Family Portrait

Family Portrait

By Amanda Orive.

Falling. Falling without gravity. Darkness and suffocation. That was what she had known, until she landed. Lies! So many smiles, trapped in two dimensions. All of her became solidified in a moment, growing and shrinking at once; the pain was rupturing. As her face smacked on the oak floor she felt, suddenly, more than she ever had. In that moment, she realized that she had never felt anything prior.

"Where's my fuckin' beer?" David called from the living room.

Goosebumps spread along her spine, a sensation she utterly disdained and was also intrigued by. She was shocked at the familiarity, and angry at herself. But, why? So much new strangeness... Her breath was faltering, causing her chest to sway and rise. Turning to face her surroundings, she touched everything within reach: lamps, tables, plates, dust. The sensations were shocking, not at all what she'd contemplated.

Again, that violent voice called. "What the fuck's taking so long?"

She walked away from the kitchen. In the hallway she saw several photographs lined unevenly, filled with images of people she did not recognize. Four boys with ugliness in their eyes, a burly man with cut up arms and fists, and a young girl, battered. There was a portion of a portrait of them all where a silhouette stood behind the angry man, discreetly wrapping it's non-corporeal fingers around his throat. She touched it, wondering, and then somehow knowing, that she was that shadow. Or at least, that which had cast it.

Further into the living room, she followed a line of more photos. They all beheld something that bothered her, something not entirely there, something she could neither deny nor explain.

David looked up at his wandering wife from his chair before the television, "what's wrong with you?"

She continued staring at the portraits, desperate to define that something she had noticed. Then, like a beautiful light bulb going off in the hearts of those forgiven, she saw it. It was a military portrait; in it, a man was smiling- but without joy. There was something sinister to his gaze. That which she could not define was staring at her from behind the cornered glass. She removed the frame from the wall and held it.

David stood furiously. "Hey," he yanked at her elbow.

The sensation of pain was familiar to her, from when she had fallen into being, but this touch maintained something sticky. She didn't like it. Looking up at him, she saw that very same ugliness from within the photograph.

"Just what makes you think you can ignore me all of a sudden?"

"All of a sudden?" She asked, perplexed. Looking at his perfect simulation, the sound of her own voice was unfamiliar. "All of this is sudden." A nod, "yes, very sudden." She compared the man before her, this strange living breathing thing, to the flat vision of evil in her palms: it was as though the photographer had captured his truest nature in a fraction of a second.

But then, had David ever existed before that moment? "The hell're you on about?" He grabbed her chin, forcing her eyes still.

Sheila had to stand on her tip toes to keep her balance, still holding his photo. She could not help but laugh in her understanding. Shaking her head against his grip, "you're not real."

"Wanna bet?" His fingers migrated around her throat.

Stealthily, like a cat balancing on some watery ledge, she began removing the photograph from it's glass prison. Then, as oxygen became disparate in her lungs, she tore at it.

David screamed, letting go of his disobedient wife, as his extremities exploded in a violent cacophony. His organs spewed out blood and puss, alcohol and bile.

Sheila smiled down at the broken man, as he begged for her mercy in utter confusion, "I already told you. None of it is real," and she tossed the remainder of his portrait into the fireplace. "We are all just a picture of a dream."

His body was beyond recovery, and he suffered desperately, screaming until knocked out from the pain.

Sheila did not need that satisfaction, although she basked in it, because she knew that nothing was real. Her daughter would be home soon, her sons would surely punish her, but it was all just... a... dream.

She understood the sinister nature of my narration, and gave in.

As she stared into the fireplace and watched the smoke rise into the chimney, she exhaled, and all sensation left her. She was quiet. Blood still fresh on her skin, she could not help but wonder how much she could play with the flexible limits of this paradigm. She moved towards the other portraits, ready to do just that.

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