Chapter 12 – Through a Camera Lens

I’m not standing up when I wake up. My legs can’t keep me up. My hand automatically goes to breast and I literally start sobbing when I can feel it, when I realize that they haven’t actually cut it. I know it’s not a hand or a leg, I know that in the grand scheme of things, losing a boob isn’t that dramatic, but I can’t help crying over it.

I’m sitting down, crossed legs and I’m shaking and I need to hold on to my legs, lifting them up, resting my forehead against my knees.

I don’t think I can keep this up. The first few paintings were absolutely horrible but I’ve never felt as violated as I did in the last one. I can’t even begin to imagine how I would react if I had actually lost my boob. I should start carrying a blade on myself so I can kill myself quickly so that if I ever have to go through something awful I can end it on my own terms next time.

But thinking about this doesn’t make things alright. I’m not alright.

I’m about three audible sobs from rocking back and forth on the ground, that’s how messed up I am at the moment.

“Wow, it’s the first time that one of my hallucinations has a nervous breakdown. I’ve got to admit, it’s kind of refreshing.”

I look up at the owner of the voice. She looks about my age, with short blond hair and piercing green eyes. She’s petite and wearing overalls covered in paint and she has brushes sticking out from every pockets. “Excuse me?”

“Your breakdown,” she motions towards me, “it’s refreshing.”

I frown. “I’m not confused about the breaking down part. I’m quite aware of what’s happening to me. I’m confused about the hallucination part.”

She shakes her head, with the shadow of a laugh on her lips. “Of course you are. My hallucinations never think they’re hallucinations.”

“I’m not a hallucination…” I ponder over that for a second. Am I a hallucination? I might appear as so for the people in the paintings. Maybe after Gustave woke up the next morning after I disappeared he convinced himself I was just a dream. “Well, I don’t think so. At least, I don’t think that’s how it works. If anything, you’re the hallucination.”

This time she actually laughs. “That’s a new line too. No one played that card yet,” she says and grabs a bottle, twisting off the cap and popping pills in her mouth.

“You have hallucinations?” I ask, trying to get a clearer picture of who I’m dealing with. She looks none threatening. She looks like the kind of doll I could have wanted when I was a little girl. But that doesn’t mean she won’t try to harvest my organs in three seconds.

“What gave it away?” she asks.

I nod my head to the bottle still in her hand. “You’re taking medication?”

“Yeah.” She shakes it and I can hear the pills clinging against each other. “It doesn’t always work, but it’s a start.”

I get up, extending my hand. I’m proud to see it isn’t shaking. “I’m Melody.”

“Tanya,” she answers and shakes it. “Are you done with your breakdown Melody?”

It’s funny to hear someone say my name, and even more so from her. For some reason she seems to pronounce it carefully, like saying my name is important and she must not mess it up.

“Probably not.” I sigh and I feel like crying and laughing at the same time. I might be doing it a little actually. Okay, yeah I’m totally crying and laughing right now. “I’m going to need some serious therapy when this curse ends… if this curse ends…”

What if it never ends? What if I’m stuck here for the rest of my life?

“Curse?”

I look at Tanya’s eager face. What’s the harm in telling a girl that has hallucinations about what’s happening to me? I told Gustave and he took it pretty well, so what’s the harm in thinking she might too. Worst case scenario she kills me and I wake up elsewhere. “Yes, curse. I set a museum on fire so I’ve been curse to live in paintings until… well until I pay for what I did I guess.”

She frowns, her hands on her hips. “So you don’t know how to break the curse?”

I shrug. “I don’t think I can break the curse.”

She waves at this. “You can always break the curse. That’s sort of the whole point isn’t it?”

It’s my turn to frown. “I don’t know.”

“Have you been watching Once Upon a Time?”

“No… why?”

“According to that TV show true-love’s kiss can break any curse.”

I laugh at that. That’s grand. Even if Jarvis was the love of my life I doubt I’ll have a chance of kissing him in the near future. And either way, for some reason, I don’t think he is. I care for him, I do, love him even, but I don’t think it’s true love between me and him, I don’t think our feelings are strong enough to break a curse. I think we love each other realistically—the way normal people should, the way you should love when things like curses don’t exists. “Well, we’re out of luck because I don’t have a true love.”

It’s kind of sad to say out loud.

“That’s awful,” Tanya pouts. I kind of agree.

“Do you have a true love?” I ask her.

“Of course!”

I chuckle at how enthusiastically she answered me. “Who is it?”

“You’re looking at them,” she tells me and gestures around the room at the canvas covered with paint.

“Your paintings?”

“Yep.” She presses her hand against her heart. “They’re all I’ll ever need.”

It’s kind of beautiful for her to say this. It’s also a little sad in some way. It has to be lonely, only surrounding yourself with paintings. I know I often feel lonely and I have Jarvis around. It makes me wonder about why I’m in this painting. Tanya seems sane-ish, I mean aside form the whole hallucination thing. I doubt she’s out to get me, so if she isn’t then what’s the point in being here? Is this another break, like with Gustave?

“Do you usually kill your hallucinations?” I suddenly ask.

“Woah,” Tanya laughs. “Talk about sudden change of conversation.”

“I’m sorry,” I automatically say.

She waves at me. “Don’t be. And no, I don’t hurt my hallucinations. Usually they hurt me.” She furrows her brows for a second, contemplating something. “Or I hurt me I guess.”

“So, you don’t plan on stabbing me, or slitting my throat or skinning me alive?”

Now she looks at me like I’m seriously crazy. “Nooooooot any time soon, no.”

I let out a relieved breath. “Oh thank god.” I don’t think I can deal with another sudden death at the moment. I’m still holding on to my boobs.

Tanya takes a step towards me, her hand extending towards my arm. “Is that what’s been happening to you?”

“Yeah, basically.” I shrug like it’s no big deal, but it is, it sooo is. “I end up in random paintings and I stay there until I get killed or I pass out. Or fall asleep, but that hasn’t happened that often.”

“That sounds awful.”

I snort. “It is.” Awful. That’s what art is for me. Awful.

“So, you’re in one of my paintings now?”

“I guess,” I tell her. This confuses me too. She looks like a painter so it would make sense that she’s the one painting this picture.

“Probably that one,” she points to a huge canvas that looks like a camera. The camera looks old and it completely fills the canvas. And in the small part of the canvas where the viewfinder is, you can see this whole room and Tanya standing in it, painting. It’s kind of eerie to look at. I’m seeing the world I’m in through that camera.

“It’s lovely,” I whisper.

“Thank you,” she says from behind me.

I turn to look at Tanya. “And the fact that you’re not out to decapitate me really makes it that much more likable.”

“And here I thought I was the one that had problems.” She shakes her head and presses her hand on my arm. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“Out of here,” she answers and we make our way to the door. “I’m assuming that you don’t exactly like paintings at the moment and the last thing I need is for you to set fire to my lovely babies.” She closes the door of the studio behind me and we’re now standing in a living room. There are high ceilings and the place is kind of a nice mess—there are things lying around everywhere, but they all seem to be where they should be—nothing matches and everything seems like it’s already lived two lives. “So we’re going to binge watch Once Upon a Time so you can learn how to break a curse,” she explains and heads for her TV, grabbing a DVD case.

“I doubt I’ll get an answer in a TV show,” I point out.

“I doubt you’ll get it while watching me paint too. And I could use the break.”

And that’s how I finally end up asleep on a couch, belly full with the pizza Tanya had delivered, lines from Once Upon a Time softly ringing in my head.