The Painting

1
“I don’t like it.”

Mia Furlong was sitting on the end of her bed, staring up at a painting hanging on the bedroom wall. She had her arms tightly folded across her chest and slowly shook her head from side to side. Her husband, Mike, was standing just to her left, alternating his gaze from his wife to the painting, and back to his wife again. His hands were in his pockets and his face held a slightly incredulous expression as he tried to process what his wife had just said.

“I’m sorry, Mike, but I just don’t like it.”

Mike stopped moving his head back and forth and fixed his eyes on his wife.

“What do you mean you don’t like it?” he asked, and then looked back at the painting. “It’s great.”

Mia looked at her husband, rolled her eyes, and then turned back to the painting again, as if giving it one more try. She leaned a little forward, frowned and then let out a loud sigh.

“What exactly is so great about it?” she asked.

“What’s not great?” Mike asked in return.

“That didn’t really answer my question, Mike. Tell me what you think is so great about it.”

Mike scoffed and turned back to the painting, looked it over and then answered. “It’s art,” he said, as if that should explain everything.

It was a painting of a naked woman, sitting on a block of wood and wearing only a blanket, which came over her right shoulder, down over her right arm, across her butt and over her left thigh. She was facing away, so you couldn’t see her face. Only her bare back and left shoulder, left arm and part of her left leg were visible. Her black hair fell over her left shoulder, down over her chest and out of sight. There was nothing in the background of the painting, leaving the woman in full focus.

“Can you at least try to tell me why you don’t like it?” Mike tried.

“It’s creepy,” Mia said, and then frowned a little harder. “Why is she facing away? Why is her face hidden from us? Don’t you find that creepy at all?” She turned to look at her husband.

“It’s not creepy,” Mike said. “It’s interesting.”

“Well, I’m not sure,” Mia said, shifting uncomfortably on the bed.

“Can I just remind you,” Mike said, “that it was your idea to get a painting for the bedroom? And can I also remind you that you didn’t want to find a painting yourself? That you made me do it?”

“Yes, I know..”

“And then I find one,” Mike interrupted, not wanting to be stopped before he had finished saying his piece, “and you just dismiss it? Just like that?”

“What do you want me to say? If I don’t like it then I don’t like it.”

“I want you to give it a chance,” Mike said. “You’ve just seen it for the first time, it might grow on you after you’ve seen it a few more times. Heck, even I passed it by first of all in the gallery, but after I had seen all the other pieces, affordable pieces at least, I came back to this one. The second time I was blown away, and now that I see it on our wall I like it even more.”

Mike leaned back slightly, as if to appreciate the painting even more from the slightly longer distance, and then flashed a large toothy smile. The smile faltered slightly, but only slightly, when he turned back to his wife.

Mia’s forehead was a mass of deep lines as her frown strengthened rather than let up. She was biting her bottom lip, and her arms were now folded so tight that it caused her to arch her back and lean over slightly.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep with that thing looking down at me,” Mia said.

“Who’s looking? She’s facing away, remember?” Mike said, and then burst into a short lived laughter that dried up just as quick as it took his wife to look away from the painting and set her frown on him.

“I’m serious, Mike,” she said.

“Well,” Mike said, and took his right hand out of his pocket to scratch his head as he spoke. “I just hung the damn thing so how about we leave it there for now and if it still makes you nervous I’ll take it down and put it in another room?”

“You can’t do that right now?”

“Aw honey,” Mike said, and gave Mia that hang dog expression that usually led to him getting his own way. “I just put it up.”

“Okay,” Mia said. “It can stay tonight, but if I have a bad night’s sleep because of it I want you to give it a new home tomorrow.”

“You got it,” Mike said, and then leaned down to kiss Mia on the mouth. “But I bet it will grow on you and you end up loving it.”

“Not likely,” Mia said, and playfully shoved her husband away.

“Right, let’s go see what’s on the tube tonight.”

Mike walked out of their bedroom, his right hand by now returned to its place in his pocket. Mia got up to follow him out, and as she walked towards the door, she was sure she could feel someone watching her. It caused her body to shudder and she spun around to look at the first place she thought of that could bring about that feeling. But of course the painting was still hanging on the wall, and the woman in the painting was still facing away. Mia’s face turned a little red and she was thankful that Mike had already left the room and didn’t see her little show. Nobody had been watching her, it was just her imagination going into overdrive because the painting had creeped her out a little. She shook her head slightly and rolled her eyes at her own silliness, and then left the bedroom.

