Have you ever got lost in an obsession? So engrossed in an infatuation that you simply disappeared from the world at large? Have you seen a dear friend isolate themselves from their friends, their family, their work, only to one day…simply disappear altogether?
That’s what I think happened to an ex-coworker of mine.
And it all started when we received an anonymous donation of a painting.
I used to work at a public art museum in a decent-sized city. We weren’t exactly rivalling the Met or anything but sometimes we’d get a travelling exhibition with artwork from somebody you may have heard of. Our permanent exhibitions had paintings from around the state and the city, as well as private donations of European paintings from well-to-do families in the city. We acquire our works of art through proper channels, somebody sends somebody else an email then it gets delivered or picked up, normal right?
That painting, however, was left by the back door. Wrapped in brown butcher’s paper. With the words “Take It” written in black marker across the front.
Half-wondered why they didn’t just throw it away.
We’re pretty generous in accepting art pieces, if it’s at least by someone remotely famous (and we can verify it) or even competently done then we either accept it or ship somewhere else if we don’t have room.
So when I found it by the back door, next to the dumpster, I brought it inside and laid it flat on the desk in my office. When I peeled back the brown paper wrapping I was…underwhelmed. The painting was of an unremarkable house, painted mostly white, grey tiled sloped roof, a porch, four windows on the first storey, five windows on the second storey, it was daytime as well with a few trees poorly painted in the background…architecture didn’t look particularly characteristic of anything I knew of and I couldn’t even tell where in the country it was from…or when.
But other than that, the painting itself wasn’t well done. I think the proportions of the house may have been wrong just from looking at it and the colour scheme seemed to be inconsistent from one side to the other, as if the painter resumed colouring it after a few days but ran out of the original paint they were using.
Almost on cue, the museums foremost appraiser and my best friend at work Ben walked in (unannounced as usual) and stood next to me, looking at the painting.
“I didn’t know we were getting a new piece.” He said in a mocking tone.
“I found this by the dumpster outside, thought it was something of value.” I replied.
Ben waved his hand over the house, “Clearly not, you should finish the job and actually throw it in the dumpster.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “It might be something of value. Maybe. I don’t know, that’s your job.” I said to him with a smile.
Unceremoniously, he picked it up with both hands and flipped it over.
“Something family house. N, something -lina. I think half the job is done, somebody’s family home in North Carolina.” He pointed to the corner of the back of the frame, although half of it was worn out, you could still see “family house” and “N. —-lina” written there.
“Hmm. I don’t think we’ll end up keeping it, but check it out before we ship it out, okay?”
I wish I didn’t tell him that. I wish I told him to throw it in the dumpster where I found it. But I didn’t.
So, I went back to my normal duties for the rest of the day and didn’t see him until I arrived to work the following day, where I found him sitting in his office, staring at the painting.
I raised my hand to say hello but he was so damn fixated on the painting he either ignored me or didn’t see me. Said hello to get his attention but his damned eyes just stared, stared at the painting. I walked around and placed my hand on his shoulder to wake him out of his trance. But he barely moved and just kept staring at the painting.
“Oh, hello.” He mumbled rather unenthusiastically.
“Rude. Sounds like you haven’t got any sleep.”
“Just working on this painting, like you said.”
I turned to look at the painting, the seemingly unremarkable painting and noticed…that it had changed.
It was still the same house, that same white two storeyed house with the grey tiles and the front porch, but somehow, seemingly, it had changed from daytime to night. And now, again, I was slightly shocked and questioning what I was seeing, because now there was a slender brunette woman in a sleeveless light pink dress on the front porch, leaning against the rails and staring off into the side, illuminated only by the light coming from inside through the window.
It just didn’t make sense. It…it just wasn’t how I left it.
“She just looks so sad, doesn’t she.” Ben said to me in a low voice, like all the energy had been sapped from him.
“Ben, has the- no, have you changed the painting? Restored it in any way? Painted over it?”
There was a pause, then Ben said, “Hmm? No. No I haven’t. She’s always been this way.”
“Ben, no, seriously. I swear it was daytime in the painting. And she definitely wasn’t there.”
“I, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Not trusting my lying eyes, I whipped out my phone and took a few snapshots of the painting. Then I looked back at Ben, noticing his red sunken eyes.
Concerned for my friend, I picked up the painting to his almost immediate protest.
“I’m just going to put this in the storage room for the time being and-“
“I need to save her.”
“You need to get something to eat, I think. Honestly Ben, it’s just a crappy painting.”
