Still Life

Christine’s bare feet sank into the dew-soaked grass and she tried to decide whether she was dreaming.

She was in a grassy field with no recollection of how she got there. The sky was going dark. She was, for some reason, dressed in nothing but a thin white gown that was almost transparent. An enormous willow tree drooped over her head. Nothing was familiar.

Yes, it seems like a dream, she thought, but she still wasn’t sure. Everything felt solid and tangible. She could hear her heartbeat. The air was so crisp that it stung her throat when she inhaled; had she ever noticed her breathing in a dream?

Something rustled in the grass nearby.

“Hello?” she said. Her voice sounded strange. It was like hearing an echo come out of her own mouth. “Is someone there?”

More movement, but she could see nothing. She pressed her back against the trunk of the tree. It’s all just a dream anyway, she thought. None of this can be real. I will wake up any minute.

She heard footsteps approaching. The sky was going dark, and something was getting closer, and it was just as she felt the touch of an unseen hand at her throat that the scream welled up inside of her, and-

---

Christine woke to sheets tangled around her body and staleness in her mouth. It was hot. Everything was damp with sweat. She kicked her way out of bed and stumbled to the window, sticking her head out. Three stories below she could see the pavement baking on the street.

She was sure she had been dreaming a moment ago, but now she couldn’t remember anything about it. The clock told her it was noon. She dressed without even knowing what she was putting on. Her mind was already on the thing that was waiting for her in the living room: the painting.

The easel stood in the center of the room, and she approached it slowly, almost reverently. She felt a little thrill run through her as she turned it and saw the canvas she had finished last night: the scene showed a pale, blonde, nymph-like woman in a barely-there gown, lying in a green field under a rather dreary willow tree. She reclined on her side, head propped on one hand, chin tilted down, all daintiness and gossamer fabric and flowing hair. She looked (or at least, Christine wanted her to look) carefree and distracted.

There was a second figure in the painting too, a lean but muscular man who was covered in shadows. He stood over the distracted nymph, apparently unseen, his posture hunched, one arm reaching toward her. His fingers were a few inches from her throat.

The idea for the painting had come to her out of nowhere six weeks ago. One second it hadn’t been there and the next it just was. Dazed by the sudden inspiration, she’d wandered for hours until she found an art supply store, where she spent hundreds of dollars on brushes, paints, canvasses, and other essentials.

That very night she had drawn her concept sketch, and then made her first attempt at the real thing. Disliking the result, she had tried again the next day. Christine had painted the same scene over and over, every day, for weeks, and every morning she appraised her work and found that it was not yet good enough. The rejected versions were stacked by the dozens all across the floor of her apartment.

Her fingers were sore from the effort of gripping a brush, and they were always stained with paint. The chemical fumes had stung her eyes to a permanent pink. Her back and knees ached constantly now from all the hours spent standing in one spot. She hardly noticed.

Days worth of mail was piled by the door, last month’s unopened bills on the bottom. She almost never left the apartment anymore except for occasional jaunts to get supplies. At first people had called to see why she wasn’t around, but now few bothered. Christine paid them no mind.

She barely thought of anything from the moment she woke up each day except for the painting. When she closed her eyes, she saw the scene, perfect in every detail. She wanted to put that perfection onto the canvas. She wanted it so much she could hardly breathe when she thought about it.

She considered the new version from every angle. It still wasn’t right. She had painted a day scene, but the patches of blue sky poking through the tree limbs looked out of place, and she didn’t think the lighting was right. It should not be day, but dusk, she decided, the last minutes between day and night.

She had fixed the problems with the woman’s proportions, but she still didn’t like her face, which didn’t seem to express anything. And there was something off about the man too. He should be darker, to set him apart from the woman’s paleness. And something about the wa