If she had of had a closer look at the painting, she might have noticed that woman’s hair was no longer falling over her left shoulder, it was now flowing freely down her back.

2

Mia sat up in bed with her Cormac McCarthy book on her lap. Mike was still watching television, some sports team had just gone into overtime with some other sports team. Mia had enough knowledge of sports to know that they were playing basketball, but as to who was involved in the match, well, that was anybody’s guess. She had decided to leave her husband to it and get into her cozy bed with a good book in front of her. But unfortunately the bed didn’t seem as comfortable as it usually did, and she found it increasingly hard to concentrate on her novel. She had already had to stop twice and return to the beginning of the page when she realized that she couldn’t remember a single word that she had just read.

It might have had something to do with the painting. Scratch that, it had everything to do with the painting. There it was, at the end of her bed, seemingly dominating the whole room, and Mia had to wonder just how in the hell she had allowed her husband to convince her to leave it hanging there for the night. Well, Mia was sure of one thing, she would go along with her husband tonight, but that painting was coming down tomorrow, whether Mike liked it or not.

A yell came from outside the bedroom and Mia lowered her book and glanced over to the door. Mike’s preferred team must have just scored. She gave an almost unnoticeable shake of the head and roll of the eyes before turning back to her book. Trying to turn back to her book at least; the damn painting caught her attention again. The woman’s hair had returned to its original position, dropping down over the left shoulder, but Mia again failed to notice this small change.

She closed her novel with a snap, deciding that there was no point in trying to read and then have to reread every page again. She wasn’t terribly tired, but she thought she might nod off, and hopefully Mike wouldn’t be too loud when he eventually decided to turn in himself. Even if she couldn’t drop off right away, at least the light would be off and she would be in darkness…unable to see that damn painting.

Mia reached over, glanced once more at the painting out of the corner of her eye, and then switched off the bedside lamp.

3

Mia’s hope that her husband would quietly come into the room wasn’t realized. Mike crashed through the door, still jazzed that his team had pulled a win out of the bag, and then muttered a few expletives to himself as the door banged against the wall. He then tried to tip toe his way across the room, but the damage had already been done.

“So I suppose your team won?” Mia’s muffled voice from under the blankets asked.

“Shoot,” Mike said. “Sorry if I woke you, honey. I guess the adrenaline is still flowing through me.

Mia pulled the blankets further over her head and turned to lie on the other side of her body. Mike continued to tread carefully, despite having already woken his wife, over to the en suite bathroom. He flicked on the light and went inside to perform his nightly ablutions. Mia tried to ignore the noises coming through the closed door, but the sound of Mike’s urine splashing into the water of the toilet bowl and then his toothbrush aggressively attacking that days build up of plaque and bacteria proved too much for her to drift back to sleep. She pulled the blanket down a little, exposing just the top of her head and her eyes, and peered over to the en suite door. Apart from light coming from the crack at the bottom of the door, the room was dark.

“Are you ever going to be done in there?” Mia called out, an unmistakable tone of irritation creeping into her voice.

“Almost,” Mike called back.

The bathroom door opened and Mike walked back into the bedroom.

“You mind if I leave the door open while I get undressed?” he asked. The door was only open a few inches but the light coming from the en suite illuminated the room enough so that Mia could make out her husband standing beside her bed. “It’s hard to get ready for bed in total darkness.”

“Sure,” Mia mumbled, and tried to escape what little light came from their en suite by turning her face into the pillow.

The noise of a belt buckle opening and clothes hitting the floor followed, but not quickly enough for Mia.

“Can you hurry up? The light from the bathroom is keeping me awake.”

Mike glanced towards the en suite, and then towards the bed at his wife. “Are you serious? I can barely see well enough to make out your shape in the bed.”

Mia, pretty much fully awake now, sat up. The blanket fell down onto her lap, exposing her naked body from the waist up. She looked at her husband and prepared to lecture him on the early hour she had to be up for work in the morning. But she screamed before she managed to get the first word out.

