Janey's Release

Inside the shop window stood a picture. This was not odd because the
shop sold pictures; but the picture itself was. Janey stopped to look
at it. She could not be sure what had drawn her to it and in sense,
that mystery only added to the moment. This particular moment. It was
ten minutes to nine in the morning. The shop was closed. She would come
back later.
The high street was beginning to fill with the restless hordes of
shoppers, and shopkeepers could be seen proudly displaying their wares
for another days trade. Queues were forming around the automatic cash
machines, money spewing out at all corners into the pockets of the
shoppers and later that evening, the shopkeepers would place that self,
same money back into those same banks; money is a truly recyclable
product. Janey watched all this, melting in as faceless as the rest in
a patchwork quilt existence. It was good to be out!
To kill time and ease her impending thirst, she decided to walk up the
street to the cafe. She stopped off at the news agent kiosk and joined
the queue behind two men in cut-off jeans and T-shirts. T-shirts? It
was only then that Janey became aware of the sweat dripping from her
face and of the long dark overcoat, completely unsuitable for the
season. Could it draw attention to her? Quickly she removed it and
placed the article under her arm. It was out of the way.
'That bitch had it coming,' said one of the T-shirts and then silence
as the two of them contemplated what had been said. And that was all
that Janey heard. Moments later, the two having purchased their cheap,
colourful rags, it was Janey's turn. The man behind the kiosk
impatiently fixed his big black eyes upon her, grunted and wiped more
newspaper ink from his hands to his face.
'Twenty Marlboro, please,' Janey said and reached for the loose ten
pound note she had noticed earlier in the coat pocket. Once again the
presence of the cumbersome winter coat threatened attention.
'Nothin' smaller,' complained the man. Janey, voiceless, shook her
head in the negative. 'You clean me right out of change you lot,' and
tutting he counted out her change in a strange mathematical code known
only to himself. Janey took the cigarettes from the counter and
continued down the road in the direction of the cafe.
On reaching the cafe, a few minutes after nine o'clock, she took a
seat by the window and drifted...
You see, Janey's problem was singular, but considerable; she did not
recall who she was. She may have had the urge to smoke Marlboro
cigarettes, she remembered standing outside the shop window and even
looking at the picture, but nothing before.
'Can I take your order?' asked Bob, the coffee stained waiter. He was
perched over her, yet happy for her to take her time in ordering. It
had been a long morning, although it was still only ten past nine. Bob
had been up most of that night and if it wasn't for Janey's presence,
he would have happily spent the morning in bed.
'Just a coffee,' Janey said in matter-of-fact tones. 'Just a coffee.'
She licked her lips and in doing so noticed that her bottom lip was
bleeding; she could not remember biting it. Taking a serviette from the
table she began carefully moping up the small amounts of deep red
blood. The waiter was gone.
Cigarettes. She took out the packet of Marlboro and a cheap disposable
lighter she had found in her pocket. Taking care, she placed a
cigarette towards the left side of her mouth - away from the cut -
cranked up the lighter and lit the end, sucking in deeply as she did
so. Smoke, more smoke and as her lungs filled three-quarters full of
the nicotine solution, Janey's loneliness deserted her. She decided
there and then that she would buy the picture.
The coffee arrived and with it, the bill. She looked at the bill, and
at the coffee, the two things inextricably linked in the barter system
- money - and read to herself, 'Coffee, with cream.' Had she had cream?
'Thanks, call again!' And she thought about that picture. Sat in that
