Nanoprep 2023 Day 3: The Art Show
By Robin de Voh on 2023-10-04
"What a day," Adrian softly said to himself as he shook his head.
His silhouette was like a black cutout in front of the fire. Sitting on the steps leading up to what used to be his front door, which now more closely resembled an entrance to hell. He was in his pajamas, with a fleece blanket uselessly draped around his shoulders. He held his phone in his hand, staying on the line to emergency services, but no longer listening.
He was chuckling to himself, as he heard the firefighters' siren coming closer. He already knew his house was a total loss. His paintings, burned. He'd seen them go up in flames. His writing, same. The only things he cared about. Gone. He forced himself to think about the loss.
Time was no longer passing normally for him, because as if instantly, a firefighter clamped onto his shoulder and shouted at him. He shook his head and slowly looked up at the man.
"What?"
"Sir, you need to get away from the fire, please come with me."
"Oh, okay."
He was led to an ambulance, where the firefighter handed him over to the EMTs. They asked him all kinds of questions, was he burned, did he have trouble breathing, but he was fine. He explained he had awoken due to the fire alarm (that his landlord had forced him to place), went downstairs to see what was going on, and saw his living room slash atelier on fire. He had stared for a little while, taking it all in, almost appreciating the beauty of the fire.
To then realize all his work was gone. All of it.
"I have an art show in 2 weeks," he said weakly, in response to none of the questions he'd been asked. "Okay, let's check his oxygen stats," one of the EMTs said as they tried to get him on the gurney.
They said soothing things like, 'we'll take good care of you' and that sort of thing, but he couldn't really care. They put one of those oxygen things on his finger, and with a beep it lit up.
"Sir, what's your name?"
"Adrian."
"Last name?"
"McCormick."
"Date of birth?"
He had to think for a bit. There was a lot going through his mind, and it was hard to focus on specific information like that, which right now didn't feel very important. He had just lost everything. Everything.
He mumbled a date pretty close to his birthdate, then returned to his more pressing thoughts.
The art show, which had taken half a year to arrange, which was going to be his big break, couldn't go on. He chuckled. What luck he had. When things finally looked up, something just had to push him back down again. He forcefully reminded himself that everything was gone, as if he was at risk of forgetting.
He looked towards the house. Well. If the fire hadn't taken it all away, the swimming pools worth of water being poured into his home would. He chuckled again. Why wouldn't it, right?
One of the EMTs noticed his chuckle and raised an eyebrow. He looked at the O2 stats and saw they were normal.
"Is there something funny, Mr. McCormick?"
"Ah, no, well, I wouldn't call it funny. But there's something karmatic about this, I think." Adrian noticed the EMT looked confused. "Sorry, just coming to terms with what I can only describe as the shittiest of all coincidences, I guess."
"That's okay, sir. Just so long as you're ok."
The EMT nodded to his coworker, then walked away and around the ambulance, out of view. Adrian didn't care, he just resumed staring at the remaining licks of flame erupting from his house's upper levels.
"There goes my bed, probably," he mumbled, after which he sighed. He liked that bed, it was a shame.
By now the firefighters were also spraying his neighbors' houses, to prevent the fire from spreading that way. It seemed to be working. Adrian thought that was nice, at least.
His mind kept going over everything he should remember. He'd gone to bed at a reasonable hour, had not burned any candles that day, and he knew for sure he didn't leave anything that could get hot on. So yeah, bad karma, bad luck, something like that.
The EMT who had gone away returned, with someone in a firefighter-like outfit, but not the build of one.
"Hello, Mr. McCormick, my name is Felrik. I'm the city's fire investigator. I just wanted to ask you some questions."
"Fire away," Adrian said. After a second, he chuckled at the unintended pun.
Fire investigator Felrik's face scrunched up a bit by that statement, and Adrian suddenly considered that perhaps now is not the time for fire-related puns.
"Sorry, ask away."
"Obviously my investigation will start after the fire's been put out, but I'd like to ask some preliminary questions first. It says here you're an artist?"
"I am."
"Would you say you're a successful artist?"
Adrian laughed, a real, true laugh. There was some sadness in there, but it wasn't the primary emotion.
"No, Mr. Felrik, I would not. Maybe if this wouldn't have happened, and my show in 2 weeks would have gone well, I would be able to answer in the affirmative, but right now? No. Failed artist beyond comprehension."
Felrik took some notes, then looked back up again.
"What would you say the combined worth of your works would be?"
"I honestly don't really know. The art gallery hired an appraiser to suggest some prices for the works, for the show, you see, but at this point I wouldn't know."
"Alright. Can you provide me with the name of the art gallery and the appraiser?"
"They're in my phone, give me your number and I'll send it over."
"Thank you. One last question at this point, was your work insured?"
