Life in Paintings

Chapter 10 - Dante and Virgil in Hell

Chapter 10 – Dante and Virgil in Hell

 

I’m mad when I wake up. I’m mad because I touch my stomach where the wannabe Queen of Hearts stabbed me and I feel a hole in my dress.

            The lunatic ruined Gustave’s mother's dress. It angers me, but it also saddens me. I ruined the dress. It’s the only material evidence I have that proves that in some way, the time I spent with him was real, that it mattered. But now the dress is ruined and I’ll never see the boy again. It surprises me how much this fact hurts. I got attached to the young boy in the short amount of time we spent together. If I ever get out of this curse I’ll have to look him up to see if he managed to become a great painter, if he did paint true things.

            This whole curse is a joke, it can’t be real, and I don’t know if the people I meet here exist outside of the paintings, if they keep on living even after I disappear from their paintings, but I’m sure I heard Gustave’s name before. If everything else vanishes, I hope I can at least find his name. It can become my goal—get out of this curse so I can see if Gustave became a painter.

            I don’t have time to dwell on all of this much more though because I realize where I am, and the only place it can be is Hell.

            I’m in Hell.

            It’s the only seemingly logical conclusion I can draw. I’m in an enormous pit lighted by a red sky, or maybe a grey sky reflecting all the fires burning under it, with many ditches or stones connected with bridges where people are tortured. People are getting torn apart by demons, some are concealed within individual flames, others pursued and bitten by snakes and lizards, I even see a bunch of them with their heads twisted around that walk backwards.

            This place is freaking crazy. And how exactly am I supposed to die in Hell? Isn’t Hell the result of dying? Who knows, maybe this is the final stop.

            I try not to get my hopes up though. Instead, I back up against the rocky slope behind me, and try to stay as inconspicuous as I can.

Almost everybody around me is naked and I’m suddenly even more grateful for my dress, ripped or not. I can’t believed I was so self centered that I didn’t realize right away where I was. It smells awful, like rotten eggs and shit.

            The particular stone where I’m standing with countless other people isn’t as crazy looking as most of the other things I see around, if people fighting to the death and ripping each other to shreds with their teeth isn’t crazy.

Most people are fighting together but two of them seem to attract my eyes more than the others. The fact that two other men wearing long cloaks are intensely fixating on them doesn’t help them.

They fight violently but I can’t help finding them beautiful. They’re magnificent even in the way they fight. They’re beautiful monsters. The one that has the upper hand looks elflike, with slightly pointed ears and a strangely shaped nose. His hair is not red, it’s orange and he’s digging his sharp teeth into the other man’s neck. There is no question here; he’s winning. He bites off a big chunk of skin off of the brown haired man, and spits it out while blood spurts from the wound.

The whole thing is gruesome but I barely register it. I’ve seen worse, way worse. And I’ve experienced worse, way worse. This worries me somehow. If this doesn’t affect me, what will? What am I turning into exactly if being dragged into Hell doesn’t make it into my top three of worst days?

“Who is she?” one of the two men wearing a long cloak asks his companion. They’re looking at me now. That doesn’t sound good for me.

“I do not know,” the other answers him.

I want to back away from them, but I can’t. I’m pressed against a rock. I have nowhere to go.

The elflike man is still panting from his previous fight but his sharp eyes fix on me.

“This isn’t your dress,” the man wearing the white cloak says, “Who did you steal it from? Who are you pretending to be? You’re a liar, an imposter. You’re not who you say you are. Who are you really? You’re a falsifier, a perjurer. You’re scum.”

Well, that escaladed quickly… I want to shout at him, but last time I shouted at someone, I got stabbed in the stomach, so maybe I should change my approach. Instead, I tell him, “Look, I’m seriously not having a great day, or week, or whatever. I don’t care and I really don’t feel like chatting here with you about who I am.”

Wrong answer. The three men are now slowly making their way towards me, like hunters stalking their prey.

Still, for a second, I think about his questions. Who am I? If I’m to assume that the paintings have a purpose because it sounds logical, maybe this is the purpose of this painting. Maybe I need to start thinking about who I am.

Because the truth is, I have no idea who I am. I know my name is Melody Orsay, I know I’m an orphan, and I know my boyfriend is named Jarvis and he’s only going to get me in trouble. I know I want to be an engineer, but I’m not even sure why. The real reason why I took this course is because it’s what my placement tests told me I should take. The truth is, I never really chose what I do. I’ve never chosen who I wanted to be.

Maybe I need to start doing that…

            The orange haired man is now close enough to me that I can almost smell the fresh blood in his breath.

He lunges for me while the two other men keep observing.

I might have refrain from screaming, but I won’t refrain from fighting back. I need to stop letting things just happen to me. I need to take charge. I might have always been strong, but I’ve never truly taken charge in my real life, I realize. And it’s time to change.

I duck at the last minute and the beautiful elflike man crashes into the rock behind me. He barely has time to turn around and I crash my two hands which I’ve bawled together right on his temple. Even if my punch isn’t that strong, the fact that his head also hit the rock when I did that knocks him out.

I’m about to turn around and gloat in victory at the two men, but I’m suddenly lifted up in the air. When I look at what grabbed me, I choke on a scream.

I’m flying in the arms of a demon. It’s a demon, it’s obvious. It’s a strange mix between a man, a skeleton, a goblin and a bat.

I start thrashing in its arms but I realize too late that it’s a bad idea because one minute I’m flying and the next I’m falling and I’m too high, I have nowhere to land, nothing to grab onto.

I’m falling. I’m falling and falling and falling and I’m gasping for air and I see a rock, a sharp rock becoming bigger and bigger and coming close and closer. I’m falling so fast that I barely feel it when the rock impales me.

            Now that’s going to totally ruin the dress.