The Living Exhibit

“She looks like you.”

The old man nodded towards the painting, one of many that adorned the halls of his stately home. It showed a young woman being flayed from the hips down, her skin trailing behind her like a cloak as she carved a path through a crowd of desperate peasants. She looked peaceful, content with basking in the people’s admiration, even as they peeled the skin from her legs with notched blades and scalpels.

“It’s… odd,” was all I managed to say.

Mr Brynshaw smiled like an amused father. I’d expected him to be some trust fund creep after reading about the job, with slicked back hair the colour of straw and teeth too big for his gums. But when I met him, I was surprised to see that he was quiet and dignified, even a little affectionate. Somehow, he was all the scarier for it.

“The artist was very close to my heart,” he said. “I was his patron, but it can be hard for people to get what they want, especially money. I thought I was saving him. He died before the millennium, twisted all out of shape on some hospital bed, begging for more drugs.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

“Don’t be,” he replied. “He wrote some remarkable poetry. Revolutionary stuff that would have introduced us to a new age of spiritualism if he hadn’t burned most of it. He also gave me this painting and in doing so, he led me to you.”

“You mean?”

“Jenson brought it to my attention.” He was referring to the strange-looking assistant who’d petitioned me at my door three weeks before. “He was the one who brought your application to me. I took the resemblance between you and the painting as a sign.”

“I thought that you hired me for my experience as a professional—”

“Oh, we have all those types here already. The educated and the qualified,” he said. “But it’s not always about qualifications, or even talent. Sometimes I simply like to give people a chance at getting what they want.”

“Like your artist?” I asked. “He got what he wanted.”

The old man smiled again and this time it wasn’t so fatherly.

“I suppose that’s up to you.”

-

We were expected to wake at 5am and spend the day preparing. Costume fittings. Practice runs. More costume fittings. More practice runs. Hours and hours spent sitting still. Standing still. Posing. Smiling. Crying. Purring. Roaring. Growling. I was sexy, vulnerable, dignified, angry, fierce, quiet, cold, warm, hot… by the end of the first day, just as the sun began to set on the shores of the private island, I was exhausted and ready to collapse.

Only the show hadn’t even begun yet.

I’d known we weren’t alone, if only because the other performers never shut up about catching glimpses of Prince So-and-so or Senator This or Baron That. Each night we would be displayed for whatever wealthy guests Mr Brynshaw could fly in. But I had to shut that out. I just had to. I couldn’t think of princes and oligarchs, of people with the power to change my life, to raise it up out of the dirt, or to stamp it into nothing if the feeling came to them. I couldn’t even think of the people next to me. Lithe and tall and hauntingly beautiful, the other performers gossiped endlessly and wore the day’s stresses with effortless grace. They were professionals, not like me, but instead like the people I had aspired to be when I was younger. They were performers and dancers and models… human clay to be turned into works of art that inspired and enlightened. There were photos of them in galleries worth more than my entire life’s possessions.

For our first piece we were dressed in graduation gowns, only instead of caps we wore old-school military helmets. They were spiky looking German things that I’m sure made some commentary on violence or education or something else. I can’t say exactly what because the artist who organised it would not talk to me, would not even look at me. I listened, but did not speak, for twelve hours until the moment finally came, and we were herded onto a stage where I was told to stand in the corner and look forlorn.

There were thirteen of us set in various places around a central podium. A young woman, easily 6’3 with the frame of a Victorian ghost, was then guided to her place at the focus of the piece. She tried not to smile as she climbed the steps, but her eyes alighted on me for the briefest of moments and I felt her smug superiority overwhelm me. I began to shake, to flush hot with sweat and embarrassment, but before I had time to compose myself, the room suddenly burst into frantic alarm and every black-shirted assistant, choreographer, and costume designer fled into the distant corners of the room where they disappeared behind secret doors. Only the artist remained, and he made some final adjustments before the guests arrived.

