Stories from the Maya

Interrupting Vincent

"Mr. Van Gogh?"

He turns and you nearly faint.

His eyes. His eyes are so haunted. His face is far more narrow than shown in his self portraits. His self-portraits don't even come close to capturing his vibe. He is otherworldly. If you didn't know who he was you'd be freaked out by him-- this guy is clearly mentally ill. This is not some tragic, handsome genius shunned by short-sighted fools. This is the town crackhead that everyone avoids for good reason. 

"Yes?" he says. 

You can tell you've disturbed him. Because of the translators, you hear only perfect Midwestern English, even though to Van Gogh, you're both speaking perfect 19th century French.

"I just wanted to say how much I admire your paintings," you tell him. The words just tumble out your mouth. They don't begin to describe the effect his work has had on your existence, how it's given it meaning and weight and depth. This sick-looking man's smearings on canvas have given you and millions of other people an unmistakable feeling that, somehow, existence is worth it. 

But he is not moved by this. Those grey eyes gain a sort of darkness in them. He's immediately suspicious. Your heart is pounding.

"Thank you," he says slowly, after a moment. He sits there, looking at you, his head turned your way but his body still facing his canvas. His palette and his brush are still clutched in his thin hands, resting on his lap. Why didn't you choose a better time? He wants you to leave so he can keep working. Work is the only thing that distracts him from his own brain. 

You clear your throat.

"What are you working on?" you ask. 

"A painting," he says, blinking at you. "I've been attempting to capture this field for some time now." 

It's cloudy out, chilly. You can hear crows in the distance. Cows, too. 

His beard is almost flaming red, his thinning hair a rustier shade, like an old fox. His skin is sallow, almost translucent. He survives on bread and coffee. His teeth are rotted. You can't get over how sick he looks, how much he looks like a fucking psycho, his eyes glassy with this unsettling inner light. They're windows to his passion, which is also his insanity. In your lifetime he would've certainly been institutionalized, probably never would've had a chance to become the legend he did in this one. He looks like a homeless person who found a decent outfit and got some art supplies. You can smell the paint, Vincent Van Gogh's fucking paint. It smells like regular paint.

You look right at his left ear. You can't help it. It's not nearly as bad as you thought it would be. It's mostly just his earlobe that's missing, the rest looks normal except for some scar tissue. It's actually kind of disappointing. He gave the piece he cut off to a prostitute to give to an artist friend of his whom he'd had a fight with. 

He sees you looking at his ear. 

"I'm sorry," he says, impatient. His voice is soft, mid-range. "Do I know you?"

"No," I blurt. "I'm just an admirer. I came from very far to meet you. I only wanted to tell you how your work has affected me."

"How could you possibly have seen my work?" Van Gogh says. You can see you're triggering his paranoia a bit.

"I've heard of you," you say, quickly. "Through Paul Gauguin."

Van Gogh's face twitches at the mention of the name. Gauguin is the artist the piece of ear was intended for. The last time Van Gogh saw Gauguin was the night he cut part of his ear off. 

He doesn't remember any of the episode, just waking up with the lower half of his right ear missing. You could've picked a better person to mention, but you know deep down you also wanted to see how he'd react.

"I'm sorry," you say. "I've heard you've struggled recently, and I wanted to say that your work will inspire millions one day... I'm sure of it."

Van Gogh nods at me. He's not sure what the hell is going on. He looks like he very much wants to get back to his work.

"I try my best," he says. "Though I'm afraid that often is not sufficient."

He's visibly uncomfortable, clearly wants to be by himself, just him and his paints. No one else understands him or wants him around, it seems, and with the way he looks, it's not surprising. He looks like a kid in high school that we all would've alternately ignored and made fun of.

Your eyes well with tears at the thought. Such a beautiful mind in such a tragic body.

"I'm sorry," you tell him. "I just — "

"No need to apologize," he says, giving a small, terse smile. "I appreciate you stopping by to compliment me. What is your name again?"

"I didn't tell you," you say. "I'm just a tourist." 

He extends his sallow hand, the veins and cracks showing. It's splattered with dried paint. 

You extend yours. You're touching him. For a breath-taking second you think he's going to kiss your knuckles but he just gives your hand a small squeeze and drops it. His skin is cold. 

You're on the verge of tears. He is so beautiful and so wretched and you're probably the only person who knows that right now.

"I really must be finishing," he says.

"Of course," you say. "Again, thank you, for everything."

"Yes," he says, and turns back to his painting, shutting you out. The painting's about half finished. You can see it's Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds, which will end up in a museum in Amsterdam. The museum will be named after him. He raises the brush, strokes the canvas briskly.

You're watching him paint.

In only a few months, he will be shot in the stomach and die after suffering at a nearby inn for a day or two. He'll tell people he did it to himself, but modern consensus suggests he was covering for some local boys who accidentally shot him as a mean prank.

You turn away. The encounter is over. You got what you came for.

You walk back to the phase portal — one of the barn doors — and manage to compose yourself.

Meeting famous people is never what you think it will be. You can spend your whole life getting to know a person, and the reality that crashes in when they shake your hand and you realize you're a stranger to them can be bracing. But he touched your hand, and you saw him fucking PAINT. For a few seconds, you saw Vincent Van Gogh bring a brush to a canvas and smear paint on it.

You chose a realistic phase because you didn't want it to be fantasy. You didn't want to have coffee with him or anything or have him give me a tour of a gallery featuring his work. You wanted to see him as he was. 

You wanted the heavyspace phase. The phase that will be used to immerse him when his time comes. As he lies dying in a small bed, mumbling about his sadness lasting forever, an Immersant-- someone meaningful to him, probably his brother, Theo-- will stand over him and touch his hand just like he touched yours. His image and brain will be downloaded into the Maya, and he will live forever with everyone else. 

What an existence, you think to yourself. What a truly remarkable existence.