I shut the door to my one-room quarters behind me as I dropped the pieces I hadn't been able to sell on the table I at off of. Considering the things I'd had to overcome in the past month, things were going relatively well.
The first two weeks, I lived with an elderly woman, kind enough to allow me to stay until I got enough money to pay her a small sum after selling most of my work. With the money my life's accomplishments (paintings, poems, stories) brought, I paid her and found a small room the landlord rented out at a low rate. Since, I'd painted as often as I could, in order to make a profit, and though they weren't up to my usual standard, rushed as I was, they brought enough to keep me alive. In addition, I offered to write letters or compositions for those who would rather dictate than write for themselves.
It was a rushed lifestyle, lived in the excitement of Market Street and hasty work to make a living. It would have been burdensome to some, but to me, it seemed I'd never been freer. It was a feeling which could not be surpassed by anything I'd felt before (except salvation and fellowship with God), and as far as I knew, my family had no clue as to my whereabouts, though I was sure they were frantic for me now that I was not there, or, frantic for their key to fortune in any case.
And so, each night, I found myself satisfied as my head lay on the pillow, there was nothing I wanted, even could want…save one thing.
And even I didn't know how I longed for it yet.
A typical morning on Market Street.
I shoved my way through to my usual spot, a rather unnoticeable corner that had been quite unoccupied before my arrival. Now, I sat down the little stool I carried and propped my paintings against the building wall, bright colors contrasting the naturally dim and mucky air of London. Once they were set up, I took out my portfolio and sat down on the stood to write while waiting for a customer.
My usual business was with the tourists who passed by unintentionally, unaware that Market Street was not the place to spend their money. However, my advantageous position at the first end of the street brought me the little they did spend. Also, I caught the occasional wealthy citizen, curious, or perhaps just thrifty. Either way, money was money, and it pleased me. I never thought so many would be interested in my work, my passions, my art.
Today, ten canvases leaned against the brick, waiting, some watching, some listening, others screaming at the crowd, a language of colors only few could understand. One was simply a flower, its only unique quality that it was growing out of a wall, sticking out into the air at an awkward place over the sidewalk. Another, similar to many I had painted before, was an empty house, ten to twelve staircases filling family-less space. These were always eerily familiar to most of my customers. One among them was a face without any features, and though most found paintings such as these disturbing, there were the few who had taste in the strange and surreal. Others were of landscapes, animals partaking of fresh green grass, things people only dreamed of in London.
Perhaps the living once again appears meager, and it is true that with my selective customers, I did not make nearly as much as other businessmen and venders on the street, but I did not have a family to support, so my small earnings were enough.
An hour passed, and a man in a long green coat and matching top hat bought the picture of the flower in the wall, and he had been followed shortly after by a woman who looked as though she felt extremely out of place on Market Street with her long dress of pink silk, layers and layers of lacy petticoats inflating it to pool around her. She stayed only at my end of the street long enough to buy the featureless face.
As she hurried away, my canvas tucked tightly beneath her arm, the lot next to me became occupied as the normal grungy man began setting up. He always arrived an hour after me, his mood as foul as his smell.
Like myself, he was an artist, the only one that had been here I supposed, before me. He was not heavyset, but his muscles bulged out ominously beneath his dirty shirt, which must have once been white. His face looked as though, had his life played out differently, it would have been gentle and kind, with soft features. It was a face I might have once liked to paint. But, as it was, life had not been kind. His contour lines were sharp and jagged, everything jutting out as a result of starvation. His facial hair was oil black and untended, spreading across his skin unevenly, and the hair on his head just as undesirable. As usual that morning, he smelled of alcohol, and also per routine, he set out paintings that were sloppy and desolate, though I imagined he'd once been very talented. He rarely had a buyer, and even I felt sorry for him, my only competition.
I smiled at him, I always did, it was the closest I could come to saying 'good morning,' and he wouldn't respond, he never did.
I went back to my writing, and he stood in front of his work, clapping his hands and planting a smile on his face, taking his normal approach to trying to sell his paintings.
"Come one, come all! Parvatio's irresistible magic of color and shape will brighten your home better than sunlight and are twice as beautiful!"
And so on and so forth. After a few days, one started to hear the same things over and over. I highly doubted his name was really Parvatio, as there was no way that man had a drop of Italian blood in his veins.
The morning continued as such, I sold another painting (a duck pond filled with lily pads and a single swan), and Parvatio sold none. After two hours of fruitless work, he took to the liquor bottle in his coat pocket, and commenced pulling uninterested strangers out of the crowd.
"Do you like this? Do you? I know you do…will you buy it? Buy it?"
Finally, a very offended man pushed him off, and he landed among the paintings with a clatter as they all fell down around him.
I got to my feet and hastily crossed the short distance to where he lay, and held out a hand to help him up.
He took it at first, but upon looking into my face and focusing long enough to realize who I was, he shoved my hand away roughly and got to his feet as I stepped back, slightly frightened. Drunken men would try anything. He pointed a chubby finger as he spoke to me for the first time, his words running together like paint with too much water.
"You…you stole all of my…business." He had to stop and sway every few words. "You're the reason I'm…going under."
I shook my head, my eyes wide in shock at his words. From what I'd heard, he hadn't sold more than a few paintings a month even before I came. He'd been "going under" for a while.
Coming forward, he grabbed my arm, pulling me upward so close to his face that I felt faint from his rancid breathe.
"You'll…pay. I'm poor because of you. Stop…coming here, or…you'll pay."
He shoved me away roughly, then stumbled off into the mix of London mist and smog.