It was as if the paint dripped from the canvas. A nightmarish scene. She reached out to touch the artwork, but in the act, everything receded deeper into the dream.

She sat upright in her bed. The room was dark. Nothing made sense. She felt a need to drink water. The tap water was cold and sent shivers down her spine. But the dream lingered. The otherwordly emotions stayed with her. She could smell the paint, she could smell the artworks that hung on the wall. The familiar space of her art classes haunted her. The face of K remained as a strange safe haven. She still did not know who he was but she knew that somehow he was a safe space, a place of knowledge.

***

That morning, she got out of bed feeling the weight of the day pressing down on her shoulders. She smelled the flowers of her father in the dustbin and the accompanying hatred that followed.

The coffee tasted bitter; but in a glimmer of hope, she thought about cleaning her house. The familiar phrase of her mother rang in her mind: A happy mind is a happy house. A happy house was a clean one in her mind. She picked up all of the wine bottles, the memories of drunken nights. She saw the books of Camus decorating her kitchen table, a brief reminder of the various philosophical questions she could not answer on her own.

The dustbin overcrowded with wine bottles distorted the image of the flowers which her dad brought her. It was a distant memory of the past. But the past grabbed at her as if the constant reminder could infiltrate her mind. She pushed aside the memories the best she could, but they remained. The memories of her sister remained as well. Why did she think about her sister? Why could she not forget? Why did all of the memories way so much on her shoulders? She longed for the moment of disassociation, of being drunk, of releasing whatever emotions kept her back. But she wanted to be stronger than the urge to grab the bottle, she wanted to be better than her older self. But she did not know how to.

***

The next morning's dreams were similar. The paint dripped from the canvas, freshly made dreams, but she could not see the art, nor could she smell it. K was not there, but she could swear that the art was his. She has not seen his artworks, but from her intuition and her dreams, she knew she dreamt of his artworks. But why? Why this mysterious figure? Why did this man, who introduced her to these philosophical ideas, occupy her dreams like this? Plus, why could she not drink away these feelings, these things that took over her mind? She did not know how to deal with these emotions besides reaching for the nearest and cheapest bottle.

But she could not. She threw away all of the bottles, most of the alcohol in her apartment was flushed; all of the old bottles went into the trash next to the flowers her father sent her. The remainder of the old was thrown away; the new was infiltrating and penetrating her life. Camus and the philosophical questions overwhelmed her; but not in the sense that it debilitated her. Instead, in a profoundly contradictory and strange way, it inspired new vigor in her to take her own life and make something of it. And in a strange way, the mysterious K figure featured in it.

---

Postscriptum

Fiction is a strange thing; normal life bleeds into it. Seeing my other half mesmerized behind the artworks of a local artist, J.H. Pierneef, I could not help but write her into the story of Maya who is taken over by these philosophical and artistic memories.

Art is this strange thing that takes over our lives. But we cannot help it. It just has this thing of taking over everything we do. Art becomes, as it were, a lifestyle. You become an artist, but as soon as you turn into an artist, everything in your life changes. You see yourself differently.

But that aside, I hope you enjoyed this week's Modulation or chapter. I am still hoping to write a novel based on this story. But this is obviously my dream. Dreams sometimes become reality!

In any case, happy reading, and stay safe!

The photographs used in this post are my own taken with my Nikon D300 camera. The story is also my own creation, albeit a production of a slight intoxication!