Treachery of Images

[Diomedea]

Treachery of Images​

1: In Which A Cat Is Present

You awaken with a groan, the protests of stiff muscles and the cries of hunger pangs from your stomach competing for the worst feeling award, as you push yourself up from where you had fallen asleep next to the couch. It isn't long before the cries of hunger pangs win to applause, and you decide to move. You manage to sit up despite stiff muscles' attempt to interrupt your stomach's acceptance speech, and try to place yourself in the world.

You're in a studio apartment, more studio than apartment is how you'd describe it. Art supplies are scattered around most of the floor space, canvases, paint, a large easel holding a still drying painting, even a potter's wheel in the corner, though with the dust piling up on it, it's clear it hasn't seen much use. Tall windows line the far wall, covered in blinds with sunlight peeking through the gaps to let you know it's firmly daytime, and the soft hum from the visible ventilation ducts nestled along the ceiling lets you know they're working away. Next to you is a futon, currently serving as a couch and shoved against a wall and covered in books, sketchbooks, and a backpack, neatly explaining why you were sleeping on the floor next to the couch instead of on it. A small kitchenette is nestled in an alcove, and the two doors leading to the bathroom and closet are hanging open.

This is all rather reassuring, since this is how you'd describe your own apartment, so you decide you'll just move forward on that assumption. You stand, swaying with momentary dizziness, and make your way over to the kitchen, enjoying the feeling of the wood floor against your bare feet to distract you from your aching back. Experience tells you it'll probably go away soon anyway, another benefit of youth you've been told. You probably still count as young, you're only a sophomore in college after all, but no one has ever really told you where the line was. Hopefully someone will tell you before you cross it.

You root through the dishes in the sink for your only sauce pan, squirt a bit of dish soap into it and set to washing. You're pretty sure you still have a clean bowl and spoon somewhere, so that's all you need to do for today. You scoot your brush drying racks closer together to open up enough counter space to toss a towel on, and lay the dripping pan down, before heading over to the bathroom in response to the demanding screeching coming from your bladder. Your muscles have mostly quieted down by this point so its not as bad as it could have been, but all these things bombarding you every morning makes you wonder why you ever bother to get up in the first place.

Surely, it would be better to just ignore everything, wouldn't it? But your body would just go on without you, the traitorous thing, and you'd probably pee yourself and get it all over the floor and lose your security deposit. Your father had assured you that losing your security deposit was a bad thing, and he was usually right. Your body would also die at some point, and since you hadn't figured out how to paint without it yet you don't really have a choice but to bow to its demands and whims, at least some of the time.

You finish your business and...huh. Why do they call it that? Is it actually someone's business to go to the bathroom? You're not sure how someone would manage a nine to five of doing that. Maybe just part time, or would it be piecework? Piecework, hmm. You feel like there is some sort of joke you could torture out of that, but you wont be seeing your mother until the end of term, so you don't need to stock up just yet. Not worth the war crime, really.

Glancing up, you realize you're already to the hand washing portion of the routine. This is why you like routines, because it lets you think about things at your own pace, and stuff still gets done and people aren't staring at you uncomprehendingly as you gaze off into places only you can see. So, routines are good! But you also see yourself in the mirror, having looked up at this point, which is less good. You gloss over the usual and unimportant, like your face, the bags under your eyes, the minor blemishes that stubbornly stick around, to focus on the most pressing detail. Your hair, which you had restrained in a side braid, was on the verge of slipping free of its bonds and exploding out. This was a problem because then it would get everywhere, and everywhere included your face, which was annoying, and also your paint, which was a more distressing issue.

A quick motion to turn off the water, another series of motions against the soft fabric of the towel, and you were done and stuck having to decide between fixing your hair now and waiting to make breakfast, or eating breakfast first and then fixing your hair. Idly rubbing your thumb along the lip of the sink, you consider it, before deciding breakfast should come first. You probably were going to shower soon anyway.

Pleased at having made a decision so quickly, you're buoyed back into the kitchen, where you set to making yourself some oatmeal. This much milk, that much oatmeal, burner set to that high, stir in this way. While you resent your body's demands for food, you do have to admit you enjoy cooking. A little puzzle you solved long ago that keeps giving you a reward of tasty food every time you return to it. It isn't long before you're stirring in the honey, and find yourself drifting across the apartment to look at your latest work, an oil painting for an assignment to draw "something from your everyday life." Once you had settled on your subject, a drawing wasn't the right fit at all.

Painting had been the correct choice, and when you had finished it was the closest you've ever gotten to feeling like your work was ineffably right. You always knew inside what you wanted to realize, and the struggle was to somehow move towards that when every brush stroke seemed to veer off course. Everyone always complimented your works, but you knew. You knew the truth. You knew your pieces were wrong, the dozen or hundreds or even thousands of tiny mistakes warping everything into a mockery of what was inside your soul. Pretty much your entire body of work disgusted you, but it wasn't as if you could stop.

