Perfect

Set against a lavish floral background - a garden wall heavy with roses - the face was strangely familiar to him, every finely crafted detail. The oval of ivory crowned with braids the dark lustre of raven’s wings, staring back at him with eyes the soft, shining green of budding leaves in springtime. The nose was small, perfectly set above a full-lipped mouth that curved in a quiet, secretive smile to the viewer, as if sharing a private jest.

Oddly enough, as exquisitely rendered as the painting was, there was no signature to immortalize the artist along with his or her subject. In a way, Eric was glad of it. There was no other name to intrude upon the scene, no other presence but the subject and the viewer. Still, Eric envied the artist for having had the fortune to feel the real presence of such a woman, wondered how, if the artist was a man, he’d not compelled his subject to reveal more than a cleft of white flesh at the peak of her bodice. Perhaps he did, Eric mused sourly, afterwards.

That first encounter had been three days ago. Eric had carried the image, felt it burn like a fever within him, ever since. It was then he decided that he had to have it, had to have her near him, no matter what the cost. He’d prepared his room for it - for her - before he’d set out for the day, arranged nails and hooks on the wall to hold it. His memory for the dimensions of the piece were correct - he had no trouble setting her on the wall, so that she stood opposite the foot of his bed, shining green eyes poised to watch over him as he slept.

He didn’t leave the room after that. All the rest of the day, he watched her, wondered at her. She seemed so out of place, this elegant creature, for the gold frame that surrounded her was itself surrounded by walls weary with grime, set beneath a cracked ceiling through which water seeped in the corner, tapping passing seconds into a rusted metal bucket placed on the floor. It had started raining again outside.

She’d never want a man like me, Eric thought darkly to himself, surprised at the sting the revelation delivered. The dream was not enough, this time, for even the most elaborate fancy could not wither the terrible ache her visage had seeded within him. More than any other woman he’d ever met, more than all whose most cryptic secrets were revealed to him, he desired this one perfect face, and her world of roses and gardens, in a far off place - one perhaps that never existed except in the mind of the one who’d painted it. Eric turned to the window, listened to the panes still clattering with the sound of raindrops. Shadows were gathering in the glass.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, Eric surrendered at last to sleep, his body enflamed with utter contempt for everything and everyone he’d ever known or seen or touched, taking with him into the oblivion of dreams the woman, the garden, the world framed in gold.

He awoke to the drowsy perfume of lilacs, carried across his senses on the back of a warm breeze. Odd, Eric thought to himself. I don’t remember opening the window.

No, his body replied as sound and texture began to congeal into its awareness.