“Katherine,” he said, and God if I haven’t heard that exact same phrasing of my voice a thousand times before. “Katherine darling, can you just scootch down, just a little?”

I bent my knees ever-so-slightly, getting a face full of a young man’s back. I was effectively hidden behind him.

“Brilliant,” the artist said and clapped his hands.

And then the guests poured in.

-

I stepped down from the podium, gold paint flaking from my armpit and crotch. It was the third week. The twenty-first show. Each day we spent six long hours posing or performing like we were taking part in a ritual. No two shows were alike, and every day brought strange new instructions. Today’s task was to remain perfectly still. I was exhausted, shivering and drained from the sheer physical exertion of holding a pose for so ridiculously long.

Ilanna floated past me, a full head taller than I, not even looking down as she hurried on towards the adoring artist. Other dancers broke away from their conversations and surged out to greet her, and a timid looking man who I knew to be a guest lingered awkwardly, waiting to make her acquaintance. His movies dominated the box office every year, but he fidgeted nervously like a chubby teenager at comic con.

She was panted silver, only on her it looked platinum. The rest of us were like shabby copper figurines in comparison. This was our first nude show, and I didn’t feel like sticking around with all the others who seemed so comfortable in their own skin, so I hurried from the stage and made my way to one of the corner exits.

“Oh Ilanna!”

I turned to catch Mr Brynshaw, flanked by the lanky Jenson. He shuffled up to the precious metal debutante and took one of her hands into his. His eyes looked at her with pure admiration, like she was his favourite daughter and mistress rolled into one. Whatever he said to her, I couldn’t make it out, but it looked like a secret shared between two lovers. It hurt to see him talk to her like that. It was childish and stupid of me. I knew it even then. But it still hurt like hell.

I looked down at my legs and saw the paint flaking away and I felt so irritated that it would do that for me but none of the others. I got ready to hurry back to the changing rooms only for my attention to be caught by Mr Brysnshaw. He was talking and laughing, and he had swept his eyes across the crowd in a way that I mistook for his turning in my direction. Only his eyes didn’t stop to linger, not even for a second.

He simply did not see me.

-

“Not looking for Prince Charming?”

It was Jenson, smiling awkwardly as he sat beside me on the step where I smoked. We were behind one of the many kitchens that opened onto a gravel-filled bit of yard. Big houses… really big houses, I knew they often had little openings like this. It let natural light fill rooms deep in the centre of the building.

“A lot of the models have been gagging to meet the guests outside of the performance. Mr Brynshaw finally relented,” he added.

“For Ilanna?” I asked.

Jenson smirked. I think he was trying to be sympathetic, but it didn’t seem that way.

“Didn’t realise I’d be coming all this way to be hidden at the back,” I added. “It’s been three weeks and ever since the first I’ve been out of sight the entire time.”

“You’re trying your best,” he said with a limp shrug.

“Do I stand out that badly?”

He laughed. “It’s a weird job,” he replied. “Mr Brynshaw likes the arts. He always has. But he’s fickle. He won’t have Ilanna at the centre every time. I’m sure there’ll be some opportunities to be up there.”

“I’m not some teenage girl in need of approval,” I told him. “Why don’t you get up there and flash the CEO of GE your balls if it’s so easy?”

“Oh God no!” he laughed. “I couldn’t get up there and do what you guys do. There isn’t a single mature hairline up there.” I don’t know if he realised it, but he rubbed his hand across his head as he spoke. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “one of the guests left this for you.”

He handed me a small card, my name written on one side in flourishing cursive.

You are a force to be reckoned with, it read. Shine brightly.

“Mr Brynshaw?” I asked.

“It’s not his writing,” he replied. “But someone saw you up there and liked you. I know you feel a little out of your league, but you’re not hopelessly outclassed. We hired you for a reason. Just… just keep at it.”

