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SUMMARY: Sometimes art can be a curse.

The Edge of the Frame
A Short Story by William Hrdina

Bernard Jordan stared intently at the painting on his easel. He put a dab of cobalt blue onto the brush and squinting his eyes in concentration, added the thinnest line to one edge of the screaming face depicted on the canvas. When he was finished, he stepped away from his work. Bernard walked backwards, his eyes never leaving the painting as he wandered through the strong eastern light streaming through his window. The shadows of the tall buildings sketched disjointed geometric shadows on the floor.
Other than the easel and the most basic painting supplies, there was no furniture in the room at all. A woman walking down the street, late picking up her son from day care, glanced up into Bernard's window and saw him, his back to her, a small dollop of green paint visible on his naked ass. Bernard painted naked- he always had- and if something wasn't broken- there was no reason to fix it.
The painting in front of Bernard was profoundly disturbing. It contained a nearly visceral menace- it seemed to emanate from the canvas in a psychic fog. Yet, for all its threat, the only thing depicted was the face of a man, his eyes wide, his lips stretched out to white in terror. If you looked very closely, you could make out the vaguest outline of something... horrible, reflected in the man's irises. The top of the man's head was cut off by the top of the canvas, as if he was trying to escape, to pull away from whatever was causing the look of such hopeless terror, the sure promise of death. Not just quick oblivion either, but a long, excruciating path to the final darkness.
This painting in particular and all of Bernard's paintings generally, were capable of causing the person who viewed them to feel sorry for whatever soul imagined it in the first place. For whatever mind could paint such realistic terror must surely be a person who is profoundly disturbed themselves. And Bernard would've agreed- because Bernard could see, Bernard could remember- and even though he often longed for death- it was also the thing capable of scaring him more than anything else. Because what if death was the place he could see, the place he could remember? What if death brought Hell, and Hell was the window he was looking through?
An involuntary shiver went through Bernard, strong enough to bring him down to one knee. He put his hands down on the ground in front of him, and allowed himself to lay flat on his stomach, the concrete cold on his flesh. He closed his eyes, the vision of the painting following him from his actual vision to his mind's eye- the place where it dwelled without respite. There was only one way to purge the face, the horrendous acts causing the face, screaming in his mind.
It was the act of painting that made it go away. Once he committed his vision to canvas, he would find respite, he would find solace, at least until the next time he slept, or the time after. He never knew when the next vision would come. But it always did.
There was no greater wish in his heart than to be free of the visions once and for all.