I left Ben to mumble to himself at his desk as I whisked the painting away to the storage room. Taking a good look at it, I realised that colour discrepancy I noticed yesterday was gone, it had almost become lifelike, almost real.
But I shook my head and snapped out of it. I decided to just leave Ben to do some more research while I found another museum or art gallery to take the painting. When I got back to my office, I emailed the photos of the painting to at least one museum in every state. Now, you’re probably thinking that’s excessive but I just wanted to get rid of the damned thing. There was something unnerving about the way it was affecting Ben.
After that, I shot off some emails, reviewed our upcoming exhibitions, and dealt with a few customer complaints about the state of our air conditioning.
It wasn’t busier than any other day but it was consistent work so it meant a late lunch from our museum’s café. Bought a slice of cake for Ben as well and brought it to his office…only to find him sitting against the wall, staring at that same painting leaning against the side of his desk.
He didn’t say anything as I walked up to him and placed the cake in the box next to him on the ground.
Then I took another look at that damned painting. It was daylight now, the white house surrounded by the vibrant green colours of the grass and trees surrounding it. Then there was that same brunette woman in the light pink dress, this time she was sitting on the steps leading up to the porch. But here was the thing, it was like she was staring straight ahead at us.
I struggled to take out my phone, my hands were so sweaty and fumbly, but I eventually found the pictures I had only taken this morning. Confirming that the painting had changed from night to day and showing that the woman had moved. In all my years at the job I’d never seen anything quite like it. The thought that a painting, a still image created from dry pigment and canvas, could change so rapidly started to spur my imagination…
Then I decided that Ben was playing a prank with me.
“Ben, where’d you put that painting from this morning?”
As fantastical as it may seem, I concluded that Ben had created a whole new painting, just to mess with me.
“It’s the same painting from this morning.” He said drolly, pointing to the painting leaning against his desk.
“Okay, but Ben, it looks different.”
“It looked like that when I brought it out the storage room.”
“Ben, you didn’t…you didn’t paint over it did you? You know, improve on the painting?”
He looked at me incredulously. “How dare you accuse me of painting over it. How could you think this painting needs to be improved in any way?”
I stood back a little, it wasn’t like Ben to be so…defensive.
“Kidding. Didn’t think you did. Really.” Something was up with him and it was starting to bug me. But not wanting to start a fight with my best friend, I decided to change the subject. “So have you at least discovered where the painting is from?”
Ben shook his head in the negative.
“Not even the general area? Did you at least confirm it’s American?”
Again, Ben shook his head.
“When? Who?”
He shook his head.
“So have you found anything about the painting at all? Have you done anything besides stare at this painting today?”
“She’s- I just can’t take my eyes off her. She’s simply…”
I looked at the painting and then shook my head.
“Ben, maybe I’ve been overworking you lately, take the rest of the day off, okay bud?”
He looked at me for an instant and then straight back at the painting.
Look, sometimes we become obsessed with our job at the museum, become overawed with the history we handle, knowing there can be centuries, sometimes even millennia of stories behind a simple painting. But Ben was starting to scare me.
So I went over to the painting and picked it up, flipping it so Ben could only see the back of the frame. When I did, he sprang up immediately and came within inches of my nose.
“What are you doing? Why did you-“
“Go home. I’m not kidding, I’m ordering you to go home.”
He looked at me real funny, I’d never seen it from him before, as if he was weighing whether or not he could take me on in a fight. My knees started to shake a little bit and I readjusted my grip on the frame, in those types of moments you start to think with such clarity, and all I could think of was how absurd it was that Ben was becoming so agitated over such a dumb painting.
But we didn’t fight. Ben walked out of the room and didn’t say a word, leaving me standing there with the painting and an unopened box of cake lying on the ground.
Came in the next morning to my office and the first thing I checked was my emails (like I do every morning) but one email in particular came from a museum on the east coast (I’m not going to say where, I don’t want people to give them trouble).
It was from one of their appraisers who apparently knew the identity of the painting I found a few days ago. I’ll just copy and paste the email here:
I think I have an answer to the identity of the painting in the screenshot you’ve attached. It’s an old painting from the local area, dates just after the turn of the last century, the first stories appear around 1906 but the painting may be earlier than that. Legends say the painting was an amateur work from an Audrey LeBlanche. A young housewife who found herself bored and alone in her new marriage to a local well-to-do playboy who was forced to settle down. Well, he didn’t, and often left her home alone for weeks at a time. Presumably off drinking and having affairs. Long story short, she wanted a divorce but is pressured from her own parents and her husband’s parents to stay together, she feels trapped and kills herself. Tragic but mundane.