-

That night I could not sleep, so I decided to take my restlessness and exercise it a little with a walk around the house. Most of it was open to us, and in one of our first meetings Mr Brynshaw had encouraged us to roam the halls and galleries so that we could take inspiration from his private collection. Most of it was a little mundane - obscure blocks of colour and black and white photographs of naked women alongside ugly caricatures and unsubtle statements on all kinds of isms. Any one of the pieces would be worth millions to the right person but none of it spoke to me. Or at least, most of it didn’t. Sure, a lot of it was rote, exactly the kind of thing you’d expect to find hanging on the walls of someone with too much money. But every now and again I’d find myself stopping at a painting with a cheap frame, hanging awkwardly over a bathroom door or tucked away in one of the endless hallways, and it would seize my attention.

I saw turquoise oceans with bone-coloured spray, the sky a writhing pattern of fractals that hurt my eyes. Another showed a cacophony of dissected eyes and broken bones. Beside it was a tableau of poisoned men collapsing at their table as the skin sloughed from their body and they clutched at purple faces. One of the most beautiful showed an endless field of ice broken only a spatter of bloody fur.

I walked until just after midnight, honing on these baroque paintings that had been so clearly and deliberately understated. Slowly, I came to realise that they formed a kind of secret exhibition, one that threaded between all the others. The paintings were diverse in their content, but all possessed a singular sense of taste that I knew must belong to the collector. If he’d bought the other paintings out of some pretentious need to impress, he’d at least bought these ones out of a genuine interest. He liked them.

I liked them too.

My favourite was an image of puckered lips, flushed red with matte lipstick, pressed firmly against the orifice of a cigar cutter. The tip of the woman’s tongue was squeezed into the hole, and the blade was faintly visible at the corner of the rim. It hadn’t drawn blood yet, but you could see how close it was to bursting the thin skin. God the rush of colours was astonishing, capturing the strange lilac complexion of veins that riddle the underside of her tongue with near photorealism. You could practically feel the pressure as a tangible excitement.

“Do you know who painted these?”

I turned to see Ilanna looking nervous, bags under her make-up-less eyes. She didn’t look so big out of her frocks, nor did she seem so unpleasant. She looked young, and I softened my expression and tone in order to swallow some of that ugly jealousy I felt.

“No,” I answered. “Do you?”

She shook her head.

“They’re in my dreams,” she said, chuckling nervously. “I find it hard to sleep.”

“Probably just the stress. Always being in the centre of it all,” I said.

“I don’t mind the attention,” she replied. “I think it’s this place, maybe. Have you explored much? A lot of the doors are locked off but one of them… Do you mind checking something for me?”

She relaxed a little and reached out to take my hand before hurrying along with me in tow. She reminded me of a little kid relieved to find out they’re not lost and alone, and I felt some trepidation as her footfalls slowed and we came to a small door set at the end of a very long dead-end.

“Listen,” she whispered, before stealthily sidling up to the door and holding her breath. She gestured for me to do the same and I did, pressing my chest against the nearby wall and leaning out so that my ear hovered over the wooden panels.

“There’s someone in there,” she mouthed silently.

I strained to hear past the rush of blood in my ears. For a few brief seconds the world narrowed to a fine point as I focused all my attention onto that door. Quietly, so quiet I couldn’t say for sure it was even there, I heard a shuffle. Or perhaps a scrape. Or maybe even a footstep. It was so hauntingly still… I became aware that I could be hearing something as subtle as the shifting of bedsheets, or the turning of a body as it rotated silently on one foot.

And what of me? I wondered. What of my clumsy feet? Or the creaking of my bones or tensing of my muscles? Could they hear me?

I looked back the way we came. We were deep in the spider’s lair, so to speak, and I made to uncouple from the wall and begin the slow walk back. Ilanna did the same, only both of us were stopped in our tracks when a single white card slid out from beneath the door. Ilanna was frozen by the sight, her eyes going so wide and her skin so pale she looked like a porcelain doll. I realised I was going to have to be the one to pick the card up.

