Author : Thomas Desrochers

People don’t want to feel anymore, not beyond petty happiness. They don’t read to expand their minds or learn or come across the emotional depth that real art brings about. People read their shallow books about overcoming some petty obstacle, about being special, about fucking some person because that’s what love is about after all; They watch their holograms filled with sex and violence and childish plots. They listen to music that has fewer different notes in it than I have when I speak one damn sentence. Dancing is just sex with clothes on. Paintings and sculptures are just a shade of vomit passed off as beauty.

Nobody appreciates art any more. Nobody will go and seek out art for the enjoyment of it, for the sake of expanding horizons. We care more about establishing colonies than we do about aesthetics. Do we even have a culture worth spreading any more? Where does that leave the artists of the world?

Skyl bit the bullet last week. He tried to, at least, but you can’t really bite something that’s going six hundred meters a second. He only succeeded in shattering the back of his throat and the base of his spine, the poor idiot. He was in a coma until an hour ago. He’ll be six feet under in another hour.

Coralee went a month ago. She drank herself to death on 160-proof liquor, and I don’t think I really blame her. Her last act was to vomit into a seven hundred year old Stradivarius, just to make a point. She was right when she argued with me and said that people would mourn the loss of the person more than the violin. And really, they wouldn’t miss the person at all, so what was the point any more?

My wife. She died a year ago. She was selling her paintings on the street, pieces that rivaled what now collect dust in the Louvre. A man took a disliking to her taking up street space and stabbed her, then set fire to her and her paintings. The authorities said he was mentally ill and there was nothing to do for it. I went by his house last week. He’s still there. She was just an artist after all.

Why am I telling you this? Easy. I want you to have context, to know why I am going to do what I am about to do. I want you to understand the emotions behind the piece of art that you are about to become. Nobody will be able to ignore you – or me.

The muscle relaxants have well and truly kicked in by now, though I’m sure you noticed that, just like I’m sure you noticed the mirror above you and the fact that you are completely naked. I hope you don’t mind the lights – I need them so that I can see your skin while I work.

It wasn’t hard to get ahold of a good supply of razor blades, and while you slept I traced out everything that needs doing. You are going to be beautiful. You are going to be absolutely beautiful.

Be happy, be happy like me. You are the canvass, I am the artist, and we are going to make history. We are going to bring art back to the people, make them see again what they are missing.

I truly am sorry that I’ll have to take your eyes out, though. They’re very pretty, but I can’t have you turning me in to the authorities. That wouldn’t do at all. No, not at all.