High Priced Art
by Melinda A. Smith
Word on the street travels fast. Only, they aren't words anymore. Or streets. OK, fine. Acronyms sent via neural texting travel fast. And they're annoying.
My head pings loudly — a message coming through. Maybe Beth, telling me I'm a loser. Or Mom. Telling me I'm a loser. Maybe my next painting will be called I'm a Goddamned Loser and when no one buys it I'll say it was performance art. I laugh at my own bad joke and my head throbs.
I'm lying on the floor in my studio. I fell asleep hoping I'd wake up in a dream and paint something decent. But I haven’t dreamt in years. I try to get up. My neck and back scream.
That's what sleeping on tile does, idiot.
It smells in here and it’s probably me.
PING!
All right, all right. "Open neural text.”
"OMFG, Jeremy. Check porch. YW." – Andy
I think that stands for you're welcome?
I wonder what he's up to. If I know Andy, this'll be trouble. More trouble than waking up on tile still half-wasted, I mean.
I find and eat a stale toaster pastry that, I'll be honest, tastes just like a fresh toaster pastry. I open the front door.
A brown paper bag.
Least it's not lit on fire. This time.
PING!
Another message from Andy. "You open it yet? It's a MUSE."
I've heard of MUSE. Some device that’s been circling the art world lately, a black-market kind of thing. It gets you so high you can paint like the gods. That’s what they say, anyway.
Andy's a good guy, trying to help me, but I ain't all that into tech. My friends had to pry my flip phone out of my hands. They suckered me into this stupid neural message line when I was high.
I take out the MUSE. It’s a small, black headband. Not sure what I was expecting, but this isn’t it. I read the manual.
MUSE (Multi-Unit Synaptic Enhancer) delivers focused stimulation to brain areas associated with creativity, imagination, and artistic expression, giving the user an integrated, multi-sensory experience. A secondary electrical signal activates the locus coeruleus, the part of the brain that focuses attention. . . blah, blah, blah.
So it's like mushies mixed with Adderall. Why don't they just say that?
Hm, it’s made by Turner Tech. Didn’t that company get sued for—
Another PING interrupts my thought. No wonder we need things like MUSE. The world won't shut up. Wish I could mute this neural texting thing.
Screw it. Andy’s a tech nerd. I’m sure he researched it well enough. I put the headband on and set it to MAX.
Thwooooosh.
Everything is black. And quiet.
I open my eyes. My lids are heavier than they should be. I take note of how I’m feeling. Definitely no Degas-level inspiration. Just a low-grade buzzing in my skull. Stupid thing is probably bogus.
PING! PING-PING-PING!
Seventeen unread messages? Damn. Guess this MUSE thing put me to sleep. The first text is from my sister.
"WTF? I needed you. You’re probably lying around wasted. I'm so done with you." – Meghan, 18h ago
Shit. I scroll through her earlier texts.
"Jer, 911, Mom & Dad, car accident." – Meghan, 34h ago
“Where are you? Things look really bad right now.” – Meghan, 30h ago
"Jeremy, PLEASE, we have to ID their bodies. I can't be alone." – Meghan, 24h ago
Oh my God. I frantically access the other texts. Maybe there’s one in there saying my parents are fine and it was a mistake.
Just one from Beth saying “Can’t do this anymore” followed by another from Andy, “Dude lemme explain about Beth. It didn’t mean anything, I swear.”
I grab at the MUSE and try to pull it off. Goddamn thing knocked me out that long?
Beth is right. I am a loser. How am I supposed to explain this one away? Sorry, Sis, I was high on some underground tech when Mom and Dad died.
Shit.
They’re better off without me. They’re all better off.
I should cry. That’s what someone does when they’ve just lost everything. But I can't. I can't because this sort of euphoric wave washes over me.
I have nothing anymore but a singular purpose that feels so clear now.
True art is birthed only from pain. The best artwork has always come with severed ears and dead lovers.
My would-be empty heart fills with the light of a thousand sunrises over Olympus. It’s warm and ambrosia-sweet. My fingers scream to paint something revolutionary. And not just on canvas. I want to create reality and existence itself. My old life has expired, anyhow.
I burst into my studio. White canvases along the walls scream to be filled with all the colors there are. And more colors. I will make them. I will invent them. I need only time to work.
I pick up my brush and face the largest canvas in the room. My steps feel holy and my body buzzes, like it knows it’s about to do something important.
I close my eyes and see rivers, oceans, planets, and a dozen other things waiting for me to paint them.
* * *
Andy stares at the MUSE app on his phone, jaw open. The video feed reflects across his lenses.
“Beth. It worked,” he says. “Holy crap. He’s painted three canvases already.”
“I don’t know, Andy. It feels messed up. I didn’t know MUSE was gonna make up all that stuff.”
“I know. It’s amazing. I wouldn’t have thought of all that.”
“Amazing? He thinks his parents are dead, Andy! And us?” Beth waves her pointer finger between the two of them. “Gross.”
Andy looks away from his app long enough to show he’s offended.
Beth grabs her purse and stands. “We crossed a line. I’m gonna tell him.”
“Not yet,” Andy says, rapt. Jeremy’s arms sweep grandly, furiously, across a canvas. “Just watch. This could be his masterpiece.”
Melinda A. Smith (she/her) is a science writer by day, fiction and poetry writer by night. She loves any tale that questions the fabric of reality and what it means to exist. Her first science fiction novella, SUM (Ellipsis Imprints), was long-listed with the British Science Fiction Association for best short fiction, 2022. In addition to writing, she produces albums of spoken word poetry set to original electronic music, under the artist name Iambic Beats. You can follow her on Twitter (@sciencegeekmel) or online at sciencegeekmel.com and iambicbeats.com.