Paintings of Empty Rooms

This story originally appeared in Dublin's World on January 21st. Since then it has been edited by my good friend Richard Handel and polished by myself. Many of the changes are subtle but contribute to the flow and, I feel, improve it very much.

1
Paul has always painted well but never introduces himself as a painter since his work has never sold or been hung for public enjoyment. He sits behind the counter at Best Regards Flower Shop, where he works, and day dreams of being an artist whos name people might one day recognize and possibly respect. Calls for flowers interrupt his thoughts, but once he has filled out the orders and passed them to Clare in the back for assembly he retakes his position behind the counter and falls back into the vision where he left off.
Six o’clock comes and he dons his black jacket and slowly walks around the lake in the center of the city to return to the apartment he shares with his girlfriend Helen. He walks slowly, dragging his feet, and takes his time because once he gets home he will have to paint. The problem is that he has no idea what. His mind is devoid of inspiration, dragging him down, his feet barely coming off of the ground.
When he gets in the door of the apartment he takes off the jacket, and after a beer, stands in front of a blank canvas on his easel. He’s proud of himself for the discipline he shows by always going to the easel and standing before it. He stares at the canvas for some time and then looks around at the rejects and half painted sketches that sit around the room gathering dust. Many of them are recreations of scenes from magazines with mythological themes added. He examines these failures for several minutes, waiting for their value to reveal itself, until he decides he will try something in a fresh direction and turns back towards the canvas. He stares again, looking deeper and deeper, probing into its very fiber, waiting for what he will paint to sprout from his imagination until he hears Helen’s key turn in the lock of the apartment and she is home from work.
Together, they sit at the small yellow dining table in the kitchen nook and eat dinner. They take turns cooking but have run out of ideas, their meals having become a limited series of five different dishes. They talk, at least Helen does, mostly about her job and her brother who is having problems with his wife and is suffering in a dysfunctional marriage. Paul listens but not closely because he has heard it before. He and Helen have been together for two and a half years and rarely go out for dinner because they have agreed to save money to get a house.
They go to bed after brushing their teeth and both of them fall asleep quickly. On occasion, they stay up, and Helen will turn towards Paul while he attempts to make love to her. He tries not to think of his painting and lack of inspiration but it always enters his head and he performs poorly. She looks away from him, at the wall, waiting for something significant to happen.

On his days off Paul walks to the park near the apartment and sits on one of the benches waiting for inspiration. He watches the Goldeneye ducks make their way around the park’s pond. He enjoys them but has no interest in painting them and he watches the mothers push the strollers and the children play along the grass and the old Filipino man drop pieces of bread for the birds. The park is comforting to Paul and he spends hours there but never leaves with any inspiration or an idea for a painting.
One day, while he is sits at his regular bench, he sees Alfred, an acquaintance from high school he has not seen for many years, jogging along side the pond. They realize what a small world it is when Alfred reveals he has a friend who works at the same company where Helen works. Paul is happy to hear that Alfred himself works as the manager of a new art gallery in the warehouse district, one that Paul has heard of but not attended. The two men discuss the current state of art with much agreement and shared passion and Alfred relates to Paul that he remembers his paintings from school and was always impressed by them. He is glad to hear that Paul still paints and asks to see some of his work.
They take the four block walk back to the apartment and every step is one of dread and regret for Paul. He wishes he had never mentioned his painting at all. He knows that as soon as Alfred sees his work he will recognize it for all its cliche and lack of inspiration. He tries to think of an excuse not to go home but his mind is as blank as the new canvas and soon they are in the main room looking over his old work.
Alfred stands very still and keeps a respectful silence with his arms crossed, rubbing a finger along the length of his mustache. When he speaks he is honest and describes the work as rather dull and uninspired. Paul is impressed by the frankness of the criticism and is grateful when Alfred tells him that, although it’s not ready now, he senses something developing in Paul’s work that just hasn’t arrived yet. He gives Paul a sleek looking business card with a phone number and an e-mail before leaving the apartment.
