stranger

Having replaced the lipstick, wallet, checkbook, driving gloves, sunglasses, pepper spray, etc of my enormous haggis-esque purse with a can of petrol.\n\n[[...|soaked]]

<<display "painting_view">>\n\n[[...|wall]]

If you read the papers, people of note may seem as tightly condensed as stars seem when we stare at the heavens. But if you make the long cold journey to their sidereal plane, you will see the vastness of their isolation from each other.\n\nA star is a very lonely thing surrounded by darkness.\n\n[[6 minutes of merciful solitude|roar]]

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I always preferred...\n\n[[The vine-walled period|wall][$preference = "the natural beauty of the vine-walled period";$r = "fake and awkward"]]. You can't go wrong painting all that good green stuff that comes out of the soil.\n\n[[The divine walls of the 3rd century|wall][$preference = "the grandeur of divine walls";$r = "commonplace"]]. Erected by souls in the afterlife - the slaves of hell or the angelic engineers of heaven. I'm not a theophile but I enjoy the sight of so many people liberated from the excuse of laziness.\n\n[[Modrard's abstracts of the Naval Minefield of Gangport|wall][$preference = "Modrard's military abstracts";$r = "unambitious"]]. A field of blue diamonds submerged in orange - a symbolic wall decried by purists. I appreciate how the crisp silkscreened diamonds are overtaken by the rusty waves of the untamed brush.<<set $prefer = true>>

I will come back for her tomorrow.<<timedgoto "end" 6s>>

Her parlor is in stark contrast to the starkness of the rest of the mansion. It still has the [[old things]], those fusty antiques and [[saccharine]] artifacts of our mother (my step-mother).\n\nMy sister's study [[door]] is closed.\n\n<<if $stranger lt 3>>[[The stranger sits.|speak]]<<else>>The stranger sits.<<endif>>\n\n<<if $wait gt 3 and $noise is false>>[[Wait|Sit and wait]]\n\n[[Was that a noise?|noise]]<<else>>[[Wait|Sit and wait]]<<endif>>\n\n<<if $painted is true>>[[Take my leave|exit]]<<else>>[[Stretch my legs|Walk the house]]<<endif>>

The canvas depicts a vast, horizon-spanning wall with dark, suffocating details in the paint - smoke or fog or patterns from some baroque <<if $prefer is false>>[[style]]<<else>>style<<endif>> she has embraced.

If I had a revolver shoved between my teeth and was forced to say something nice about my sister, I might drool a little something along the barrel like this: It has a bigness to it. It's very whole and crushing, even overwhelming if you're addled on the gallery wine. She could have done worse.\n\nAre those the kind of nurturing words that would have been pivotal in her development? That would have made her into a different woman than she is today? If so, it's too late to affect the outcome. She has been cast.\n\n[[...|wall]]

Miss Clemory & the Wall of Fire

The paintings gathered their skirts of flame and twirled.\n\n[[The tide recedes|wall]]

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Peering closer, I realize the painting is [[damaged]].

The hallways are dark and full of boxes. To the east, [[an empty room|bedroom]], and to the west, [[my sister's studio|wall][$studio = true]].\n\n[[Descend to the second floor|second floor]]

<<timedgoto "swallows" 1.5s>>

I crunch into the gravel quarry she calls a driveway. My [[car]] contrasts so - a caretenoid torpedo nested in the monochrome rubble.\n\nI climb the curving path to the mansion and let myself [[in|entrance]], knowing she scarcely ever answers the door.

I would think the guest was dead if they did not sit with such attention.\n\n[[...|parlor]]

In my studio, there was this plastic plant that got pressed up between some desks, and when it was freed by the absent-minded push of a desk, a leaf slowly, suddenly scraped its way free, giving me a shock.\n\n[[...|parlor_hub]]

<<set $time = 0>>\n<<set $stranger = 0>>

I was doing that thing where I think each word in real time and essentially lose consciousness until the thought is complete.\n\n"Yes, Bellidine?" I say in the most elongated, acidic tones possible, hoping to [[break her]] on the Via Dolorosa of my enunciation.

The door won't [[budge]]. I press my [[ear]] against the chestnut.\n\n[[Step away|Walk the house]]

I wonder why my sister never threw them away.\n\n[[...|parlor_hub]]

The [[Vegetable Fool]] adorns this decorative plate.

I was giving her advice as she painted, trying to discreetly nudge her in a direction that wouldn't make her a laughingstock.\n\nWhat she did next was [[strange]], considering she had taken my criticism for months without a stronger reaction than "hmm", or a twitch of the chin.

