This was because her pen began to leak.
When Marla started drawing, she was submerged in a deep trance, a dream-like, automated state in which she focussed so much on what she was doing that she had little awareness of the world around her. By the time she noticed that her pen was leaking, she already had black ink all over the fingertips on her left hand. It had run down her index finger almost to the second knuckle. The blackness was startling. She was surprised she hadn't noticed before, and relieved it hadn't ruined her drawing which, almost halfway through, was still as pristine as she'd set out for it to be.
She scrubbed her hand in the sink. She scrubbed it in the shower. She scrubbed it with nail polish remover, with tooth paste, with bleach. It wouldn't come off. It only faded a little. She gave up.
When she turned up at work the next morning, her manager noticed it immediately. What the hell is that, he asked her. Ink, she told him. Why haven't you washed it off, he asked her. I tried, she told him. You should have tried harder. You can't work here, not with filthy hands like that, he told her. Marla took a deep breath to hold back what she'd have liked to say. The breath wasn't deep enough. Fine, she said. I don't want to work here anyway, she said.
And she walked out. And on her way out she snatched a £90 bottle of wine from the wine rack and didn't look back. No one followed her because they hadn't paid her monthly wage yet, and that was worth a lot more than £90. Not that they cared about money.
Marla cared about money. She cared very much. She marched home angrily, furiously. Furious with herself. Furious with the restaurant. Furious with everything. And when she got home, she closed her eyes and screamed at the top of her lungs with fury.
And then she brought the bottle of wine high up above her head, and furiously down again against the faux-granite counter.
And then there was a deafening smash followed by a deafening silence, and all that was left in her hand was the bottle neck, with its brand new jagged edge shining wet and red.
And she opened her eyes in shock, and everything went suddenly from black to red, as though her eyes were veiled in blood. She blinked. The red didn't go away. It was splattered everywhere. What once was white was now stained a bloody, blackberry red. She froze. She blinked again. And then she screamed in horror.
Her drawing. Her drawing which once was fine black lines against blinding, snowy white was now tarnished, soiled, tainted. Ruined. The city was awash with a sea of red. As though it was aflame. The black ink smudged and merged. Red-black ran down in rivulets. Rivers of blood.
Marla fell to her knees, and winced as she felt the shards of glinting green bite in deep.
That night Marla was strangely calm. She walked steadily, and with purpose, though her knees pained her greatly.
When she reached the restaurant she walked straight through to the back. No one seemed to notice her; they were too absorbed in their extravagantly priced dining experience. The chefs were smoking outside the back door; no one saw her enter the kitchen.
From her bag she pulled a big pot of black ink.
And she poured it in every pot. In every pan. Over every dish in the kitchen. Until all the food in the kitchen was poisoned pitch black. And then she walked straight out again.
This time she didn't take any wine.
And she went home smiling madly, to finish her wine-stained painting.
The next day the police turned up at her flat to arrest her. They needed no evidence.
All the evidence they could want was all over her fingertips.
No comments:
Post a Comment