A small thing to do, I told myself, but the hairs on my hand still stood on end as my skin came closer to the gap at the bottom of the door. I felt a breeze wafting through, only it was hot and damp like someone’s breath. It smelled of rotten meat and perfume.

As soon as I had the card in hand I stood up and ran.

-

Your friend is unpleasant, it read. But I’m glad you liked my painting.

“I didn’t like any of his paintings,” Ilanna said, giggling and giddy from the fright. We had both settled down on one of the many stairways that curled throughout the house. “I don’t know why this person thinks I did.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I recognised the writing. But then again, she had automatically assumed I was the friend, and why not? Hadn’t everyone loved her? Hadn’t everyone focused all their attention on her?

“Whoever it was,” I said, “they didn’t like that you brought me along. Maybe next time you should just go alone?”

She nodded in agreement.

-

Everybody was talking the next day, except for me. Ilanna had been whisked off in a sudden flurry of excitement at around five in the morning. People asked if I had seen her, but I always answered in the negative, my hand straying to the card in my pocket with each posing of the question. There had been a struggle, some said. Something awful had happened in the library closest to Mr Brynshaw’s bedroom. Some of the other performers even mentioned screaming, that or they’d wormed the information out of one of the staff. Whatever had happened, it had taken place in some far-off corner of the mansion and it resulted in an orange coastguard helicopter flocking to the private island where Ilanna was lifted away with a face covered in bandages.

With one less performer everyone’s attention soon returned to the task at hand. The artist-of-the-day was practically in tears as she ordered us around and screamed at the costume fitters to do a week’s work in an afternoon. Everything was manic, and before long the mystery subsided, and we were all being hurried out onto stage. We were ballet dancers this time, each of us slashed with fake blood and covered with prosthetic makeup that made our faces strangely disfigured. It was stifling and awkward and it took all my energy to focus on the strange procession we made around the stage. A slew of famous guests Mr Brynshaw courted were paraded before us and I’m sure I recognised one or two faces. They looked approving.

For the first time since arriving I could be seen clearly. I was not the centre, of course. But at least I wasn’t being deliberately hidden. I locked form, held position, and in accordance with the prescribed choreography, I would occasionally change from one pose to another or act out some vague medical procedure.

These displays were agonisingly slow and boring, but I suppose that was the point. A living painting was how Jenson had described it, although it wasn’t quite that at all. The fact we were alive was in itself part of the brush strokes that rendered the image whole. Us being there, uncomfortable and tired and exhausted with pins and needles prickling up our arms and legs… that was what it was really about.

I was a living decoration.

When it ended I stayed behind, for once. This time no guests were to be allowed, although the performers drank a little. I managed to speak to a few people and to make a few little friends here and there. One of them, a young man, was actually quite charming and clearly somewhat interested in me. By the time we shuffled out and back to our rooms I was tipsy and happy, and all thoughts of Ilanna were long forgotten.

At least until I reached my bed and pulled back the bed covers to reveal a bloodied cigar cutter. Beside it lay a tiny little cone of pink meat and I realised with great horror that it was the tip of someone’s tongue.

Whoever had left it had included a note.

You looked so good tonight! It read. The competition should watch out.

-

We were naked and cold. This meant that we shivered, that our skin grew pale and covered with goosebumps, even our breath was frosty. With the money we were being paid, no one dared complain. But there was something about this display that felt particularly dehumanising. I believe it was a commentary on homelessness, perhaps? The artist had mentioned that the room must be conditioned to the exact temperature of a New York night in December. I thought that was funny given the guests got to wear furs and hold heated cups. If they really wanted to learn about suffering, I thought, they shouldn’t do so by watching others.

Still, I kept such thoughts to myself. We all did, even after the first performer collapsed. I was surprised to see a cohort of paramedics rush out from behind some curtains and begin attending to him with no fanfare. I wanted to turn my head to look, I knew a few of the others did, but neither the guests nor the staff reacted.

