Dead Cartography
A Collection of Short Stories
by
Brian Lelas
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2010 by Brian Lelas
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be
re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
*****
The stories contained within this eBook are…
The Canvas
Heartbroken
August Snow
Young Lady on the Window’s Edge
and
Reprobation
*****
Introduction
The stories in Dead Cartography were each written in an entirely different place and mostly in entirely different ways. One was written when insomnia struck. One was originally told as a bedtime story. One was a dream. Try to guess which ones are which and you will probably be surprised by how far wrong you could be. All of them feel to me as if they wrote themselves through my fingers and I hope that you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed that process. Thank you.
Brian Lelas
*****
The Canvas
“What do you see?”
“Is it a reindeer?”
“No. Keep looking.”
“I’ll let you put in some more detail before I make another guess, I think,” chuckled Ben before he took his seat by the fire.
“Suit yourself,” Helena intoned contentedly. She kept her attention on the canvas before her. It filled the easel completely, rising high above her head. Her painting area took up one corner of their living room, while Ben’s writing desk sat in the opposite. While his space was neat to a near obsessive-compulsive level, with pens filed cleanly away in myriad nooks and crannies throughout the teak drawers and grooves, Helena’s area was filled with scattered tubes of discarded colours, greying jars of murky water holding different thicknesses of brush and more fleck marks about the floor and wallpaper than Ben cared for. But it was her place. Her domain. It was here that she brought her thoughts and vision to reality. He made his worlds with words, and she painted hers to life.
“Is it an eagle?” Ben asked, his back to his work, rapt with the acutely engineered dabbing of Helena’s brush. She kept her back to him. Her silence was his answer. “But it is an animal? Am I right?”
“Could be,” she teased.
The room was suddenly darker, as if someone had switched out the lights, but it was just that Ben had finally realised the hour. The clouds had turned into dusk, which was well on its way to starlight. The glow from the fire pulsed gently, leaving Helena’s shadow to appear dancing by the window. Ben got up and flicked on the light switch by the door, which bathed the room in a gentle yellow-white. “Didn’t realise it was so late. Do you want me to fix you some supper?”
“You’re a dear,” Helena replied happily, still making tiny touches to the centre of the painting.
Ben tapped a touch-lamp on the countertop of the kitchen and set about chopping some vegetables while a pan heated slowly. The satisfying crunch of peppers and carrots broke up the silence that was otherwise interrupted only by intermittent humming from the other room. He noticed the waving of the branches of their garden chestnut tree turn from that of a Queen to the attention seeking madness of a child as the wind picked up outside. Some of their drying laundry was losing a hold on the washing line.
“It’s getting pretty windy, I’m just going to grab the clothes,” he called, turning down the gas as he went.
“Okay,” Helena called back.
Ben grabbed a sheet and plucked the pegs one by one from their place and tossed them into the nearby basket. Only when he had the entire wash load over one shoulder did he dump the lot into the basket after them. The wind rushed past constantly, sending his glasses to the ground as he pulled his head away in reaction. As he retrieved them, he looked up at the house. It was covered in darkness, all but for the touch-lamp before him and the vague warmth of the light from the living room. Time felt as if it was running faster tonight. It was always that way on a day off from work. He’d wanted to take Helena to hear a marching band pass through the town square, but she insisted on finishing her painting. He took the basket inside and headed to the living room.
Helena was gone. He stood right up to the easel and stared intently at the canvas. There were a lot of mixed browns and black in the centre, with the background seemingly a plain or hill, coloured with green and blue, although with no clear horizon. It looked as if the sky and land blended together. Perhaps it was something completely different.
“Where are you, Helena?” he called. He looked around. The house was still in darkness except for the kitchen and living room. “Are you okay?”
“Fine, dear!” Helena called from upstairs. “Just in the bathroom.”
Ben stepped away from the painting and left the basket of clothes near the fire. They were almost dry, so the flames would do the rest.
As he tossed the vegetables in the pan, Ben heard Helena’s footsteps, joined by the heavy thud of her walking stick on each stair as she descended. “Should only be another few minutes,” he said, standing in the doorway.