Stopping would be like...water stopping being wet. Water was wet, the sun burned, and you created art.

That's just how things were.

Working on this painting had been different though. You weren't constantly making mistakes, each stroke of the brush came easily, the paints mixed together to match what was inside just so, everything was just...right. You had no other word for it. It was why you had worked fervently on the project, well, even more fervently than usual.

A bite of oatmeal to quiet your stomach, and you find yourself sagging with relief over a worry you hadn't realized you had. It wasn't just your fatigue as you worked late into the night tricking you, the painting still looked perfect. The brick wall warmed by the afternoon sun, the shop sign drifting slightly in the winter wind, the shadow of the tree out of frame of your reference photo falling just so, giving the perfect impression of a small little shop in a college town, which is exactly what the shop on your street you passed everyday was. All the elements were themselves, but still drew the eye to the main subject who...

Your brow furrows in confusion, and you take another bite of oatmeal. The painting still feels right, but something is wrong with it. You set down the bowl on one of the numerous wheeled end-tables floating around the room, and retrieve the fancy digital camera you got for Christmas a few years back. You've gotten in the habit of not just using it for reference photos, but to help with your work. The way a piece looks and the way you see it are not always the same thing. Lacking another set of eyes the camera is the best you can manage to try and see it from a different perspective. You often take several pictures throughout working on just about anything, and you take another now. You look at in the little display, but nothing new pops out at you. It still feels right, but there's something you're not seeing. You thumb to the gallery to look at older pictures.

Oh.

There is something you aren't seeing, because it isn't there. It was there when you took a picture shortly before you were done, but was now missing, elements unseen in the painting and the reference photo that had been hidden behind the subject coming to the fore, even though you never painted them.

The thought was vaguely disturbing.

"Are you looking for me, human?" a smooth baritone breaks the silence of the apartment, and you turn to the black cat lounging lazily on the back of your couch. You look back down at the camera, and back to the cat and must concede it does look like the cat from the painting.

Silence fills the room, as the cat seems content to patiently wait for you to speak.

Ugh. You're never good at knowing what to say, and you weren't really prepared for a conversation. Maybe you could just ignore it? People often go away when you ignore them, but...you still need to turn in your assignment, and the cat was the whole point of the piece. So you need to talk to him. Right. Okay. You're not supposed to just say what you want, you need to do the small talk thing first. Asking questions can be good small talk. You nod to yourself, and look into the cat's yellow eyes.

"So can all cats talk, or just painting cats?" you find yourself asking the first question that popped into your head, before you realize your mistake. If all cats can talk, but people don't know, that means it's a secret. You're not supposed to ask about secrets, it's rude! You waste time mentally cursing your own idiocy, so you don't even get out a 'never mind!' before the cat replies.

"I am not merely a cat, human," he says preening, "I am a witch's familiar, blessed with vast intellect and a multitude of powers. It is only natural that one such as I would be able to manage something as base as human speech."

"Do you mean basic?" you find yourself correcting him, "You can't really put anything on top of human speech, so it's not really a base, is it?"

"What? No," he says, flicking his tail in irritation. "Never mind that. Human, I demand you tell me how and why you created me!"

Oh good. It seems like small talk is over. That was faster that you expected, and you only made a few mistakes!

"I painted you with some paint, and I have this assignment that's due, so that would be why I was painting. Though it was supposed to be a drawing, I didn't really feel like drawing you, so I painted you instead," you patiently explain, "If you could get back in the painting that'd really work out for me."

The cat is silent for a moment, tail flicking back and forth, before speaking up, "You want me to get back in the painting?"

"Yes!" you say, speaking a bit louder than you meant to, but you're just excited. He understood exactly what you wanted on the first try! This was going so well.

"You don't know a thing, do you?" he grumbles at you, before looking away in what you guess is disinterest.

This was no longer going well. You have no idea what he means by that, didn't you just explain everything to him? You watch him, but he seems content to just continue to sit on your couch.

"Are you going to get back in the painting?" you ask after he begins to clean himself.

"No," he says flatly, barely pausing from licking to reply to you.

This is a problem. Your assignment is due tomorrow, and the main subject seems to have come to life and left the painting. Retrieving your oatmeal, you start to shovel the now lukewarm breakfast into your mouth as you think about what you should do.