To my right, one of the other performers began to shiver. I could see him struggling to keep it together, his chattering teeth were the loudest thing in that room. But the audience had become riveted by our struggles. The lazy procession of fur-clad women and old men with pipes slowed to a crawl, and as one they turned to face us, all faces on the quivering young man whose skin was turning blue. Eventually he gave up, a cry of frustration rang out and he began to walk away only for his body to give up. He too collapsed, his head coming scarily close to the hard edge of the stage as he fell over. In my mind, I knew that meant there were ten of us left, and I swore that the room was still getting colder.

Some of the others made minor adjustments, perhaps thinking the same thing I was. This was an exhibit on endurance, or pain, or some similar thing – they just hadn’t told us. Still, it was all part of the show. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would think of this, but I found myself wondering what it would mean to be the last one standing. To be the only person up there? Standing and displaying it all… perhaps not to be admired, not by everyone surely. But at the very least to be acknowledged. To be seen.

I like to think we all realised this at the same time. It would be another two hours before anyone else fell. I bet that was down to the sudden spur of determination inspired by the first two. I knew the competition had worked wonders for my endurance, and it continued to do so even as another one, then two, and then three people collapsed or ran off sobbing unable to bear another second of the freezing cold.

That left six, one of which was me.

The audience seemed to change members without anyone moving, or perhaps the temperature was starting to mess with my mind. By now snot was pouring out of my nose and at times I had to close my eyes to stop the cold from burning my irises. Sometimes one of the performers would have to adjust, to wipe away the snot or to prevent a limb from giving in completely. A few even took to rubbing their arms and chests. After all, no one had spelled out any game or rules. We’d just decided it was up to us to hold out as long as we could, and it appeared the unspoken rule was that you only gave in if you left.

But I didn’t want to compromise the display. Unlike them I remained stock still until the pain was so unbearable, I felt the edges of vision begin to blur.

I was close to giving up when I felt a flush of hot air. It was so deliriously delightful that I thought it was the onset of hypothermia, but that didn’t explain the smell. God it was awful. A stomach-churning mixture of meat and rotten fruit that made me think of buzzing flies and bloated roadkill. But it was warm… it was so warm that I found the feeling returning to my arms, and then my hands and feet, until even my toes and fingers were tingling with heat. An awkward glance at the others showed them shivering, and I watched as another fell into a puddle of tears and cried for help.

But I was warm, even a little comfortable. The fewer of us there were, the more eyes I felt lingering on me. They were impressed, I could tell. Billionaires and oligarchs who ruled the world and there they were getting to see what I was made of. Far from what I’d first imagined, this wasn’t some display of nubile delicacy. They had come here to see some mettle and I knew I had it in me to be the last one up there.

Of course, in the end it came down to me and me alone. The last one collapsed with a loud thunk that came from behind and I couldn’t stop the smile curving across my face. And yet I wasn’t done. This was meant to be a six-hour display and I knew there was another one to go. So why did the audience look at me like I was going to take a bow? A few of them were starting to look a little worse for wear, I could see that even from all the way up on stage. Their furs would only do for so long but me? I was basking in warmth, in the hot fetid gusts of air that blew down upon me from above, like the breath of a giant.

In the end the artist came out and announced the display was over.

For the first time ever, the audience applauded one of our performances and I knew with certainty it wasn’t for anyone but me!

-

“You know what happened to Ilanna, don’t you?”

It was a young man speaking to me, one of the performers. I’m sure he’d told me his name early on. We’d probably even flirted. But I had been lost in my thoughts when he found me, and I could only say that he looked familiar.

“No.” I shook my head and turned back to the painting. It showed a teenage boy floating nude in a void, his mouth open so wide the skin began to tear, his head wrenched back like a baby bird feeding. From above liquid gold poured down into his mouth, flowing over his lips and over his face and shoulders in shimmering rivulets. Something about the brush strokes made the gold look incredibly three-dimensional, like you could reach out and interrupt the flow with the tip of your finger.