Paul is spurred on by Alfred’s criticism and begins to paint on the blank canvas. He randomly applies different colors and he throws strokes of blue and green within flares of yellows and reds and violets. He doesn’t hear Helen when she comes home and he doesn't smell the dinner she cooks or notice when she has gone to bed. He works all night and when the sun begins to creep up in the window of the main room he stops and looks at all the colors and random marks spread about the canvas and knows that he has not painted something good or original, just a mess of colors forced together in desperation.
He goes to work pale and bleary eyed and cannot concentrate as customers come in and the phone rings with orders. People order flowers for retirements and baby showers and birthdays and Paul is slow and overwhelmed. He is too tired to conjure up any day dreams or think of painting at all and each passing minute is torture. When six o’clock comes he is relieved to shuffle into his coat, but when he gets out the door and begins to make his way along the street he realizes that the bad painting will be waiting for him in the apartment. He slows his pace and decides to take the long way around the lake even though it is cold outside and he is very tired.
When he gets in the door he expects the painting to be the first thing he sees but is surprised to find Helen’s face looking at him from the main room instead. She has come home early and Paul senses something strange in the room. She does not kiss him but instead takes a deep breath before informing him that she is leaving him. He can stay in the apartment, she will find her own place, but she wants no drama and doesn’t want to discuss it.
Paul demands to know why and she waits to answer, looking him in the eye, trying to decide if he is worthy of a reason. She says that it is time for a change and they both have become complacent in the relationship. Paul tries to argue, tries to think of something that will prove that he at least has not become complacent and is therefore not at fault. He stutters over his words and as he stutters he comes to realize that he doesn’t much care if she leaves or stays. He stops short and tells her that he is unhappy with her decision but accepts it and they hug awkwardly, both proud of the maturity they show the other.
That night she sleeps in the bed and he sleeps in the lazy boy chair in the corner of the main room, among his unfinished paintings. He has vivid fantasies of himself as the spurned lover, the tortured artist, and he can not sleep, almost giddy with the possibilities. He will paint beautiful models and they will spend the night with him and talk about art; not their job or their brother’s awful marriage.

The next day is Saturday and Helen moves out with all of her belongings including the small yellow dining table that they have always used for their dinners. She says she will store her things and stay with her friend April until she finds her own place. April stands at the door, waiting as Helen looks at Paul with a forced smile that fails to mask her disappointment. Paul resents the look. It’s not his fault she feels like she has wasted the last few years. He was put on earth to paint, not to be a boyfriend.
He watches through the window in the main room as the two women drive off in April’s Scion and then he goes to the easel. Now it is only him and his painting. He walks to the art store downtown, buys a new canvas, and marches it back to the apartment. He places it on the easel and the whiteness of the new canvas makes him feel refreshed and ready for the future. He doesn’t want to just throw colors together like he did after Alfred’s visit. He stands in front of the canvas and waits for a real idea to come. He watches it, waiting, and then sits in the lazy boy chair to rest his eyes. When he opens them again it’s the next day and he has to go to work.
He finds himself enjoying the flower shop, chatting with the customers, and being pleasant and steady with Clare. The idea of going home and painting is always waiting on the perimeter of his mind but when he returns to the empty apartment he is exhausted. He looks at the canvas and then looks around the surrounding room which seems larger now without Helen’s belongings. When the apartment no long interests him he goes to the window and watches the people go in and out of the bar across the street.
On his days off he goes to the park and although he enjoys it there he still does not leave with any ideas for a painting. He eats his meals alone in the lazy boy chair in the main room. He finds it boring eating alone and drags out some of the books about artists that he bought in school. He reads them while he eats. Some of his favorite artists lived lives filled with adversity and tragedy and it makes him wonder if that is why he can not paint, that his life has been too easy and monotonous.

2
A month goes by and the canvas remains blank. Paul continues to enjoy his time at the flower shop but realizes the enjoyment comes from the job distracting him from painting. The neighbors down the hall in his building, Adena and Raul, invite him to dinner and he is glad to go since it will take him away from the blank canvas. At dinner Adena describes the preparations for her and Raul’s wedding in the spring and then becomes solemn because she thinks it may depress Paul after his break up. He appreciates her sentiment but thinks it silly. Their wedding does not upset him because he is free and soon he will be painting.
