7. There was a knock at the door. It was not the polite knock of a neighbor coming over to borrow a cup of sugar. It was the insistent knock of someone who saw themselves already inside. The knock was a mere formality.
He put down his brush and thought about closing the roll top of his desk but left it instead. He should have known better.
He opened the door and saw a man standing rigidly with dark glasses and a briefcase.
The artist said the word "yes?" and the man at the door asked if he could come in. The artist stood to the side but the man would not cross the threshold until he said the words. This one was a slave to protocol. He almost felt like letting the man wait outside. But he knew it was more trouble than it was worth.
"Come in," he said.
The man walked inside, looking around but not saying anything. The artist offered the man something to drink but the man ignored him. He was looking at the drawing on his desk and making a tisking sound.
He was looking directly at the drawing, when he said, "What is this place? What did it used to be?"
The artist felt a trap being set like the first fine threads of a spider’s web.
The artist lived in a converted greenhouse. All of the plants had long been dead and most of the windows were broken. He liked it because it gave lots of light.
The man continued looking at the drawing, his eyes moving back and forth over it.
"And did you do the renovations yourself?"
The artist did not see where the conversation was going and tried steering it in a direction that made some sort of sense.
"Look," he said, "I don't know what this is about…"
"What this is about," the man said, stabbing his finger on the drawing on the desk, "Is the violation of living code."
He hoisted his briefcase onto the desk and unclasped the latches by sliding two small knobs away from each other. He opened the case and retrieved a slip of paper. He handed it to the artist. When the artist looked up from the slip, the man was holding the last page of the comic he had been working on.
"We can turn a blind eye to your living conditions. But why should we with someone who produces such filth?" He put the comic page into his briefcase. "In case you didn’t read it, what you’re holding is an eviction notice. You have violated a number of codes here. But if you cease and desist the production of this … filth … well, let’s just say that we are not entirely unforgiving."
The man lifted his briefcase off the desk and walked with a quick clip to the door and let himself out.
The artist was completely flabbergasted. He had heard of such things before but he hadn’t really believed them. Or, at least he thought they were exaggerated. The strange thing was that he could not imagine what about The Masked Failure could be construed as offensive.
His mother had been a novelist who had gone into self-imposed exile after her third novel had been appropriated by the company. His grandfather had been a poet and had been executed with other so-called dissidents during the rise of the company’s power in the town. Back then there really was a need for an iron hand and such things as executions were considered necessary to get the town back on track. Maybe the artist was biased, but he felt that the wrong people had been executed. His great grandmother had been a bard, telling stories and living on the streets. She had not been compelled to go into hiding but got a throat polyp and lost her voice. And then there was his great, great grandfather who was a Forgotten One and lived in the Forgotten Place.
If anything, the artist’s stories of the Masked Failure were a tribute to his long line of story tellers. Each one had seen the demise of their voice. Each one was a failure in the eyes of those who came after. But they weren’t to him. It angered him that now he too had been silenced.
He took out a fresh piece of paper and redrew the last page of the last volume of The Masked Failure, altering the ending slightly. As soon as he finished it, he began his new work. It would be a secret work that no one would ever know about. It would scream the truth about the origins of the town in vibrant colors. It would chronicle the town history from a mere stretch of unadulterated land to the first settlement to the building of the temple and on to the arrival of the missionaries and the dismantling of the temple until nary a stone sat atop another. It was the stones of the temple that had been used to make the wall. Yes, this work would be so incendiary that he would have to keep it locked up in a secret safe. When the book was finished it was 216 pages long.
He sat at his desk in another building years later and felt an immense weight lifted off his shoulders. Now he was ready to begin his next public work. The new series would have to be so subtle that not even the man with the glasses and the briefcase would recognize it. He would show them a mirror in which they could not see themselves. And so he designed the cover of the first edition. The enigmatic number emblazoned on the front would be the only clue he ever gave to the great secret book he had drawn and hidden away. Everything about the new series would be esoteric, cloaked in double meaning. Nothing meant anything; nothing meant everything. If they thought they had an enemy before, they had no idea that hey had only given him birth.
He had stopped producing The Masked Failure but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make them available. Maybe it was a coincidence that as soon as he reopened the back issues of The Masked Failure, large portions of the neighborhood he lived in were officially condemned. He drew his new comic in black and white staying away from anything anyone expected of him. He wanted to transcend his medium. He wanted to reconnect with everything that had been passed down to him generation after generation. His mother had just passed away having never broken her silence and the artist couldn’t help but think that they had broken her. He wanted to make his mother proud; to draw poetry written by his grandfather; to speak for his mute and homeless great grandmother; to remember his forgotten great, great grandfather.
With his secret book he had named the unnamable. He had spoken that which had intentionally been forgotten and forbidden. But now he had to be smarter. He had to say things without saying them. He could speak a whole encoded language. The language of symbols and pictures where words were dangerous.
He sat at his desk and began to draw the first panel.
There were soft curving lines which swooped down into the form of a face. The face had one eye. The way the artist drew the eye, one could not tell if it was a trick of perception, perhaps seen in profile, or if the face truly only possessed the singular eye. And it was his skill in walking the line between suggestion and assurance that lent his drawings tension. You could not look at them and know that anything was wrong, but you felt it viscerally.