“I don’t believe you,” he replied.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think you know something I don’t. You haven’t fit in since day one. I asked a friend to look you up and the last time you did any professional work was in 2008. Since then it’s been, what? Day jobs? Retail?”

“It’s hard for a dancer to be seen,” I said. “The going is good for you now, but it won’t last. You know how many people graduate from a contemporary dance school and go on to have nice long successful careers? It’s hard, and it only gets harder.”

“But you’re here,” he replied, “and they aren’t. Smells fishy. Ever since that night when they tried to freeze us to death, I’ve been thinking that this all feels wrong. Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s one big show and you’re part of it.”

“So, what do you want me to say?”

“I want to know the truth,” he said. “I want to know why someone like you is up there, taking centre stage after a contrived series of bullshit just to, what? Keep us eager? Make us that little bit extra insecure?”

“Why don’t you see for yourself,” I said, and gestured for him to follow me, leading him quietly to the door at the end of the long hallway. Lately that door had the strangest habit of always being close at hand, but I didn’t think about it much. I had no idea what, exactly, I was planning on doing. But he had seemed so pleased with himself and his little theory, and me agreeing had to show him something had validated all his petty jealousies.

When I stopped and told him to open the door, I think he suspected something, although it was probably hard for him to say what given that even I didn’t understand my own actions.

“What’s in there?” he asked.

“I think it’s whoever all of this is really for.”

He took that as confirmation of some idea he’d been ruminating on for a while, and all hesitation left his face. He opened the door and marched in, ready to demand answers of some kind. I stayed back, my mouth dropping open at what lay within the room. For the young man, it clearly took him a few moments before the signals his eyes received actually registered somewhere in that dense head of his. I can’t blame him, I suppose. It made so little sense… he shouldn’t have been able to walk in there at all.

It was a featureless void of distant blues and cosmic light. It felt so utterly enormous but also somehow intimate, claustrophobic even. I found myself stepping back so that the door framed the open space, and the young man stood in the centre with his feet resting on nothing at all.

“What the fuck?”

With a spine breaking crack his head flew backwards, and he began to struggle. His body lifted up gently so that his legs hung freely, and he kicked furiously in an attempt to find the floor. His eyes were flickering madly from side-to-side, and I knew that he was looking for me, hoping that I would come to his rescue. But I was paralysed with terror and awe and wonderful anticipation.

He screamed when the gold came down, crashing over his face and eyes in a scolding mess. Up close I realised this wasn’t paint, but real molten metal and God it was beautiful. He thrashed and howled in agony as the very meat of his face and torso cooked in its cocoon of boiling metal, only for his limbs to seize up and his body to fall still. He was not dead. I could see that from the way he kept trying to turn and look at me. It was as if something had gripped him in an enormous fist, and just like that his mouth was pulled open by an invisible force so strong I heard his jaw dislocate with a stomach-churning pop!

He struggled some more until finally his whole body went limp. He hung there suspended in nothingness as the gold continued to pour downwards in a terrible cascade. It was a perfect recreation of the painting… even the doorway had taken on a strange golden quality and I realised it was a perfect replica of the painting’s frame. I couldn’t say if it had always been that way or had somehow transformed before my very eyes, but I had no doubt that what I saw was real, even as the doorway seemed to shrink until it was no more than a foot across.

Without quite knowing why I reached out and just like that, perspective bent in on itself and my fingers touched canvas. The door had disappeared and now there was only the painting. Still the boy hung there, rotating slowly. When I withdrew my hand, I noticed a trickle of gold running along my skin. Giggling, I licked it off and relished the chemical taste. When I looked back the scene had frozen, and I was faced with a perfect replica of the original painting.

“You know what happened to Ilanna, don’t you?”

It was a young man speaking to me, one of the performers. I’m sure he’d told me his name early on. We’d probably even flirted. But I had been thoroughly absorbed by the painting in front of me. Blinking away the urge to giggle or run, I turned back to him. He looked oddly familiar.