small, cramped, little booth, in the cafe, smoking a cigarette,
drinking her coffee, she could still not put her finger on the
significance of it all. All she saw was the picture and all that
mattered was the picture.
She smoked another few cigarettes and drank a couple more coffees.
Sometime later she left the seat in her booth and with the bill in her
hand, she approached Bob.
'Three coffees wasn't it?' remembered Bob.
Janey looked at the bill and saw in it a redundant splendour. All its
information was a waste of time and effort; written proof usurped by
human memory. She said nothing, kept the piece of paper and paid the
man accordingly - no tip necessary.
'I hope you enjoy your day!' Bob shouted after Janey and ran out the
back of the cafe, removing his aprons as he fled.
Out in the street things had got progressively busier. Out in the
street people ran around in seemingly senseless directions, yet all in
pursuit of a purpose like ants in the darkness of night. The sun, now
blazing, did nothing to slow the progress of the ant-people. Janey took
one last look at the hordes, then placing her overcoat in the waste bin
besides her, she said to no one in particular, 'It is time.'
Thoughts of the picture swamped Janey. Knee deep in the depths of
nostalgia and she was virtually singing. She did not know why, but
something had come back to her, something in that strange juxtaposition
of pleasure and pain.
She continued up the street, past the banks and shoppers, on and on
past the kiosk. She walked past the two T-shirts as they trundled
towards her struggling with a large rectangular object wrapped in brown
paper. Finally past all these things she stopped at the window of the
picture shop. The picture had gone.
Her plans had fallen flat in that very moment of loss. She took a grip
of herself and checked her watch. Twelve o'clock, midday. The sign on
the shop stated 'Closed.' Had she really spent all that time in the
cafe? She looked back down the street where she had just walked, but
the scene gave nothing away. It was the same as always, nothing had
changed. The shoppers still shopped, the banks still banked and the
T-shirts still stalked the streets.
Looking downwards she noticed her left hand was clenched firmly in a
fist. As if only then the feeling in her hand came back to her, she
could feel something within it, something crumpled and clammy. Using
the fingers of her right hand, she started to unclasp her fist, finger
after curious finger and as each digit was pulled back, the knuckles
clicked in release of the tension. Moments later there was the cafe
bill and once unravelled she could see that it was covered in
blood.
In some panic and much confusion, she tried the entrance to the shop.
The sign said closed, but indeed the door was open. She looked behind
her shoulder. No one seemed to be watching her an so with careful
steps, Janey entered the shop closing the door behind her. She was
inside.
Inside the room it was dark, but even in that darkness it was possible
to discern an air of destruction. Janey walked forward and in that
darkness felt her foot kicking a small cardboard object. She reached
down to pick it up and immediately recognised the red and white
cigarette packet, her very own brand. She felt in her own pocket and
discovered it was empty - had she been here before? Earlier?
In fact, Janey had been here before and now, a little later, she was
returning to the scene of a quite remarkable incident.
She walked into the shop and round behind the counter. Here, she
discovered an entrance to the shops storerooms and private quarters.
She walked through the entrance and on into a room which seemed to
operate as an office and rest room. There were coffee cups and
invoices, crisp packets and correspondences strewn throughout. The room
had not seen a sympathetic touch in what could have been years. The
place was a mess that showed no sign of the picture, no sign of
anything.

