LOST IN AMAZON

 I've been writing and self-publishing since 2013 and, through my own charming, un-pixie dreamgirl klutziness, I've gone through about eight phones since then. Other than debt collectors missing out on the pleasure of my company, this hasn't caused much of a blip in my life, until now. Amazon have been happy for the last ten years to let me change passwords as frequently as reality TV producers come up with dumb ideas to exploit the beautiful and fame hungry but now, for some un-Jeff Bazos reason, I'm persona non grata. Despite me confirming and re-confirming my details, dates published, etc, my 'request is still being processed,' which means I can't lower my prices or do any limited time offers to read my books for a discount or for free so you know what? I'm going to change my name to Crazy Mel and offer the stuff I've published thus far on here for free. Take that, captialism! (Just kidding, capitalism, I love you, mwa, mwa, mwa). Today's story is from a collection I published a few years back called Phoning It In. The idea for the book came to me as I was taking a picture of my headphones to return to the point of purchase because they felt like a vice around my head. Not sure if it's an original idea, but I thought, why not take a picture every day and spontaneously create a story about it? Kaleidoscope Bridge is a story that arose from a picture I took of a freeway overpass bridge with uncharacteristcally pretty green screening that, for some reason, got me thinking about art criticism. Yeah, who knows how my mind works?

KALEIDOSCOPE BRIDGE

‘When I’m critiquing a work of art, my grading is based on whether it adheres to the three R’s – Rhythm, Richness, and Resonance.’

Harold Henry, an art critic feared by artists the world over, was reading his most recent review aloud, to the astonished delight of the hundred or so gallery patrons who happened to be standing around the piece in question.

‘This piece adheres to the three D’s – Dullness, Derivation, and Disparity.’

The artist herself, Delphi De Luca, who had worked on the piece day and night for six months, was clearly hurt by Henry’s brief, bloody characterization of her work and so, by way of apology, Henry explained himself.

‘Do forgive me, dear girl, your piece would look just lovely in different surroundings; a gift shop or an airport lounge, for example, but when I view art I expect to be mesmerised, enchanted…hypnotized, if you will. I’m looking for a piece that will make me want to stop in my tracks, no matter where I happen to be. This one?’

He pointed over his shoulder at the piece.

‘This one makes me want to stop and ask where the little boy’s room is.’

The room erupted in laughter, and when the exhibition was over a month later, Delphi’s piece was the only one not sold. Delphi’s decision to quit her job at the bank to pursue art full time had proven to be just as foolish as her ex-husband said it was.

Crimson Cacophony was just the latest in a series of expensive doorstops littering Delphi’s home, and the dooming of each of them could be traced back to the sharp, verbose reviews of a man who had never picked up a brush in his life.

Delphi checked her mail when she got home: four envelopes with a big red Urgent stamp in the corner, and a letter from the Council of Visual Arts.

Delphi tore open the festive-looking envelope, only to read that she had lost the commission for which she was told she was a shoe-in.

Minette Burton, the artist who won the commission to paint the new freeway overpass, was greatly distressed when she heard news of Delphi De Luca’s suicide, and while no one person can ever be said to have been the sole reason for an obviously unwell person to have made such a decision, Henry’s ruthless targeting of Delphi’s oeuvre certainly didn’t hurt.

Henry was known in art circles as The Reaper, for his manner of cutting down young artists in their prime, and when a reporter asked for his comments on the tragedy, he sunk the knife in again through six feet of dirt.

‘At least the poor girl will be among her kind now, with all the other mid-level creators. I mean, let’s face it, all the best artists end up in Hell.’

Minette had a far more fitting place in mind for Harold Henry.

Spiritual Painting wasn’t a skill Minette listed on her resume – the only gallery owners who found those words attractive were bearded guys in hemp shirts, and she didn’t like to dip into the ancient reserves her birth had given her access to too often.

But this piece had to appeal to two audiences – Harold Henry, and everybody else. It needed to be worthy of the honour that had been bestowed upon Minette by the council, and accessible enough for the general public to appreciate, while incorporating a special little Easter Egg that would give Harold the jaw-dropping experience he was craving.

Seven months later, Kaleidoscope Bridge was unveiled to an adoring critical reception, a pleasantly surprised public appraisal and, on Harold Henry, an expression of stunned astonishment.

When an arts and leisure reporter, no doubt detecting the faint trace of blood, stuck her microphone in his face after asking for his opinion, the only sound byte she received was one which could best be described as a strangled wheeze.

Harold Henry’s eyes bulged in their sockets, his pupils spinning. His outstretched arms seemed to be attempting to embrace the enormous structure, and his mouth was locked open so wide that a thin line of drool was making its way down his shirt front.

‘My God,’ the reporter screamed, ‘he’s having a stroke!’

Harold Henry was not having a stroke, nor was he having a seizure. The closest anyone ever came to describing his debilitating (and permanent) condition was when a gallery owner named Storm Cloud came to the hospital to visit a friend and almost fell into a meals trolley.

‘He is on the mother of all bad trips!’

Harold Henry spent the rest of his life (so much as it could be called a life) in a convalescence home. He had the distinctions of being the youngest resident by ten years, and the most popular by far.

He never complained about the smell, didn’t protest when the ladies draped their god-awful knitting projects over him, and looked positively enraptured by the recycled plots of The Bold And The Beautiful.

But the shifting, changing shapes moving in a continuous pattern before Harold Henry’s eyes were ten times as arresting as the misadventures of the idiot rich.

Freakish blobs grew, split, and swam around clockwise, until the empty clock face folded in on itself, and the blobs were swallowed into a crevice, their neon green blood rushing out and splitting into brand new blobs, which started the film all over again.

The pulsing, humming, screaming soundtrack that accompanied the show moved through Harold’s right ear, out his left, and back in again, where it grew louder and louder until the deafening noise – a cacophony, if you will – suddenly came to a screeching halt with one final, blood-curdling scream joining the fray before the scene ended, and the words that were spewed forth could be heard clearly above the din despite the whizzing and popping that punctuated every syllable:

RHYTHM!

RICHNESS!

RESONANCE!