“No.” I shook my head, unable to keep a wry smile from coming to my lips.

-

I opened the cupboard door and was shocked to see a young woman staring at me. Her eyes were wide, and she backed into the corner like a wounded animal. I recognised her immediately as one of the performers.

“Good God!” I cried. “What are you doing in there?”

“Shush!” he hissed. “I think the others are gone.”

“Don’t be silly,” I grumbled. “Aren’t we doing a show today?”

The woman looked at me like I was insane, her anxiety momentarily overridden by confusion.

“Do you even know what’s out there?” she asked. “What’s happening?”

“A house?” I laughed. “Some paintings?”

“Have you looked at the paintings!?” she cried. “No no no no, I won’t let that happen to me.”

“You should,” I said. “Didn’t you come here to be part of something special?”

She gave me that look again, like I was a lunatic, but before she managed to throw any mean words my way something moved in the cupboard behind her.

“What was that?” she snapped, her head whipping from side-to-side.

It moved again, and I realised it was the wall behind her. I decided to calm her, but when I reached out my hand touched something cold and hard, like a sheet of glass. Tunk! My finger probed the surface with confusion while the woman frantically pulled the tiny space apart looking for whatever had moved. When the wall shifted again, it finally dawned on her what was happening.

“Let me out!” she screamed and went to shove me aside but like me, her hands couldn’t get past that invisible wall. “W-w-w-what…?” she stammered. “What the fuck?”

Her eyes alighted upon me with burning hatred.

“You!” she screamed. “It was you all along! I fucking knew you never be—”

Her words were cut off when the wall behind her touched her back. All accusations fell away as she was pushed up against the glass and the pressure started to build. Desperately her hands probed the invisible wall, and I noticed that her fingertips peeked out around the edges. I touched it myself and felt that the gap was no more than a millimetre wide.

“I don’t think you’ll fit through there,” I said, only for the wall behind her to come closer once more. This time it was followed by a crack or two, and the girl’s eyes widened. She kept screaming, but another shunt from the wall behind and all noise stopped. Not because she was dead, but just because she couldn’t move her ribs and diaphragm enough to draw in any air. What little was left in her lungs was used to whisper a quiet plea.

“Help.”

“I am,” I said.

The wall was relentless, and I stepped back as it pushed through her like a pneumatic press. The colours that were pressed up against that invisible surface started to bloom as her body underwent what one might call a post-modern deconstruction. Pinks and purples and yellows and browns and reds… it made me think of pre-mixed paint. I stepped back and started to appreciate the way the door framed the picture, the space that it defined, and for the first time ever I found the image lacking.

But then she started to leak through the gaps in the sides! Oh, that was a delight, like playdoh squeezed through a toy. She flowed out of all four edges of the frame and out towards me like a curling wave of ever-thinning material. It hit the floor and began to fold over itself and I stepped away to let it pile up.

“Much better,” I said. “A far more interesting piece.”

From my foot I heard a peep and saw a piece of her looking up at me. Poor thing, she was still so afraid. She was still trying to move.

“Art can be transformative,” I said, reaching down to stroke her. From above a hot gust of wind blew across me, stinking hard of rot and meat.

I could tell that he agreed.

-

There were multiple paintings on the wall of my room. They all looked so very familiar, the people up there swanning around. That’s if they were even people at all. Some of those photos showed bits of people, or their insides. I admired the collection. It wasn’t Mr Brynshaw’s. It was mine. I had a card that said as much. It was a shame there were so few performers left. I would have appreciated the chance to show it all off.

One of the paintings was sweating. I took a cloth and wiped it down, carefully trying to avoid damaging the precious canvas. It was fast becoming one of my favourites. I leaned forward and blew on it, giggling as its hair raised on end.

“You are beautiful,” I whispered.

It moaned.