Enough light came from the bathroom so that the painting was just visible behind Mike. Mia hadn’t noticed the two small changes in the image that had already happened that day, but the painting was so different now that she couldn’t help but notice. The woman was no longer turning away, she was facing into the room with one hand held up with her palm facing out, almost as if the woman wasn’t in a painting at all but behind a window, pressing her hand up to the glass and peering in at them. The face was still a dark shadow, but the rest of the naked body was visible.

Mia let out another short yelp and turned to her bedside table. She fumbled for the small switch beneath the lamp shade and pressed it with her thumb. When the light flashed on she turned back towards her husband and the painting just over his shoulder. She could see the woman more clearly now. She had large brown eyes and full red lips, which were wet and slightly parted. Her eyebrows were slightly raised and it was obvious where she was directing her gaze. She was looking at Mia’s husband with what could only be described as an expression of longing on her face.

Mia’s hands went up to her mouth where she bit down on her fists to stifle another scream. The face in the painting pulled its gaze away from Mike and turned its eyes on Mia. She had never seen a face change so rapidly. The eyebrows came down in the middle and the eyes narrowed. The forehead came out in the creases of an angry frown. The lips came together, slightly turned down at the corners. Mia no longer saw longing on this face, she just saw hatred.

Mia turned her wide eyes to her husband who was urgently walking over to her, holding one hand up to shield the light of the lamp from his eyes as they adjusted to the new brightness in the room.

“What is it, honey?” he asked, and came over to sit on the edge of Mia’s bed.

“The painting…” Mia said, and turned back to the woman on the wall. Mia was just in time to see the painting return to its original image. By the time Mike had turned around, the painting didn’t look any different to when he bought it from the gallery.

“Yeah?” he asked, and then turned back to his wife when he didn’t get an answer. “What about the painting?”

Mia jerked her head back around to her husband. Her face had turned pale and her eyes seemed to be impossibly wide. “You didn’t see it?” she asked.

“See what?” Mike asked, and then turned to look at the painting, and then back at his wife.

“It moved,” Mia whispered.

Despite the sudden scare to her system, she realized as soon as she said those words that she must sound ridiculous, and judging by Mike’s raised eyebrows and the amused look on his face, she figured that he found it ridiculous too.

“Don’t look at me that way,” Mia said. “That woman in the painting moved.”

Mike began to slowly shake his head, and Mia found it patronizing, like her husband was about to explain something to her as if she were a child.

“I SAW IT!” she shouted.

Mike leaned back slightly and held his hands up. The amused look was gone from his face to be replaced by one of genuine concern. “Okay, honey. But you realize how that sounds, right?”

“I know how it sounds,” Mia answered, and leaned forward for emphasis. “But I also know what I saw.”

“Okay,” Mike said, and scratched his head with his right hand. “Maybe you were having a dream or something, and you thought you saw something move in the painting.”

“I wasn’t dreaming…” Mia tried to explain.

“You weren’t?” Mike interrupted. “Then what? The woman in the painting came to life?”

Mia looked back at the painting, which looked exactly as it did when her husband brought it home earlier that day. What she had seen still felt real, but she realized how crazy it sounded. But she was certain of one thing, she wasn’t about to sleep in the same room as it. “Well, real or not, dream or not, that thing has to come down right now,” she commanded.

“Oh come on,” Mike pleaded, and Mia noticed that the amused look was slowly creeping back onto his face. “You were just dreaming, that’s all. I’m not going to take the painting down now.”

“Mike,” Mia said forcefully, folding her arms, “I want you to take it down.”

“It’s late, Mia,” he said. “I’ll take it down tomorrow. You promised to give it a night on the wall anyway.”

“That was before it moved,” Mia said, raising her voice on the last word.

“It didn’t move,” Mike said, standing up and walking around to his side of the bed. “It was a dream,” he added, standing with his arms held out and his eyebrows raised as if he was amazed that his wife couldn’t grasp the concept. But what Mia could grasp was that the look on her husband’s face had changed again; he now looked exasperated.

“Well,” Mia said, kicking off the bed sheets and standing up. “You don’t have to believe me but you could still take the painting down when you can see it upsets me.”

She waited for her husband to give in and remove the painting from the room, but instead he got into bed, switched on his bedside lamp and picked up a novel.

“Fine,” Mia muttered, “then you can sleep in here with that thing alone tonight.”