Without someone to help with the rent and other expenses Paul is forced to live on an even tighter budget. He gets some satisfaction out of this because his school books describe many of his favorite artists as living modestly. He eats noodles out of Styrofoam and watches the canvas, waiting for ideas. He moves all his old paintings and sketches into one corner of the main room and piles them up on top of each other which makes the apartment seem even bigger and makes him feel freer.
One day, while sitting at his regular park bench, he sees Alfred jogging by the pond again. When Alfred asks about his painting Paul lies and says that it is going well. Alfred tells him he was sorry to hear about his break up with Helen through his friend at the company and Paul says it’s fine, it’s freed up his time to get more work done. Alfred asks if he has met Helen’s new boyfriend and Paul has to take a moment before saying no. It’s obvious to Alfred that Paul was unaware of the relationship and he apologizes.
Paul walks home, letting the idea that Helen is seeing someone new fully develop in his mind. He tries to tell himself that he’s happy for her. For a while he doesn’t feel much of anything and then, with a pang, he thinks of the little yellow dining table that they always ate on and he pictures someone else sitting with Helen, talking over dinner. He tells himself that it is just his ego that is hurt, nothing else. Sure, she is talking to someone, but all she is talking about is her work and her brother’s bad marriage and at least he doesn’t have to listen to it. When he tells himself this he feels better.
That night he goes to the little bar across the street and has a few drinks by himself. There is a girl sitting by herself just down the bar from him and he starts a conversation with her. She is nice enough to smile and nod and reply to his questions and statements. He orders them both a round and then another and then another. Paul moves to the stool next to the girl and he is speaking loud when he tells her love is a myth that was created by movies and advertising. He tells her that he is free and that others lock themselves into prisons made of delusions and false expectations.
Paul has two more drinks before he realizes that the girl has gone and the bartender is telling him that they are closing. He stumbles home, his vision going in and out of focus as he climbs the stairs of his building. He passes out in the lazy boy chair. When he awakes the next morning his head pounds and his tongue feels and tastes like a piece of leather. He is too hung over to paint or do much of anything and when the sun goes down he goes to bed as well.
He wakes up at five o’clock that morning thinking of Helen. He has the distinct impression that he was dreaming of her but he can’t remember. He lies in the bed, sweats, then feels cold, and then sweats again. He has never been unable to sleep before and it irritates him. The sunlight gradually begins to stream into the apartment and the dread of the morning forces him up and out of the bed.
He goes to a coffee shop and has to wait for it to open because it’s Sunday and nobody is up or on the street. While sitting with his coffee he decides to call Helen, and on the way home, he does. It goes to voice mail and he hangs up. He sits in the apartment and waits for her to call back. He goes to the park and sits with his phone on the bench next to him. He goes home in the evening and sits in the lazy boy and tries to remember what Helen was really like as a person but he hadn’t paid enough attention the last year or so and it’s hard to remember.
He wakes up the next morning and checks his phone but there are no missed calls. He is paralyzed in the bed and calls into work sick. He stays in the bed until he forces himself up to make coffee and to send Helen an e-mail. He writes that he is sorry about what happened and that he would like to talk about it. This makes him feel good enough to eat ramen noodles and macaroni and cheese and he spends the day looking out the window at the people walking by. Some of the girls look a lot like Helen with similar hair and walks. He turns away from the window and the apartment no longer seems big, just cold.

Two days later Helen replies to his e-mail. She writes only two sentences; the first saying it is good to hear from him and the second saying it would not be a good idea to see each other. He goes to the bed and stays there until the morning but can’t remember if he slept or not. He curses Helen out loud and is ashamed. He forces himself up and off to work. He sits behind the counter and is able to distract himself with orders until they run out and the day becomes slow.