Adrian laughed even harder than before. A tear rolled down his cheek, actually, causing Felrik to take half a step back, surprised.
"Mister Felrik! I have no money to insure anything! The house? My grandmother's, and I only got it because nobody else in the family wanted to live in this objectively shitty neighborhood. To insure my works, I'd have to have an appraiser paid from what money, exactly?"
Felrik took some quick notes and closed his notebook.
"So definitely not a successful artist, then," he said quietly.
"No, Mr. Felrik. And now I won't be, either."
"I'm sorry for your loss. I'll let you get on your way."
Felrik handed over his business card, then turned quickly, and disappeared behind a group of firefighters seemingly discussing tactics.
The EMTs apologized, but they'd have to take him to the hospital for a routine check. Another chuckle. Sure, medical debt, why not, Adrian thought.
They loaded the gurney onto the ambulance and took Adrian to the hospital, where he would end up spending the night. The house fire was put out after an hour, and the neighbors' houses had smoke damage but were otherwise fine. It might be a shitty neighborhood, but the houses were built like.. Well, like brick houses. Sometimes the clichés are simply accurate.
When Adrian returned to his home the day after, he was met by the fire investigator and a gaggle of firefighters, who had up until an hour ago been finishing extinguishing the fire, making sure no embers would relight it.
"Ah, Mr. McCormick, good to see you up and about," Felrik said.
"Yeah. Why are you still here?"
"Here again, actually. We've done some cursory checks, and we believe it to have been an electrical fire, starting somewhere in the kitchen. Do you have homeowners insurance?"
"I think that's paid for the next 10 years from my grandmothers' estate. I never really checked."
"Well, unless more evidence shows up, at this point it seems like it was an accident caused by some malfunctioning appliance. Probably the electric oven. So it's likely you're get reimbursed for lost goods and the home."
"The oven? Damn. Never should have trusted ol' Burny. Thank you, I'll look into it."
Felrik nodded, then walked off.
"Hey!" Adrian shouted after him, "can I go in?"
"It's structurally safe enough, but don't go upstairs. The ground floor should be fine."
Adrian sighed as he looked at the extinguished gate to hell, that led to his former entrance hallway.
He started walking towards it. The firefighters looked at him as they were rolling up the fire hoses, with a look of pity. Well, except one. One was weirdly smiling at Adrian.
As he stepped into the hallway the smell of burned paint came over him, that and the smell of stale water.
He made his way to the back part of his living room he painted in, and at first all he saw was destruction. Half canvases, blackened by the fire, and his heart just sunk.
But then he noticed, on the scaffolding where he stored his finished works, an untouched canvas. He rushed over and pulled it out.
Black streaks ran over the canvas in a diagonal, the paint curled up and flaky from the heat. But most of it was still intact. He walked over to the only table still standing, wiped it off as well as he could, and put the canvas down, then started pulling more and more canvases from the scaffolding.
Every one that was somewhat good, he put on the table, careful to not touch the flaky bits of paint sticking out. He kept going until he had a pile of about 25 paintings, that were somehow still mostly what they were supposed to be.
His mind was already working hard. Most of these paintings weren't up to his standards, there were only 3 he had intended to actually put on show, but a meta-artistic angle was now front of mind. He fished his phone out of his pocket and called the gallery owner.
"Sheila, we need to talk," he said.
"ADRIAN! Holy shit, you're alive! What happened? This guy Felrik called me and told me your house burned down!"
"Calm down, Sheila, yeah, that happened. It sucks. Most of my paintings got burned to hell."
"Who cares, we'll move the show, you can paint more, it's fine. But you're okay?"
"I'm okay. But I don't want to postpone."
"What? But you said your paintings got burned."
Adrian looked at the pile of paintings and chuckled to himself.
"Some of it survived, and has a somewhat unique character now. What would you say to not just an art show with paintings, but one with a heartbreaking story behind it?"
Sheila was silent for a second, then she laughed.
"I see where you're going with this."
"Let's call it... Survived the Fire."
"I'll get the designs changed and get ready to send out new invitations. Also, make sure you get your works to the gallery as soon as possible. Can't have any more accidents, and we'll get them appraised as soon as we can. Also, I do want to check if they're actually good."
"Will do," Adrian said as he disconnected the call.
The firefighters had gone, taking their truck with them, except for one. Mr Smiles.
Adrian walked over to him.
"Why are you still here?"
"You owe me," the firefighter said with a grin.
"After the show," Adrian said, looking around shiftily.
"Alright. Did the fire retardant work?"
"Perfectly, now go, before Felrik starts wondering about things."
They shook hands, and Mr. Smiles walked off towards his car.
"This is going to be a fantastic show," Adrian said to himself, quietly. "No more failure."