<<if $bedroom is true>>I don't think about this room.\n\n[[...|third floor]]<<else>>Our old bedroom was here. Then it was <<replace "converted.">>converted.\n\nWell, not entirely. It was stripped, painted white, and left that way for more than a decade. [[Blank]].<<endreplace>><<endif>>

I unshed my driving gloves in the shoe leather atmosphere of the foyer.\n\n[[Grip the doorknob|grip]]

I rise to my heels, nodding generously at the guest. "I hope you find her well."\n\nThe guest stares as if hearing my voice from a different direction, then nods slow and deep.\n\n[[Clamber back through my sister's halls|driving gloves]]

<<set $wait += 1>><<if $wait is 1>>I flip through my notebook, jotting designs for the performance at Beigehall.<<endif>><<if $wait is 2>>I make myself a cup of tea and sip it martially.<<endif>><<if $wait is 3>>The jungle of the parlor, planted by our parents and never hacked back by any inheritors. A generation-piercing inertia.<<endif>><<if $wait gt 3>>I have warmed that seat to burning.<<endif>>\n\n[[...|parlor_hub]]

I hear a rustling in her study. Indistinguishable from the ambient [[house-noise]].<<set $noise = true>>

"I have the utmost faith you won't let me down, Bellidine. You know I rely on you utterly."\n\n"Of course, but there are certain pragmatic difficulties-"\n\n"And when you're done, be sure to give my clothes a washing. I exerted myself strongly this morning."\n\n"Oh. It would be a privilege, Miss Clemory. I'll try to-"\n\n"There are many birds nearby. I fear they may interfere with the reception."\n\nI put the phone down with the pleasure of a mother laying down a colicky infant finally tuckered out from aeons of wailing.\n\n[[5 minutes of blessed solitude|silence]]

I [[sink|train]] into the leather seat, hands on the wheel as if I feared falling into the Corinthian abyss.

"Why?"\n\n<<replace "Hissing silence.">>Hissing silence.\n\n"I'll be over shortly."\n\n[[Click.]]<<endreplace>>

During the war there was a considerable paucity of sweeteners. A blockade on cane from the isles, a moratorium on sugar beets (produced by our enemy at the time), and corn was not yet used for anything but cattle feed and rustic delights. Hence our bumbling friend and her spinning wheel.\n\nBut that was 40 years ago, and we all know what happened to the bee hives of Kej County.\n\n[[...|Walk the house]]

Our duel would be resolved three months later on a peninsula 1700 miles away, at [[auction|auction room]].

A trench-knife grasped by a disembodied stone arm, bullets in a nest of barbed wire like deadly eggs.\n\n[[...|second floor]]

After she inherited the place, she filled it with nothing. Not even storage. The inevitable overflow of living in a large house, that deceptive promise of space, somehow never bled into this room.<<set $bedroom = true>>\n\n[[...|third floor]]

Porpentine Charity Heartscape

<<if $painted is true>>Moonlight creeps<<else>>Smoldering light pours<<endif>> through [[the balcony archway|The balcony]].\n\nThe [[silhouettes]] of martial sculptures jut around every corner. Stairs rise to the [[third floor]], flanked by cannon barrels sunk into the walls like pillars.\n\n[[Go downstairs|Walk the house]]

The car telephone rings. I rip the phone from its cradle and lay it against my head like a geometric steak against the boxed ear of a pugilist automaton.\n\n"Miss Clemory?"\n\nMy <<replace "secretary.">>human meat sponge for the toxic aggravation spill perpetually advancing toward me.<<endreplace>>\n\n[["Miss Clemory?"]]

The trees are taller here, away from the stunting fumes of the city. The road is enclosed by their wild walls, save for the occasional gap leading to a remote hilltop [[mansion]].

<<if $studio_light is false>>It's dark in here.\n\n[[Pull the blinds|wall][$studio_light = true]]\n\n[[Leave|third floor]]<<else>>\nIn the shadows at the very back of the room, a [[vial]] sits on a shelf.\n\n<<if $painted is false>><<if $prefer is false>>I study her [[latest artwork]]. The monster eating her time.<<else>>Of course it's [[dreadfully <<$r>>|dreadfully]] compared to <<$preference>>. Clearly in devastating debt to the Orange Wall of Bonqist, the pre-Delusionist imaginings of the Sky-Wall, the many Abrasionist walls, and so on<<if $painted is false>>[[...]]<<endif>><<endif>><<else>>Canvases lean in the moonlight like marble slabs in mortuary storage.<<endif>>\n\n[[Leave|third floor]]<<endif>>

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<<display "begin">>

It was the first year of her [[wall phase]], the walls she would be known for.\n\nI remember the weather more than I remember her face: sunny, rays of light catching on the membranes in the trees, a petrichorus of warm wet grass singing as if I had ears to hear.<<set $painted = true>>

I [[left|auction]] before she could see the painting.