- Oh, Janey. Soon my dear, said a voice somewhere, though Janey did
not hear it.

Janey continued to scuttle about looking here and there for anything,
for a clue that just might trigger something, a memory or lost piece of
evidence. She moved over the desk like a secretarial spider, each digit
carefully turning over sheet after sheet of this seemingly endless web
until, moving aside a collection of Pre-Raphaelite postcards, she
discovered a print of Escher's 'Drawing Hands'. Janey stared into the
image of those two hands, one seemingly drawing the other and vice
versa. She was momentarily taken, yet this was not her picture.
She sat in the accompanying swivel chair and mulled over the days
events in her mind and so did not notice the front door of the shop
opening. She did not hear the two men in shorts and T-shirts and she
could not see them before they had indeed discovered her.
'Excuse me,' said the first man in mock politeness, loudly and quite
honestly enjoying the element of shock surprise. 'We've come for the
picture. The man on the phone said it would be ready.'
Janey jumped at the sudden intrusion and turned to face her
tormentors. She immediately recognised them as the two men she had seen
first at the kiosk and later in the street that day. It came as a shock
to Janey that these two bovine Neanderthals were in fact art dealers
and had some how mistaken her for being employed here herself. However,
the task would be a simple one. She was holding the Escher print in her
hand and could so easily pass it to one of the men, but somehow, for
some unknown reason, she was not going to.
'Hey!' said the second man, 'you're her. The woman in the picture,
aren't you? You know, Jack.' He turned to his companion. 'That picture
we shifted this morning, the one in the front window.'
' Yea, your right. You a model then, love?' said the first.
'I,' Janey paused. This was all moving to fast. She considered the
mornings events - all she knew - and before that, nothing. How could
she exist here without a past, without any knowledge of who and what
she was? 'I don't think I know?' was all she said.
'Now what was it called? asked Jack, without bothering to acknowledge
Janey's confused response.
'I've got the receipt here,' said the other and proceeded to unravel a
piece of paper he had taken from the tight pocket of his shorts. 'Here
it is,' he continued and read, 'oil on canvas, entitled, "Janey's
Release". Is that you? Janey? Eh?'
Something stirred in her head, a truth, a realisation, but not
fragments of memory, merely contrived half truths.
Of course, Janey had seen the picture earlier that day. She had looked
at it, hadn't she? She had seen it through the window and never, not
once had she realised that the image reflected in the window had been
the image sustained upon canvas. That the picture was indeed her very
self.
'Who sold you the painting?' she suddenly demanded. 'Who?'
The two men looked at each other, but said nothing. They had not
realised that Janey was lost, that they probably knew more about her
than she did herself. To them it was just some silly game with a crazed
artists dummy and a game they were not willing to play. After all, time
is money and it was not their problem. They were just middle men,
buyers and sellers, not artists our carers. They were not paid for
discussion.
'I cannot remember anything. It's all such a blank.
The T-shirts might have said, 'Good-bye', in response, but they didn't
get the chance. Instead something else happened.
Out of the darkness from the corner of the storeroom came a face Janey
thought she knew. Hands clapping and lips curling came, Bob, the waiter
from the cafe. He came forward out of the gloom and over to the desk
beside Janey.
He looked deep into those eyes he knew so well, those eyes that
appeared to still be a little wet. He was smiling, but Janey now
noticed that the smile did not simply represent happiness, no. The
smile upon Bob's face shone with amazement - it was the face of a child
and the face of a new father, all in one moment. 'You, my dear, are
Janey and what is more, I created you.' His words were succinct and
controlled. These were not the words of a madman, they were words to be
considered, to be believed.
Janey, said nothing.
Of course, Bob was not much of a waiter, yet he was a painter and the
shop was both his shop and his studio. It was a small, relatively
successful gallery. Everyone called it a picture shop, although Bob
would insist it was a gallery.
Bob continued to explain to Janey her lost history as the T-shirts
looked on in true deference, forgetting their troublesome work load. He
explained to Janey about a young newly-wed couple who had commissioned
a painting. It was a simple image of innocence and experience - a girl
in the throngs of excitement, 'cavorting near naked in pleasures
unbound'. Jack and his friend would remember the phrase well.
'A single red rose,' said Bob, beginning to flush with the excesses of
the artist, 'yes, a single red rose held by the thorny stalk in the
young woman's mouth, lips pierced and bleeding. '
It was a simple concoction, but in Bob's imagination it had grown the
wings of instant classicism. Not lewd, not sinister, but simplified,
purged, archaise.
'I am not sorry,' said Bob. 'There really isn't anything else I can
say. I dreamt about you, lived with you in my head, in my mind, always,
forever and then as I released you into the picture,' he paused, 'you
would not stay in it! I gave you to much life to remain unanimated. So,
now you are here.
Janey was obviously confused. In that short space of time she had
discovered more about herself than ever she wanted to.
She had no memory because she had no past. Janey was the victim of a
cruelly played concept, a strange loop in which she had been both art
and existence. Janey had escaped her own picture and life had truly
imitated art.
She stared at Bob, incredulous and her face was a picture!
'Well I never,' said Jack to his friend and together they left the
shop contemplating their next transaction - and believing in nothing at
all.

-An End-

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