Victories in Disguise

Part 9: January 17, 2015 [4:15 PM]

Then, boring stuff happened.


Maybe.  I wasn’t really paying attention at this point.  Mary Ruth was talking about things (sounding very much like Charlie Brown’s teacher) and seemed generally excited about said things, but my mind was solely focused on not falling over as the adrenaline faded from my bloodstream.


Sometimes, it’s a difficult feat simply staying on your feet.


My attention was drawn back to the events at hand when someone new arrived to the party.  Mary Ruth, rather elated by his presence, conceded the spotlight.  He introduced himself as Tracy.  He was one of the visual artists who volunteered to render images for the project.  More importantly, he had been assigned my story, and that of one other, to illustrate.  A few of the artists who had already introduced themselves brought their work to show during their introductions.  Some were finished, some were not.  Tracy had both.


Carefully unsheathing the art from protective tissue, he unveiled the first piece.  It was very well rendered and I was relieved to have been partnered with someone wielding such skill.  The piece was a beautifully haunting, black and white, patiently layered colored pencil drawing of a woman drowning.  Air bubbles escaped her open mouth as an octopus tentacle reached up from the depths to weigh her down.  Photographs, like lost memories of youth, drifted down beside her.  He explained the image in relation to the story to which it was paired.  It chronicled the author’s experiences watching her mother endure the debilitating effects of Parkinson’s disease.  It was a touching story and the image couldn’t have encapsulated the emotions behind it any better.


The drawing created for my piece, Smart Cookie, was incomplete.  Like any artist worth their salt, Tracy was reluctant to show it until it was finished.  However, someone in the audience asked if he would share it with us anyway and he agreed.  I, more than most, was eager to catch a glimpse.  The emotion was so strong it overshadowed my anxiety and I inched closer as the tissue paper was pulled away. 


It’s not every day I get to see how someone else interprets my words.


It was another black and white colored pencil drawing, clearly his currently favored technique.  The bottom third of the image was dominated by the close-up portrait of a man’s head, looking upward in profile, with a whole fortune cookie jammed into his mouth.  This was not unexpected.  Much of my piece used fortune cookie fortunes as metaphors to illustrate my point.


“How?” you might ask.


“Cleverly,” I could reply.


Anyhow, I knew a cookie or two would make an appearance in the artwork in some form or another.  Much of the middle background was solid black.  If you’ve never used colored pencils before, you can’t fully appreciate how much time and effort it took to accomplish that effect.  It is just as impressive as his ability to have untarnished white appear in the highlights.


Colored pencils are deceptively unruly.


The upper third of the image was of a man, subtly resembling yours truly despite this being my first interaction with the artist.  This eerily dashing man, cast in spotlight, was gussied up in a tuxedo while he gracefully traversed a tightrope.  Unbeknownst to him, just ahead, beyond the ring of illumination surrounding him, the wire had been severed.  It was a surprisingly accurate representation of how I feel when anxious:  the balancing act doomed to fail.


He began to speak on his inspiration for his chosen composition, but stopped himself mid-sentence.  Instead, his eyes scanned the room. I felt a whirl of butterflies rise up within me as I silently pleaded to be mistaken in anticipating his actions. 


No!  This can’t be happening! 


Wait.  Calm down.  No one else has done it.  Why would he?  They all just took their turns and moved on.  You’re just stressing yourself out for no reason, Josh.  Maybe he realized he’d forgotten something.  Everything’s going to be fine.  It’ll be okay. 


Breathe.  Just breathe. 


“Where’s Joshua?” Tracy asked.


Oh, crap.


Inhale.


Half the room either pointed or looked right at me, dropping nearly thirty-seven metric tons of ocular attention upon me.  Oh, crap.  Oh, crap.  Oh, crap.  I would have panicked had shock not taken hold.  How was this happening to me again?


Exhale.  Slowly, now.  Don’t let them see.  Never let them see.


“Why don’t you tell your story, Joshua?”  His question was so cavalier that I seriously doubted he actually read my story beyond the title.


I thought of about 6½ thousand reasons why I couldn’t tell my story in the first second after he asked.  Of course, none of them were particularly good reasons.  Some were pitiful excuses not worth repeating.  A few were angered outbursts of the imaginary variety, the recourse of a pinned animal.  One line of thought was just a series of random punctuation marks representing profanity so rapid-fire that, if it were to be aired on network television, would sound like I was trying to communicate via Morse code. Most, however, were utter nonsense equivalent to a child throwing a tantrum after they’ve been told they need to eat their vegetables.


Everyone was watching me now, adding another twenty metric tons of pressure.  I wondered if any of them could appreciate the turn of fate that I, the person most uncomfortable with this whole ordeal, would be the only writer asked to speak before them a second time. 


A second dash-dot-dot, dot-dash, dash-dash, dash-dot time!


There was no way around it, though.  They had me cornered like a toddler’s father bringing an airplane loaded with green mush in for a landing.  All there was left to do was swallow it as quickly as possible.


Public speaking is the steamed kale of social interactions.