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He put down his brush and thought about closing the roll top of his desk but left it instead. He should have known better.
He opened the door and saw a man standing rigidly with dark glasses and a briefcase.
The artist said the word "yes?" and the man at the door asked if he could come in. The artist stood to the side but the man would not cross the threshold until he said the words. This one was a slave to protocol. He almost felt like letting the man wait outside. But he knew it was more trouble than it was worth.
"Come in," he said.
The man walked inside, looking around but not saying anything. The artist offered the man something to drink but the man ignored him. He was looking at the drawing on his desk and making a tisking sound.
He was looking directly at the drawing, when he said, "What is this place? What did it used to be?"
The artist felt a trap being set like the first fine threads of a spider’s web.
The artist lived in a converted greenhouse. All of the plants had long been dead and most of the windows were broken. He liked it because it gave lots of light.
The man continued looking at the drawing, his eyes moving back and forth over it.
"And did you do the renovations yourself?"
The artist did not see where the conversation was going and tried steering it in a direction that made some sort of sense.
"Look," he said, "I don't know what this is about…"
"What this is about," the man said, stabbing his finger on the drawing on the desk, "Is the violation of living code."
He hoisted his briefcase onto the desk and unclasped the latches by sliding two small knobs away from each other. He opened the case and retrieved a slip of paper. He handed it to the artist. When the artist looked up from the slip, the man was holding the last page of the comic he had been working on.
"We can turn a blind eye to your living conditions. But why should we with someone who produces such filth?" He put the comic page into his briefcase. "In case you didn’t read it, what you’re holding is an eviction notice. You have violated a number of codes here. But if you cease and desist the production of this … filth … well, let’s just say that we are not entirely unforgiving."
The man lifted his briefcase off the desk and walked with a quick clip to the door and let himself out.
The artist was completely flabbergasted. He had heard of such things before but he hadn’t really believed them. Or, at least he thought they were exaggerated. The strange thing was that he could not imagine what about The Masked Failure could be construed as offensive.
His mother had been a novelist who had gone into self-imposed exile after her third novel had been appropriated by the company. His grandfather had been a poet and had been executed with other so-called dissidents during the rise of the company’s power in the town. Back then there really was a need for an iron hand and such things as executions were considered necessary to get the town back on track. Maybe the artist was biased, but he felt that the wrong people had been executed. His great grandmother had been a bard, telling stories and living on the streets. She had not been compelled to go into hiding but got a throat polyp and lost her voice. And then there was his great, great grandfather who was a Forgotten One and lived in the Forgotten Place.
If anything, the artist’s stories of the Masked Failure were a tribute to his long line of story tellers. Each one had seen the demise of their voice. Each one was a failure in the eyes of those who came after. But they weren’t to him. It angered him that now he too had been silenced.
He took out a fresh piece of paper and redrew the last page of the last volume of The Masked Failure, altering the ending slightly. As soon as he finished it, he began his new work. It would be a secret work that no one would ever know about. It would scream the truth about the origins of the town in vibrant colors. It would chronicle the town history from a mere stretch of unadulterated land to the first settlement to the building of the temple and on to the arrival of the missionaries and the dismantling of the temple until nary a stone sat atop another. It was the stones of the temple that had been used to make the wall. Yes, this work would be so incendiary that he would have to keep it locked up in a secret safe. When the book was finished it was 216 pages long.
He sat at his desk in another building years later and felt an immense weight lifted off his shoulders. Now he was ready to begin his next public work. The new series would have to be so subtle that not even the man with the glasses and the briefcase would recognize it. He would show them a mirror in which they could not see themselves. And so he designed the cover of the first edition. The enigmatic number emblazoned on the front would be the only clue he ever gave to the great secret book he had drawn and hidden away. Everything about the new series would be esoteric, cloaked in double meaning. Nothing meant anything; nothing meant everything. If they thought they had an enemy before, they had no idea that hey had only given him birth.
He had stopped producing The Masked Failure but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make them available. Maybe it was a coincidence that as soon as he reopened the back issues of The Masked Failure, large portions of the neighborhood he lived in were officially condemned. He drew his new comic in black and white staying away from anything anyone expected of him. He wanted to transcend his medium. He wanted to reconnect with everything that had been passed down to him generation after generation. His mother had just passed away having never broken her silence and the artist couldn’t help but think that they had broken her. He wanted to make his mother proud; to draw poetry written by his grandfather; to speak for his mute and homeless great grandmother; to remember his forgotten great, great grandfather.
With his secret book he had named the unnamable. He had spoken that which had intentionally been forgotten and forbidden. But now he had to be smarter. He had to say things without saying them. He could speak a whole encoded language. The language of symbols and pictures where words were dangerous.
He sat at his desk and began to draw the first panel.
There were soft curving lines which swooped down into the form of a face. The face had one eye. The way the artist drew the eye, one could not tell if it was a trick of perception, perhaps seen in profile, or if the face truly only possessed the singular eye. And it was his skill in walking the line between suggestion and assurance that lent his drawings tension. You could not look at them and know that anything was wrong, but you felt it viscerally.
next