It begins to rain outside and at six o’clock, he dons his black jacket and walks around the lake in the rain. When he gets home he removes all of his wet clothes and stands in the main room. The rain has picked up and is pounding against the window. He feels thin and empty but not hungry. He thinks of Helen and feels like he is wasting away.
It is very cold in the room and he takes a few steps forward and begins to sketch on the blank canvas with a pencil. He sketches out three walls of a room and then mixes some paints together and begins to color it. He paints until he has created an empty room but it doesn’t look quite right. He paints in the yellow dining table with two plates, one clean and the other covered in a half eaten meal. The sun is up when he finishes and he looks at the canvas in the morning light and recognizes that he has painted something very sad. It makes him feel better; like a weight lifting inside him.
He goes to work and counts off the hours until he can return to the apartment. When he gets home he paints over one of his old sketches and creates another empty room, this one with the slight shadow in the corner of someone leaving. He works all night again and when he goes to the flower shop the next morning he can barely keep his eyes open. He makes mistakes on orders and receives harsh words from Clare in the back who has never raised her voice to him.
He spends money he doesn’t have on new paints and brushes and fresh canvases. Weeks go by as he paints through the night and comes to work late, bleary eyed and always exhausted. This goes on for almost a month until the owner of Best Regards shows up and tells Paul that he is being let go. Clare comes out from the back to tell him that she will miss him but he barely notices, his mind already taken up with the next empty room he will paint.
He works all day and night now, coming up with ideas on how to create scenes of people’s loneliness and failures with out showing the people themselves. He paints books left open on chairs, empty bottles neglected under tables, photographs on dressers left face down in their frames, and he continues to play with the shadows of human figures leaving the frame.
He has no income and is dangerously low in his savings but all that matters is the work. He goes to the park for fresh air and thinks of painting and when he is not thinking of painting he thinks of Helen. He imagines her in her new relationship and that she is unhappy and lonely and that she thinks of him.
One night he paints another empty room but adds a photograph hanging from the far wall. He paints Helen’s face onto the picture, half covered in shadow. He makes her look sad and dejected and realizes that the face looks more like his own and less like Helen.

3
One day Paul sees Alfred again in the park, jogging alongside the pond. Alfred is surprised by Paul’s appearance, he looks much thinner and more pale than he looked the last time they saw each other. Paul tells him he would like Alfred to take a look at some of his new work. Alfred is hesitant at first, saying that he doesn’t have a lot of time, but Paul is desperate, almost begging him until he agrees. They go to the apartment and the main room is filled with paintings. Paul makes his way around, taking in each scene individually, rubbing his finger along his mustache. At first many of the new paintings seem similar, some almost identical, but as he takes his time and concentrates on each one individually he sees that every scene is intriguing in its own way with its own unique life and story.
Alfred does not speak for a long time and finally looks away from the canvasses and sits down in the lazy boy chair. He continues to sit in silence and Paul becomes overcome with shame, realizing he has allowed another person to see his fears and pathetic loneliness. He is surprised when Alfred finally speaks and tells him it is some of the best work he has ever seen. He offers Paul an exhibit in a new art show going up that very week. He reveals that by presenting Paul’s work he will be bumping another artist who is more established and better known than Paul but that he thinks it is important that people see the paintings of empty rooms.
In the few days leading up to the gallery show Paul is filled with doubt. He looks at his new paintings and tries to imagine if anyone will understand them. He’s not sure if he understands them himself. He wonders if Alfred is letting him into the show solely out of pity. When people see the paintings, what will they think of him, the person that created them? Will they think his is pathetic, wallowing in self pity and fear, even crazy? He thinks about calling Alfred to ask if it is necessary that he be there at the opening but decides against it. He thinks about calling Helen and asking her to come and even picks up the phone with her number on the screen but decides against it as well.
The night of the opening is heavily attended. One of the other three artists featured in the show is well known for his paintings of animals made out of machines and many people come to view his work. The crowd streams in the door, queues up to the flinty wine, and then files towards the established artist’s work before scattering around the gallery to view the lesser known paintings.
