Lada Homolová

 

 

To my agent Mark:

 

I was fighting it nearly all my life, I swear. The darkness kept creeping around me and I kicked, punched, kicked and punched, again and again, for years, but in the end, I gave up, it was too much, too... tiring and long and finally, I could feel the darkness being absorbed by my pores, sinking into my bones. Everything that used to be inside of me ended up replaced by something new. I felt as if I got stuffed by black velvet, or by something silky and soft like this. I liked the new feeling. Surprisingly, it had a calming effect on me.

That night, when the darkness claimed me, I took the painting off the wall, put it into a box – one of those I used when we transported my works from one gallery to another, sealed it... and then sat down on my favorite armchair, satisfied, with a glass of water in my hand. I began to think. What are the possible ways how to dispose myself of the painting without actually destroying it? I knew I couldn't sell it, because people, especially my friends, would ask. You know, questions like: “Why the hell do you want to get rid of the only portrait of your wife you have?” or “What's your financial situation? Are you in debt?” I didn't want that, so I moved on to another idea. Maybe I could just throw it away somewhere. But then again, someone would find it eventually, because I suppose it's like in those detective stories: no matter where a murderer buries the body of their victim, someone discovers it sooner or later. And as far as I know, there is no lake, cave or an old mine around, no place where you could hide something like this. I remember that my wife had a perfect hiding place in the garden of her parents' house as a child. I have never been there and therefore, I have never seen it, but she told me about it once. It was an abandoned rabbit hole just in the corner of the garden and she kept there all her treasures that she wanted to hide from her younger siblings.

Before I lost the battle with the darkness, thinking about funny stories she shared with me always made me even more depressed, but today, I looked at the empty spot on the wall, where the painting used to be hanged, and I smiled.

I could put it into a bank vault and have it stored there forever. I had the money for it. It would surely be amusing to watch the faces of people who would open the vault hundreds of years after I died. The thing was, my wife hated banks, their sanitary clean smell and that proper, reserved behavior of the clerks that reminded her of hospitals and the moment when she was told about her disease. Even with the shreds of black velvet caressing me from the inside, I could not bring myself to do that to her, so I resumed thinking about other possibilities. I spent the whole night going through a thousand scenarios, but none of them seemed good enough for me... or for her. I did not despair, though. The darkness was there with me and I felt so refreshed in the morning as I haven't for a very long time. Loaded with this new energy, I finally got myself to answer most of the correspondence that had been waiting for me and I even called a couple of my closest friends and invited them to dinner on Saturday night.

And then, I figured it out in the evening. It was the last option that I haven't considered before. I removed the painting from the box and took it to the room where it came to being nearly forty years ago. I put it back on the easel.

There is no way I can get rid of it, but the darkness advised me what to do next. I swear I'm not insane. I'm not even feeling down anymore. I feel great. And I'm going to hang myself. Tell the press whatever you want.

 

Antonio