“Where will you sleep?” Mike asked, not looking up from his book.

“In the spare bedroom.”

That got Mike’s attention. He put his book down and looked at Mia. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll be embarrassed in the morning.”

Mia didn’t want to argue anymore. She turned and walked out of the bedroom, without uttering another word, and slammed the door behind her.

Mike was left to sleep alone with the painting.

4

Mia had the type of restless sleep people usually get when they spend the night in an unfamiliar bed. She woke with an ache in her back and the alarm tone of her cell phone ringing in her ears. She remembered what had happened the night before, and her husband was right; Mia was embarrassed. A woman in a painting actually coming to life? It must have been a dream. Right?

She pulled the covers off, sat on the edge of the bed and started trying to rub out a creak she had discovered in her neck to accompany the pain in her back. She usually slept with two pillows and the spare bed only had one, but she suffered through the night rather than getting an extra pillow from her room and have to face Mike again after their mini fight.

It was a strange dream, though, or hallucination, of whatever you want to call it. The way the woman in the painting had looked at Mike was an almost comical exaggerated expression of love and affection on her face. And contrasting that to the very uncomical way she had looked at Mia, as if she would have strangled her if she wasn’t trapped inside her wooden frame. Mia shook her head when she thought about and tried a laugh, but it was a forced laugh. Whatever kind of dream it was, it was a little too realistic for Mia’s liking.

She put on her dressing gown and left the spare bedroom, walking to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. The tiles felt cool under her bare feet and the hum of the refrigerator alone broke the silence of the apartment.

“Mike, are you up yet?” Mia called out, turning her head in the direction of the bedrooms. She then took two mugs out of the cupboard and put two slices of bread into the toaster. “Mike?” she called again.

Mia looked at the clock on the oven. It was 6:45am, and although they weren’t in risk of being late yet, she should have been able to hear Mike stumble around the bedroom or bathroom. He was usually up at 6:30am sharp every day, so why was everything so silent now?

“Mike?” Mia called out again, and started walking towards the hall and to their bedroom door. “Mike? Come on, we don’t want to be late.”

Mia put her hand on the bedroom door handle and began to turn it. For just a split second, she actually thought she would see the woman from the painting in her bed. That she had come to life and emerged from the canvass to claim Mike for herself. But of course, when the door opened, the bed was empty. There was no strange woman there to mock Mia. But there was also no Mike.

“Mike?” Mia called, and was again greeted by an increasingly eerie silence.

Could he have gone to work already? Doubtful. Was he still angry about their fight the night before? Mia thought it was possible, but unlikely. He could be playing a joke, waiting in silence to jump out from behind a doorway and frighten her, but he usually carried out those kind of pranks in the evening after one or two glasses or wine.

“Mike, you’re starting to scare me,” Mia said.

Then she thought of their en suite bathroom, and turned to see if any light was coming out from the crack at the bottom of the door. But as she turned her head, the painting grabbed her attention and pulled her eyes over to look at it.

The woman had moved again. She was facing into the room, still sitting on that block of wood with her legs crossed and her hands resting on her knees. Mia took a step closer to see the face. The small hint of a smile showed on her lips and one eyebrow was slightly raised. The woman’s head was cocked to one side, just a little. She looked extremely smug and self satisfied.

Mia took another couple of steps closer to the painting, moving very slowly just in case those arms suddenly sprung out and grabbed her from the throat. As she inched closer, Mia decided that the woman didn’t just look smug, she looked almost like she was mocking Mia. In just another couple of small steps forward, Mia could see why.
The woman wasn’t the only aspect of the painting that had changed. In the background, just over her shoulder, Mia could see another figure. Her heart started pounding and she started shaking her head from side to side in a kind of daze.

“No, no, no,” she muttered, and continued forward until the canvas was just inches from her face.

The figure in the background was a man, also naked like the woman. He was standing up and facing away, but looking over his left shoulder so the profile of his face was on view. Mia pressed herself right up to the painting, almost unable to believe her eyes, but she recognized the man immediately.

It was Mike.

Mia started to scream and claw at the painting, almost as if she was trying to climb into the canvass and save her husband. She continued to scream and scratch away until her fingers bled. All the time the woman’s face looked down at her, with just the hint of a smile and one raised eyebrow, almost as if she was mocking Mia.