I should be so lucky. She would countenance a hurricane if it wore my cravat.\n\n"The resin you ordered...it [[cannot be made available]]."

<<set $stranger += 1>><<if $stranger is 1>>Is the guest asleep? I cannot tell if their eyes are open or closed. Their half-lidded milky meniscus.\n\n[[...|parlor_hub]]<<endif>><<if $stranger is 2>>"Is my sister around?"\n\nThey smile, the corners of their eyes crinkling up. Do they even understand the language I speak?\n\n[[...|parlor_hub]]<<endif>><<if $stranger is 3>>A half-eaten [[scone]] is on the table between us. Is it their scone? My sister's?<<endif>>

Have I neglected to describe this guest? It is because I do not wish to.\n\n[[...|parlor]]

//<<if $wall is 0>>A wall like the stones along a pasture<<endif>><<if $wall is 1>>A reasonable wall, capable of withstanding a battering ram<<endif>><<if $wall is 2>>A wall with a shadow like a dark canal<<endif>><<if $wall is 3>>A mountainous wall, putting hers to shame<<endif>><<if $wall is 4>>A wall that separates the stars themselves<<endif>>, with <<if $detailing gte 0>>a layer of ivy<<endif>><<if $detailing gte 1>>, splotches of tar<<endif>><<if $detailing gte 2>>, crows gathered on the rim<<endif>><<if $detailing gte 3>>, ragged banners<<endif>><<if $detailing gte 4>>, great pits in the distance from which the stones were hewn<<endif>>, and <<if $ambience is 0>>a light mist<<endif>><<if $ambience is 1>>a rolling fog<<endif>><<if $ambience gte 2>>a raging stormcloud<<endif>><<if $ambience gte 3>>, moon dripping crimson effulgence<<endif>><<if $ambience gte 4>>, and ripples of heat from infernal holes along the base<<endif>>.//\n\n<<if $count gte 5>>[[Done.|done]]<<else>>It needs more...\n<<if $wall gte 4>>Enough wall.<<else>>[[Wall|paint][$wall += 1;$count += 1]]<<endif>>\n<<if $detailing gte 4>>Sufficient detailing.<<else>>[[Detailing|paint][$detailing += 1;$count += 1]]<<endif>>\n<<if $ambience gte 4>>Suitable ambience.<<else>>[[Ambience|paint][$ambience += 1;$count += 1]]<<endif>><<endif>>

Even at that age I knew skiing was a waste of time. But there was no use convincing her or mother. All I could do to register my protest was confine myself to the <<replace "hotel room">>hotel room and build a dossier of the cleaning lady's negligence<<endreplace>>, or the <<replace "bathroom">>bathroom, where I set the hot water until I disappeared in the steam<<endreplace>>, or <<replace "downstairs">>downstairs, scrounging the continental breakfast til well after the Cenozic era. I was a sickly, sweets-mongering child, and no one expected me to grow quite so tall and cruel<<endreplace>>.\n\n[[...|den]]

A brutal metal cylinder is lodged through the concrete walls of the [[entrance|parlor]] hallway. I duck.

A dreadful monument of stainless steel, like a cheaply replaced tooth in the otherwise aristocratic mouth of the parlor.\n\n[[...|parlor_hub]]

The white noise of the train [[swallows|void][$dest = "swallows"]] up my car.

Has a plinking survived the migration through the lacquered brown sea? I can't tell from the vibration of the house itself.\n\nThe heavy frame exists to obliterate sound. Mother always hoarded her notes, as if the servants would pick them off the floor and pilfer them like silverware.\n\n[[...|The piano room]]

I entered the auction room early, while the curtains were drawn and the lights were dim.\n\n[[Two black shapes]].

