Mela Saylor is both an artist and a writer with a B.S. in education. Her previously published works have been feature-length news articles in The Perry Post while still in high school, and more recently in Doctor of Dentistry, a professional magazine. Death by Oils is her first foray into fiction.
Death By Oil
2010 Winner, OctoberConnie Johnson is an artist with moderate talent and no imagination. She strives to imitate reality focusing only on what she can see. Little does she know that reality is always adapting to the life forces surrounding us that we cannot see. Her art supplies sit in neatly organized rows mocking her inability to bring them to fruition. They are capable of great success but lie dormant and resentful due to her limited talent. Her anger with them is not justified. They rear up in anger with her attack and retaliate. Their judgment is swift and severe.
Connie hasn’t painted in months, and as a result, is a nervous wreck. This is the longest dry spell she has ever endured and her frustration and anxiety levels are increasing with each passing day. For months on end, she comes home from work, changes her clothes and proceeds to her studio. There she sits staring at her blank canvases and tubes of oil paints almost paralyzed with fear. And while sitting there she thinks she imagines them staring right back at her as if awaiting a signal. Connie has come to hate those fat, creepy, tubes of oil paint that were a godsend seven months ago when they were given to her. But what she has come to fear most is the eyeball logo plastered on both sides of each tube of paint. Demonico, the art dealer who gave the oils, brushes, and many other much needed art supplies to her with promises of a one person exhibit and artistic recognition, seems to have great faith in the very ability she is lacking at the moment.
“What is he expecting of me?” Connie wonders. She wants to pull her hair out.
“These paints,” Demonico assured her, “will make you famous! Trust me”.
“But I have only five months left” she murmurs to herself. The eye tic she developed three months ago has started up again. Connie glares at the oil paints, brushes and the canvases, many of them blank, lying around her house. She stares at the circled date on her calendar and panics. The cuckoo clock in the next room suddenly strikes midnight, jarring her nerves. The humming sound, which appears to be coming from the overhead ceiling fan, intensifies. She picks up a tube of paint, and furious with it, shouts “That’s it! You are worthless – no wonder Demonico was trying to get rid of you. I’m pitching all you little freaks and getting a better set of oil paints!” In an artistic frenzy, she throws the first tube of paint. It hits the fan and bursts open. She stares in horror as the orange paint comes out of its tube as one and literally slaps her across the face, before splattering all over the wall and fan. The smell of oil paint assaults her senses. She gets goose bumps up and down her arms and she shakes uncontrollably. A rush of adrenaline and fear hits her and she becomes high from that. She feels both giddy and in control of the paint for once, but that high-pitched humming sound in her ears, similar to that of a mosquito, becomes louder and shriller. The next tube she throws is magenta and that also flies into the ceiling fan. The particular smell of oil paint intensifies with her heightened senses. One by one, splatters of blue, green and yellow join the others on the wall. As the chop, chop, chop sound of the blades throwing globs of magenta paint intensifies, Connie now hears what she thinks are the sounds of angry voices. In a panic to destroy them all, she begins throwing all her oil paint tubes into the ceiling fan.
As if on cue, the tubes of paint begin to split open and paint splatters on both Connie and the room. Soon she is covered in oil paint and only now does she realize that all the Zaytahns’ supplies have taken on a life of their own. The overhead fan keeps spraying her with paint. Chop, chop, chop. The humming sound and the angry voices intensify and surround her. Anxiety overcomes her. In fear she looks around her studio as one by one, the caps of all the paint tubes start popping off and hurling themselves at her, much like kamikaze pilots in their quest to destroy their enemy. She raises her hands to protect her face, peeking between her fingers. Connie finds it hard to come to grip with what is going on in her studio. The angry voices become louder and the caps keep coming at her. Then, as if on cue, her paint brushes fly at her as missiles toward their target.
Frantic, Connie runs from the room. The tubes, the paint and the brushes charge after her like a small angry army. Wire cutters nip at her heels and she screams. She drips magenta and blood through the house. Dodging the scissors as they are flying toward her, she trips as she runs for the front door. Unable to stop her fall, she screams as she falls upon the mat cutters, poised in battle mode on the floor in front of her. A turpentine soaked rag flies into her open mouth and muffles her screams. As her eyes bulge in horror, the newly sharpened colored pencils meet their target. The more Connie struggles and cries, the more covered she becomes as sheets of oil paint fall upon her. As she lays there slowly suffocating from the turpentine and oil, a large canvas falls on top of her, leaving her dying imprint immortalized in oil paint.
When her body is found several days later and taken to the morgue, the canvas that had fallen upon her in death is discarded in the alley behind her home. A few days after that, Vincent Demonico, the gallery owner who gave Connie her paints, passes by the alley and finds the discarded canvas.
“Eureka!” he shouts. He embraces the canvas like a long-lost friend. “My dear Connie, what have you done to yourself? Hmmmm” he looks the canvas over closely for Connie’s image. “Those colors do become you. What a find- and I have just the right collector for you.” he muses. Whistling, he walks down the alley toward home with the canvas. Once there, Demonico cleans it up and takes it to his gallery to hang for exhibit.
“What shall you call this masterpiece?” his assistant asks. Demonico smiles at him, a small red light flickering in the depths of his eyes.
“Death by Oils, of course.”