[] You don't see any other way. You'll need to stuff the cat/familiar thing back into the painting.
[] Try to convince the cat/familiar thing to go into the painting. With words from your mouth and stuff.
-[] Write-in argument
[] You could just draw something in your apartment for the assignment instead. It wont be as good, but you don't have time to do another painting.
-[] Write-in what (optional).
[] This painting coming to life thing might be important. You know your parents said you had to keep up on classes and assignments, but this might be more important? It's hard to tell.
-[] Try painting something else and see if anything happens. You'll probably end up missing class tomorrow if you get too into it, but you could paint something simple in a few hours. Maybe it will work out?
--[] Write-in what should you paint.
-[] Maybe it wasn't your painting, but what you were painting? You should investigate the cat you chose as your subject. It's almost always around that one shop, so you should be able to find it.
-[] Try talking to the cat/familiar thing to find out more. No, you already tried normal talking.

 

[Diomedea]

Spoiler: Voting Result (Tie)

[] You could just draw something in your apartment for the assignment instead. It wont be as good, but you don't have time to do another painting.
-[] Your bed, is an everynight object also an everyday object?
[] This painting coming to life thing might be important. You know your parents said you had to keep up on classes and assignments, but this might be more important? It's hard to tell.
-[] Maybe it wasn't your painting, but what you were painting? You should investigate the cat you chose as your subject. It's almost always around that one shop, so you should be able to find it.

2: In Which a Bed is Drawn

You debate with yourself for much longer than you're happy with this time, the oatmeal long since consumed and bowl set to soak, leaving you just standing at the sink, tapping the spoon against your lips.

On the one hand, a painting magically coming to life seemed important. Magic was one of those things that only existed on television and in some books (but not others) and not in real life, much like dragons, flying saucers, and quantum physics. That you had evidence contradicting that was a little disquieting, and the sooner you could take care of it, the sooner you could let it float away and stop distracting you from working on your art.

Also, if Dragons turned out to be real, you rather wanted to paint one.

On the other hand, drawing something in your apartment was actually you working on your art. You weren't particularly inspired, but it was important to keep your skills sharp, and there was value in trying to create inspiration where there wasn't any at the beginning. Even if you felt and thought nothing about a piece, others seemed to find meaning it in anyway. You didn't understand, not really, but that was part of why art was so fascinating to you. You could say nothing through a piece, and yet a message was received by the viewer. Where did that message come from? Your subconscious? The viewer? Society? Art didn't seem to be a single act of creation, but a continuous one, though that had become true in a different manner come this morning's turn of events.

What eventually settled it for you was the fact that your assignment had a deadline, and magic existing probably didn't. So you should draw something and then go investigate magical familiar cat things in your spare time.

So with a small clatter you drop the spoon into the sink to be washed later and walk to the middle of the room, grabbing a sketchbook and pencil on the way. Hooking a foot around the base of your stool, you yank it over and firmly plant yourself on it. You look around idly for a moment before you just started drawing what was in front of you, namely, your bed. It was actually a couch right now, but you still slept in it like that too, so it was still a bed. Though you sleep on the floor sometimes (like last night), so why wasn't that considered a bed? Your thoughts wander off like this as your hands and eyes work together to sketch the scene in front of you. The futon against the wall, covered in your bag, books, and art supplies. Pillow and blanket on the floor, undisturbed since you got up, and obviously having been recently used for sleeping. The cat familiar thing had disappeared somewhere, and you didn't know if it had used magic or just did that normal thing cats did to disappear (unless that was magic), but it wasn't in your drawing so it didn't really matter. About halfway through your hair finally escaped from your braid, and you kept having to blow it out of your face, but it made you glad you weren't working with paint. Finally, you're done and you feel like it actually really says something, but you don't really know what. Maybe that was the point of the assignment; The meanings in everyday things? You'll find out tomorrow when your adviser talks about it in class. He always seems so good at finding a lot of meaning in all of your work, but you guess that's why he is a professor.

You stand and stretch, a glance at the windows telling you that it's probably the afternoon by now, since the sun is no longer directly coming in. You decide to shower and head out to poke around that shop, and then maybe go pick up something to eat for dinner afterwards. Satisfied with your plans, you walk to the bathroom, only pausing to deposit your new drawing on the bed. You follow your usual shower routine while using the time to prepare yourself mentally. You might have to talk to the magic cat in your apartment again, or the magic cat you painted if you can find it, or the magic cat's owner...it's really troublesome because you don't know what to expect. What are you supposed to even say to...any of these?

You've barely begun thinking through things before a loud bang interrupts both your thoughts and routine, and you poke you head out from behind the curtain. Everything you can see looks the way you expect it to, at least in the view of your apartment through the bathroom doorway. You wait a few moments, but with no further noises or developments, you go back to showering. It'd be a pain to stop halfway through washing your hair, after all, though you find it hard to think about conversations when you keep wondering what could make such a loud noise.

A bit later, clean, snugly ensconced in a fluffy towel, and damp hair contained in a newly made braid you step out of the bathroom, where you immediately see what had made the noise earlier.

Namely your bed.