Ashes.\n\n[[...|wall]]

'43 Balticore Sensua. I bought it with the money from the Rangstroth performance, and the smell of resin has never quite washed out.\n\n[[...|swallows]]

<<replace "A roaring behemoth grinds across the road.">>A freight train chugs across the bridge, a wall of vandalized metal obscuring my path.\n\nThe sound [[disturbs|sink]] me, as if the inner workings of my heart were turned to sound for the world to hear.<<endreplace>>

<<if $den_light is false>>It's dark in here.\n\n[[Turn on the light|den][$den_light = true]]\n\n[[Leave|Walk the house]]<<else>>A hunting rifle hangs from the wall. Golf clubs and racquets. I don't think she played, they must be relics of [[mother]].\n\nThere are no [[skiis|snow]].\n\n[[Leave|Walk the house]]<<endif>>

Cannot be made available? What does that mean? Out of stock? A shipping error? The entire company was marched out back and shot?\n\n"Make it available, Bellidine."\n\n"Well-"\n\n[[The carrot]]\n\n[[The stick]]

She is not so far from me. But the path is [[windy and dark]].

This mansion was bought with [[bee money]]. A classic, old world building ruined by her questionable taste in [[decor|materials]].\n\n[[The piano room]] and [[the athletics den|den][$den = true]] face each other across a circular chamber floored with [[mosaic]].\n\nStairs spill from the [[second floor]].\n\n[[Return to the parlor|parlor_hub]]

But no spike juts from her guest's mouth, not even a tongue.\n\n[[...|parlor]]

<<replace "Dead flowers hang their heads over the rim of a vase.">>Aspiration becomes neglect.<<endreplace>> <<replace "An ottoman, rain-damaged.">>The desire to see herself as someone who cares for plants, who stares at sunsets.<<endreplace>>\n\n[[...|The balcony]]

Or maybe that's just a particularly enthusiastic impasto.\n\nNo, it's not about the damage. It's what it reminds me of.\n\n[[Memory rises like a tide, washing away my physical surroundings|weather]]

I find myself wishing they would eat it, as if that would reveal some essential yet unvoiceable truth.\n\n[[...|parlor_hub]]

I soaked the paintings with a [[can of petrol]], lit my cigarette holder, then dropped the [[match]].

My sister and I went on a snow holiday once. I watched the skiers cut across the frosted slopes, hoping one of them would strike a rock and liven up this [[dull experience]].

I inspect her parlor, failing to find a particle of her.\n\nHer [[guest]] is seated on the couch, with a posture like they were [[impaled]] to it, a form of [[execution]] that seems right at home with my sister's aesthetic.\n\nI weigh my [[options|parlor_hub]].

She turned and said, "If you think you're so good at painting, why don't you try?"\n\n[[Scoff|answer]]\n[[Demure|answer]]

Before I could retort, she said, "I'll submit your painting and my painting to the event. We'll let an impartial public decide."\n\nI couldn't say no.\n\nA week later I sat before a [[blank canvas.|paint]]

"Can you come over? I need you to come over."\n\nHer voice slithers back into the phone where it lies coiled in a nest of compression snow, static building with the pressure to [[speak|spoke]] or be struck again.

"I don't care if you have to drive to the ends of the earth and personally scrape residue off the bottom of a rusty silo, I will have what I desire by the day of the performance."\n\nI delicately set the phone down on top of her voice, crushing it like a struggling fly.\n\n[[5 minutes of blessed solitude|silence]]

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One of those designs that doesn't mean anything.\n\n[[...|Walk the house]]

The paintings, <<replace "hung over with dark cloth.">>hulking in the center of the room like a pair of haunts.<<endreplace>>\n\nI watched them for a long time. Unresolved in their black clouds.\n\n[[Then acted.|soaked]]

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//So fresh\nSo fancy\nIt makes me want to\nDancy!!!//\n\nStupid vegetable.\n\n[[...|parlor_hub]]

//When leaving a place of darkness\ndo not be surprised if you only find the sky\nand no path to earth//\n\n[[...|The balcony]]

Locked up tight, and guarded by a fierce-looking battalion of dust.\n\n[[...|The piano room]]

Hills and forest, and a dirt road to infiltrate them by.\n\nMy driving gloves grip the wheel with the air of a woman who has seen the wreckage of a fine car at the bottom of an undeserving gully.\n\n[[Minutes of glorious silence pass|secretary]]

Her interior designer converted the old mansion into something like an abstract of a battlefield - caltrops, anti-tank spikes, concertina wire - defanged and sculpted. How many crimes can art turn to beauty?\n\n[[...|Walk the house]]

Leather grip steeped in matriarch palm sweat.\n\n[[...|den]]

I [[pause]] on the threshold.

The [[balcony]] overlooks the black sea of the forest, delineated only by a <<if $painted is true>>cold slice of moon-wintered horizon<<else>>red sliver of cloud-encumbered evening<<endif>>.\n\nFor some reason I think of that [[old poem]] written so many centuries ago.\n\n[[Depart the balcony|second floor]]