As the night goes on, more and more people gather around Paul’s paintings, until there is a congestion in that part of the room. Older men look the paintings up and down until they seem to have some sort of realization and they go back to the first painting to start the series again. A young woman looks at a painting of a room with the shadows of an adult and child in the bottom corner and tears begin to flow down her cheeks. A group of students get into an animated discussion with an older couple about the meaning of one of the paintings until the couple become angry with the students and buy the painting out of spite.
Three of Paul’s painting are bought before Alfred suggests that they knock the price up. Even with the higher price four more paintings are purchased until there is only the painting with the photo of the girl left. An older woman approaches Paul and asks if he is the artist and when he admits that he is she takes his hand and looks into his eyes for a full minute until black tears are pushing through her mascara. Other people seek him out as well and use words like “profound” and “honest” when praising his work. He nods in appreciation and swallows, trying to dislodge the lump of disappointment in his throat that has developed from Helen not showing up.
Alfred introduces Paul to a man that wants to show Paul’s work at a private function in his home the following month and Paul agrees. He works tirelessly for the next twenty days, creating new paintings of rooms that feature the same mysterious and indefinable loneliness that defined his previous work. He is paid handsomely for the gallery show and is paid well again for showing his work at the man’s home which is a loft in a high building overlooking the lake.
Paul has bought a new suit and stands around drinking champagne as people with expensive clothes and jewelry mill around the loft conversing and taking long looks at his paintings. He notices a woman watching him from across the room and when they make eye contact she approaches him and introduces herself as Christine. They talk about his work and she confides to him that it is hard for her to describe it except to say that it evokes a deep rooted sense of loss and yearning that she has not felt for years that she thought was buried long ago. She half jokes that she’s mad at him for unearthing that feeling in her and they drink champagne together for the remainder of the evening.
He goes home with Christine and, while lying next to her in bed while she soundly sleeps, he watches the moonlight stream through the window blinds. He thinks of Helen and imagines her doing simple things in her new home, like sweeping and cooking breakfast. It makes his chest hurt.

Although Paul and Christine begin to see each other regularly, Paul slowly realizes that she irritates him. She is very beautiful but she comes from money and speaks in a flamboyant way, using words that Paul isn’t familiar with. She sometimes accompanies him on walks to the park but instead of enjoying the day in silence and watching the ducks she feels the need to talk about a restaurant she went to or a pretty dress she is going to buy. Too often, when he is alone and painting with inspiration, she interrupts him with a call just to say hello. This is especially irritating because he is stuck on a new painting that he can’t quite finish. It is of an empty room, and just as good as his past work, but there is something missing.
They have been seeing each other for two months when Paul has some of his work shown at a large exhibition downtown. Christine stays on his arm all night and her voice and topics of conversation grate on him. At one point the gallery owner and her partner are speaking to them near the entrance and Paul thinks he sees Helen coming in the front door. He steps away from the conversation in a panic and when he gets near the bar he sees it’s another girl with dark hair.
He does not pick up or return Christine’s calls after that night. He continues to work on the new painting but there is still something missing. He stands in the main room of the apartment staring at the half finished painting for a week before putting it to the side and starting on a new one.
A month later the wealthy man with the loft overlooking the lake asks Paul to show his work at another event and he agrees. He regrets it when he sees Christine in attendance. She makes her way over to him and demands to know what happened to them. He almost tells her about Helen but it has been nearly a year since Helen moved out and it feels ridiculous to admit how much her leaving has isolated him. He stands mute and Christine continues to wait for an answer until the stone in her face breaks away and Paul recognizes the unmasked devastation in her eyes as she leaves the room.
That night he picks up the canvas he had put to the side and paints in a mirror on the wall of the empty room. He paints a woman’s reflection into the mirror and he tries with all his skill and talent to recreate the look Christine gave him at the loft. The next day a journalist from the city paper comes to write a profile on him and she takes a picture of the painting with the mirror in it and Christine’s face. She asks him what he will sell that painting for and he tells her that he will keep it for himself.