Except it wasn't your bed. Your bed was covered in a dark blue sheet, with a black metal frame, and was still where you left it right next to the wall. This bed was roughly facing the other bed, with a frame the color of graphite, and otherwise was white. Paper white. Taking a step over a similarly sketchy looking copy of your backpack which had fallen on the floor, you touch the frame of the bed to only feel the smooth coolness of metal, and when you brush your hand over the sheets they just feel like normal Egyptian cotton. With a sinking feeling in your stomach, you retrieve the sketchbook you had been working in and confirm your fears. This piece too had been ruined by the primary subject leaving the confines of art to intrude into the real world.

Now what were you supposed to turn in tomorrow?!

Chewing your lip, you turned the sketchbook upside down and placed it on the copy of your bed. Your heart beat once. Twice. And nothing happened. So you put your hand on the sketchbook and started pushing on it. You were supposed to have finished this assignment, twice over!

"That isn't going to work," the smooth baritone of the familiar cuts in from where he is sitting on your stool. You feel the corner of your mouth twitch downwards. "It will not simply go back in with a little pushing."

Staring down the cat, you ceased pushing and slowly lifted the sketchbook up. Before your actions could be confused with acquiescence, you forcefully bring the sketchbook down on the bed with a loud thump.

"Human," exasperation bleeding into his tone, "It can't go back in. That is now a real bed, not simply an image. Real things cannot exist where only images should."

It can't go back in? Your shoulders droop, and your fingers slide off the sketchbook as you admit defeat. "Ceci est un lit," you mumble to yourself. This copy of a bed has betrayed you, and not in the way that it should. In that case, there is nothing more you can do, so you should move forward with your plans. Tossing the sketchbook onto you real bed, you scooch through the space between the pair of beds you now own to reach your closet, where you start fishing through the pile of clean clothes you haven't hung up yet for something to wear.

"I am glad you are coming to understand," said the familiar, voice tinged with relief, his head just poking around the doorway as he watches you pick out your outfit. You're too irritated to reply, so you just start with getting dressed. You went with muted colors to match your mood; olive green khakis and a lightly patterned gray blouse. Finishing up, you turn to leave the closet only to find the cat standing in the doorway, blocking the way out.

He was trying to corner you or something, but it was hard to feel cornered by a fuzzy little cat.

"Now that you are no longer distracted, there is a much more important matter you will need to attend to," he says gravely. Something more important? Had you forgotten something, or was it another thing you didn't know about? "Human, you need to feed me. I am most hungry."

You stare at him for a long moment, his yellow eyes returning your gaze unblinking, before you step over him to look for your sandals.

"Human!" he demands as he follows you across the room to the doorway, "You need to feed me!" Despite your mood, you find the corner of your mouth twitch upward. It seems a cat is a cat, be it magic or a drawing. You tune out its continued complaining as you prepare to head out. Slip on and fasten your sandals, grab and throw on your denim jacket, pull your bag over your shoulder and you're ready to go!

You pause as you grab your keys off the hook by the door, the distinctive feel of metal rubbing against metal between your fingers as you give them a light squeeze, and finally address the familiar. "I don't have any food for a cat, but I'm going to the place where the one I painted was from. They should have food there, right?" You find yourself holding your breath, worrying that maybe you left something out, or maybe said something the wrong way.

"You better be right," the cat grumbles in acquiescence, and you sigh in relief. With that settled, you finally head out. It takes a minute to head down the stairs, the cat bounding ahead to each landing and staring at you impatiently until you catch up, but soon enough you find yourself outside.

The sun hangs low in the sky, forcing you to squint as you walk down the sidewalk. A brisk wind bites into your exposed skin, and you realize it's much colder than yesterday. You should have worn boots, but it's too late now. You pick up the pace, walking more briskly and-is that why it's called walking briskly? You do it in a brisk wind? Huh.

Its only a five minute walk towards the college and despite the glaring light and the cold you still find it pleasant. Brick apartment buildings and well-kept houses give way to small businesses along the tree lined street, and other pedestrians you have to navigate around are few and far between this time of year.

The store itself doesn't stand out from the ones around it, and on first glance could be mistaken for a residence. The entrance is to the side of the building from a small patio, walled off by a high brick wall (currently lacking its cat). Only the sign, "Life and Leaf," hanging above the open gate indicates that it's actually a store. It sold herbal remedies or something? You weren't really sure, having never gone in before. There was a small passage on the other side of the building where it butted up against the next store (a bakery where you got a giant novelty cookie once) leading to the rear of the building.

Having arrived, and with no real cat in sight, you were going to have to decide how you and your copy of a cat proceed from here.

[] Walk right in and ask someone
[] Look around the patio and peek in the windows to try and find the cat.
[] Go around back. You often see the cat outside, so if it's not in the front, maybe it's in the back somewhere?