An online novel by Gillette Edmunds

“Art isn’t one of my areas,” Michael said. “It doesn’t do anything for me one way or the other.” Noticing Barbara’s lime green, baggy, waistless dress, he remembered. “Say, Barbara, you left your shoes in my room and your jacket.”

She stood up and looked down at Michael, her lime dress hanging from her breasts, forming a tent around her body. “So do my shoes and jacket have couties or what Michael? I don’t care about clothes. Why does this painting seem so stupid to me, tell me that?”

“Well, sit down,” Michael said. “You’ll lose your seat.”

“I don’t want to Mr. Clarke,” Barbara said. They watched an elderly French lady take Barbara’s seat.

Michael looked up at Barbara. “Well, listen, Barbara, this all has to do with heaven as far as I can tell. Don’t worry about it. It’s all outdated as far as solving day-to-day problems. Psychology, science, medicine has all superseded it. I guess even back when all this was painted, the Church didn’t pay peoples’ bills for them. The church just had commandments and stuck to them and the world has passed it by.”

“I wish I was as rational as you,” Barbara said. “It makes me feel terrible to know that something so beautiful can’t do anything for me.” She turned towards the last judgment displayed graphically on the far wall and continued to talk. “It’s all concerned with what happens after you die. I’m terribly sad right now. Waiting it out till the hereafter is not what I believe in. Hardly anyone believes in that anymore. And that makes this beautiful painting so sinister. Those beautiful people and their huge problems are completely alien to me.” She turned back towards Michael and let her hands drop to her sides as her dark eyelids fell below her thick, proud eyebrows. “Alien just to me. To Barbara Ashe.” Her voice was beginning to crack. “That’s all. Not to everybody. Just to regular, little people who need something to make them feel better.”