A prestigious gallery dedicates an entire wall to Paul’s work and he attends the opening with Alfred who now serves as his representative. People Paul has never met approach him throughout the night and praise his work. Everyone explains to him their own interpretations of his paintings and they are much more complex and interesting than anything he could have thought to say. One man says it invokes a family and the collective grief over the death of one member. An old woman tell him that it seems that they are all about searching for a true home. More and more explanations are brought to his attention, all of them different and personal to the individual offering them up.
Paul drinks wine until his lips are numb and then makes an excuse to Alfred that he is not feeling well. He escapes the gallery through the front entrance and while he is preparing to cross the street he finds Helen walking up on the sidewalk.
“Hello,” she says.
“How are you?” he asks.
“Pretty good. You?”
“Not bad. Doing alright.”
“I was coming to see your show.”
“Really? That’s nice.”
“Are you leaving?”
“Yes.”
She nods and he wants to hold her close and explain all the pain and emptiness he has felt for the last year and how much he needs her and how much he regrets having ever lost her at all.
“I guess I’ll see you later.”
He turns and begins to walk away but she calls out to him and suggests they have coffee. All the cells in Paul’s body fall into place and he feels whole and renewed as they walk through downtown. They find a diner where they order coffee and pie and Helen talks in length about her job and her brother who’s marriage is still dysfunctional yet still undissolved. Paul takes in every word and responds with answers he’s thought about late at night when he couldn’t sleep and Helen is surprised by his insight and renewed interest in her life.
They laugh like the old friends they are and the world makes sense to Paul again. He feels like he felt when he was a young boy and his whole life was ahead of him and full of possibility. It doesn’t bother him when she mentions the boyfriend she is returning to that night. He doesn’t want to know the man’s name or what he does or what he looks like, all he cares about is the person in the booth with him. They talk for an hour, until Helen leaves, and Paul watches her disappear down the street and wonders to himself why he didn’t tell her anything.
He walks through the city alone and the world is as terrible and as beautiful as he ever imagined it to be. He enters the apartment and can’t remember how he got there. His mind is overcome with thoughts of a long and pitiless future. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands so he fills them with a brush and paints a new picture, a new room, all gray with the light of early morning. He paints himself in, sitting in the chair, alone in the corner, and he paints a sun in the window, red as blood. The sun could be coming up or it could be setting, Paul has no opinion, and the painting is his masterpiece.
When morning arrives he walks to the park and watches the Goldeneye ducks push their way through the pond, the mothers push the strollers, the children play along the grass, and the old Filipino man drop pieces of bread for the birds. Everyone is alone he decides, it is only how you deal with it that matters. He walks the long way home and picks up a new canvas, an afternoon of painting laid out in his mind in the day ahead.
He is surprised to find Helen waiting outside the apartment. She blurts out that she has left her boyfriend to return to Paul if he’ll have her. She follows him up to the apartment where he places the new canvas on the easel in the main room and they spend the next day and a half in bed. Helen takes the next week off from work and Paul uses some of his earnings to pay for two plane tickets to Miami where they take a cruise around the Caribbean. They lie on the beaches of the Cayman islands and hike through the Mayan ruins on the Yucatan peninsula. They spend two days in Jamaica where Helen asks him how he spent his time away from her and he explains that he did nothing but paint. She says that she is proud of him and he believes her, and for the first time Paul feels that they are equal in their relationship, both in love with the other for the first time.
They spend the last few days in their cabin, floating in the boat together. When the ship gets into port they catch a taxi to the airport and spend the flight back home drinking and enjoying the present moment. When they return to the apartment they make plans to retrieve Helen’s things from storage so that she can move back in, then she prepares and dresses for work. He kisses her at the landing and watches her descend the stairs, disappearing through the front door and out into the street.
The apartment feels more empty than it has ever felt before and Paul picks up a brush to make himself feel better. He stands in front of the blank canvas and holds the brush up but does not touch the canvas. He lets the brush fall. He waits for an idea to come, staring into the canvas. He waits and stares into the very fiber of it, oblivious to the noise outside on the street and his own hunger. He stares until the sound of Helen’s key can be heard from the door as she returns from work. The canvas continues to sit, blank.

THE END