I stepped back and looked at the others. It occurred to me there would be another show soon, and I decided to go see if anyone was ever going to come get me. At this stage, they really couldn’t afford to forget. The whole thing was riding on my shoulders.

“Hello?” I cried, poking my head out of the door, but no one answered. I kept on looking and shouting, but the whole place was deserted. No staff. No butlers or chefs or maids or aides or secretaries or make up artists or anyone. On a whim, I made my way towards Mr Brynshaw’s wing, thinking that he’d be able to sort this all out. And, if he was open to it, I’m sure he’d like to see my own private collection. I really was quite keen to show it off.

I found him in his bedroom. It was a gorgeous four-poster frame made of stunning hardwood oak; the colour so rich it looked almost like opal. His companions were very attractive as well. No one could ever say Mr Brynshaw had bad taste. I just wish I hadn’t stepped in him when first entering the room. But the light was off, and he was just everywhere. The women were also in a bit of a state. Still, the room was full of giggles and cheers, and I just had to accept that Mr Brynshaw was occupied for the time being. I left and went looking for Jenson.

He was hanging in the atrium, his wrists clearly slit using a letter opener that lay on the floor. He had written a note that was kept in his pocket, and I took it just knowing it had been meant for me. It was pretty hard to read, what with the bloody thumbprints and the messy handwriting, but I managed to make some of it out.

…in our wildest dreams did we expect this to happen. I won’t lie to you and say that we had the best of intentions. But never this, Katherine. By now you must be the last one left and surely wondering what all of this was about. The summoning…

I threw the note aside with a cocked eyebrow.

“Me,” I grumbled. “This was always about me.”

I gave Jenson a playful little shove that sent him swinging.

“Silly goose,” I said before walking away. I was at the door when the rope snapped, and his body hit the marble floor with a bone-crunching thud.

-

I like you.

The card fluttered down from the darkness overhead and landed in my hair. It was always dark up there lately, like it followed me from room-to-room. Although I didn’t move much anymore. It had been a good few weeks since the last show.

“I like you too,” I said.

I see you.

The card landed in my lap. The words sent a warm fuzzy feeling rushing up my stomach and I reached out and held it close to my chest.

“Thank you.”

I have enjoyed my time here.

“Me too.”

They are coming.

“Oh, let them,” I said. “They were always going to come.”

I must go, but we need the final painting.

A part of me wanted to cry, but I also knew this had been coming. After this I wouldn’t be seen by anyone the same way he had seen me.

“I know,” I said.

You were always going to be the best of them all.

A knife fell from the darkness above and landed beside me blade first. It stuck in the wooden floor and the handle quivered from side-to-side. Without thinking I grabbed it and looked down at my legs.

In the distance I could hear a helicopter.

I started cutting…

-

I refused to go into detail for them. It was a ridiculous request to tell them “what happened” and it didn’t matter how many angry people asked. Maybe if they'd appreciated the exhibit, but I could tell they were disgusted by the collection. I had inspired an unrivalled creativity in him, and he had run rampant making and twisting and reshaping and some of the things they found sobbing in that house were truly beautiful. A few even slipped away into the ocean, but I haven’t told.

They put me in this place and he's gone. Well, sometimes I feel that breath on my shoulders. He keeps an eye on me when he can, I’m sure of it.

One of the other people here, a poor old man without any hair and who always talked to himself, he asked what happened and so I told him that I had shone like a light, wanting to be seen and admired, and something had taken up the call. I told him that if he wants to be seen badly enough and casts his thoughts out far and wide enough, he can be seen too. It was then that the space above me darkened and he cast his eyes up and that was when the screaming started.

Now they don’t let me out of the room, but the staff do always give me what I want. A laptop, the wifi password, cigarettes, even some art supplies... They must think I'm dangerous and don't want to get on my bad side. Such a silly thing to think. It wasn’t me who blinded that old man. He did it to himself.

But I thought he should know. And you should too.

If you want to be seen, and I mean you want it real bad, you might actually attract his attention.