrylic pencils and a sketch book from her satchel.

“But that’s my name, I am Alisha” She replied. “And I am the one who should draw, I always draw.” She said.

“My instruction is that your name is now Asa. It is your time to be drawn.”

Accepting her change of name without question, she posed willingly for the girl who had her name. She was efficient enough, catching her likeness with swift strokes of the pencil, deposits of colour connecting with the paper like a new marriage, unsure and searching, building from nothing, gathering strength. When she was satisfied with the result, Alisha said, “Your final task is to pose for me tomorrow at the address you were given yesterday, you must, please wear these clothes.” She handed her a bag, it contained the clothes the boy had worn for his portrait. Was it her turn to vanish, just as she was whole? She was full of fear and excitement because she knew she had no choice; it was the next step towards whatever was meant.

Asa, curiously familiar with her new name, arrived on time. Alisha was throwing careless quantities of paint onto the same canvas she had worked on the day before, completely covering the image without any haste, as if time were precious.

“It wasn’t meant to last; art is just a process. When I create you on canvas, it is only what I see in my view, in the same way that you portrayed the boy, it’s not real.”

“Then it must be what I take that matters?” She asked.

“Or where you take it to.” Alisha laughed. “This is your space now.”

Lying down on the couch, Asa picked up the book, took a bite from the apple and stared out of the window.

Soon she would be fading with creation, this was her time, her destiny, her glorious disappearance.

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