HOWEVER, legend goes that the husband found the painting after her suicide and sells it for pennies to a local gallery. But then there’s stories of men just gazing at painting all day, like it had some trance. Then there were reportedly acts of vandalism that occurred frequently, changing the scene from day to night and vice versa and including the likeness of the woman in the painting.
Then, apparently it was stolen, only for it to reappear. Then stolen again only for it to reappear again.
If you ask me, the painting itself isn’t that great, but our museum would love to have as a tourist draw to bring in the local true crime audience as well as the urban legend crowd.
If you would kindly organise to send it to us, it would be much appreciated.
That last line was music to my ears after all the recent strangeness since I found it. So I practically rushed to the storage room to pack the painting myself.
Except it wasn’t there.
I searched and searched but I couldn’t find it. I was at a loss. I knew I put it there last night. There were only a few people who had access to the storage room, including me and…
Ben was sitting at his desk, eyes fixated on that painting levelled on the desk in front of him. I slowly walked up to desk, as I came closer, I could see the changes that occurred. It was late evening, a faint orange glow seemed to surround the white house with grey tiles. And there she was, the brunette wearing her light pink dress, leaning against the front fence, Audrey LeBlanche. She was staring down at the ground, her eyes almost closed, her brow furrowed, her lips pouting. She looked lonely.
“Ben…” I said as I looked at the painting. “I found out where the painting’s from in an email I sent yesterday.”
Ben didn’t say anything.
“It has a bit of a weird history…but good news. They’ve agreed to take the painting off our hands. Which is great isn’t it? I mean, it’s not like it’s from the local area and it doesn’t exactly fit in with our current exhibition’s themes so it’s fantastic that they’ve agreed to take it. Which means we’ll get it packed up and shipped out this afternoon.”
“No.” He said softly.
“Look, I get it, sometimes you see something in art that others don’t see, but that’s just part of the job right? To let go of works of art, to stop obsessing with…”
My hands slowly drifted towards the painting’s frame as I said this, my fingers firmly grasping the frame before I suddenly yanked the painting off Ben’s desk. Almost reflexively, as if every survival instinct activated all at once, Ben lunged out of his chair, over the painting and locked my head in his arm.
I gasped for breath, being suffocated by my best friend, all I could do was claw at Ben’s arms as they tightened around my neck. Ben spewed obscene curses at me which was enough to alarm the rest of the office. Thus two of the three hundred pound security guards that we employed at the museum rushed to the office and struggled to stop Ben from throttling me to death.
They eventually succeeded (of course). After pulling Ben away I was bent over on all fours and watched Ben being dragged away kicking and screaming, cursing me with (even more) obscenities and slurs that I never thought Ben was even possible of dreaming of. Truly, it was as if my friend was gone and had been replaced with some deranged lunatic. Apparently, he kept going like that for fifteen minutes before the police arrived, where he was subsequently thrown in the back of a police car and spirited off to the nearest station.
One of the guards said Ben wouldn’t shut up about “her” and how I was “trying to keep her away” or something.
Needless to say I was given the rest of the day off and told to take as much time off as I needed. The museum director was apparently worried that Ben had been overworked and was afraid I might snap like Ben.
But I was stuck in a malaise for the rest of the day, barely eating, struggling to sleep. When your best friend tries to kill you, the fun gets sucked out of life, you know?
However I didn’t want to take time off and I was back in the office the next day. My first order of business was to send that damned painting off to the east coast, as far away from me as possible.
I had the packaging, the labels, and the stamps already to go when I found the painting in the storage room.
Out of sheer curiosity, out of all the hell I’ve been put through, I had one last look at the painting.
It was like the first time I saw it, daytime, weird colour inconsistency across the painting. But there was the brunette in the light pink dress, standing before the front door, smiling, and holding hands with a man, and I swear on my life, a man that looked strangely like Ben.
Sick of it all, I practically threw the painting in my prepared box and handed it straight over to the courier waiting for me by the backdoor.
It’s been a year since I received that painting. Ben was never seen again. As far as the museum knows, he was released later that afternoon after he settled down and was going to be given a suspension but no one could contact him. Personally I wanted him to come back, that outburst was so unlike him I thought he would return to work like his usual self, feel really sorry and buy me cake from the café for a month. I even visited his home but I didn’t find him there. Even contacted his parents and his other friends but nobody’s seen him since that day. He’s practically vanished into thin air. If I told people that I thought I Ben was in the painting now after all this time, people would want to know what hard drugs I was taking.
Hopefully he reads this post and comes back. No hard feelings.