Rated X | John Travis
In the middle of the worst storm he’d ever seen the artist left the city, satisfied that his work there was at an end. His face was covered in the fine white spray blowing in the wind, his feet and ankles covered in the thick white foam running along the pavements, roads and gutters.
But despite the conditions he couldn't have been happier; large numbers of the statues remained, testaments of his work in the city, subjects made of stronger stuff than anyone but he could possibly imagine. A few of them, oddly luminescent, tried their best to brighten the dreary surroundings of empty shops, broken benches, cracked paving flags and half-eaten food cartons. Wondering what the effect would be from above, he decided that he would find a hill above the city before he moved on.
And so, with a smile on his face, the artist made his way through the blizzard and puddles of white sludge, onto a higher place.
On entering the city he wandered for several hours, his few possessions carried in a small bundle on his back. As an artist he had to breathe in and taste the atmosphere of the place chosen to work in. He found that as cities went it was fairly typical; the only thing that mattered was that this place needed him; and he’d known that before he’d arrived.
Trudging through the inevitable sleet he eventually found somewhere to rest his bones. Instead of investigating further however, he kept walking, knowing that it could wait; before he rested he had to find somewhere to begin; and sometimes it could take hours. So, despite the pains in his feet he carried on, knowing that the end result would always be worth the pain he endured.
And then, just as he’d begun to despair, he found it on the far side of the city – a place almost too perfect for words. He felt happier than he had in days, weeks; and when he entered his chosen place of rest and saw that it was perfect too, he felt that his heart would burst with joy.
Later, preparing himself for the work ahead, a ray of moonlight reached him and moved gently across his hand, staining it a brilliant white. It was the sign he’d been waiting for.
He was ready.
Next day, the first of the statues appeared in the local Sculpture Park.
When it appeared – or rather, they appeared, as there were four of them, scattered around the park – it was assumed by the park’s patrons that these signature-less icons must have been installed without fanfare to add a sense of mystery to the place; no doubt, they thought, looking at the agony-wracked forms of bone-like material, this masterful artist would be named at some point, once a suitable furore had been raised. When the owner of the park professed his ignorance regarding the provenance of the statues and their creator, let alone the fact that they had seemingly ‘popped up in the middle of the night’, of course nobody believed him.
In a bid to solve the mystery (and also realising the free and much-needed publicity the stunt could provoke), he contacted the local newspaper in the hope that they or their readers could shed some light on the situation.
However, none was forthcoming; the editor, sensing some kind of elaborate scam, decided to ignore the statues. Didn’t the Sculpture Park’s owner realise that their were things of real importance going on in the city, such as the alarming rise in street crime and violence attacks, the filthy state of the streets, the opening of several ‘adult’ clubs in the city centre? Why, the editor told the man at the other end of the phone, several people had disappeared in the city in the last twenty-four hours alone. These were the things that people wanted to hear about, not ‘good news’ items, regardless of how strange they might be.
And so the statues, beautiful and mysterious as they were, were largely ignored.
The following day the owner of the park arrived late and was surprised to find that the fine mist blanketing the city was if anything even worse in the park. It was also the reason he was late getting to the park – his windscreen wipers, ill-equipped to deal with the fine particles, dictated that, like every other car on the road, he had to drive at a reduced speed to avoid accidents.
Getting out of his car he walked over to the gate and let himself in, removing his spectacles in order to wipe the fine white spray from the lenses. It was oddly reminiscent of sea mist, but he dismissed that as ridiculous, the city being as far from the sea as it was.
Heading towards the exhibits he half expected the ‘new’ statues to have gone. What he hadn’t expected was that they would have multiplied.
The owner, perplexed but now also a little afraid, looked long and hard at the tableau in his park.
Each statue, evidently cut from a single large block, depicted humanity in the throes of some hideous torment; some stood erect, their blind eyes facing the heavens, while others were curled foetus-like upon the frosted grass as if suddenly struck down by some violent pain.
The owner wished that he could find out who the artist was: Whoever they were, they were supremely talented; the statues were extremely unnerving. He was also curious to find out the substance the statues were made of. He was pretty sure it wasn’t marble – despite having the smooth, luxurious feel of marble, it had none of its coldness; in fact the statues were surprisingly warm to the touch, given the dropping temperatures in the area. The whole thing was, to say the least, perplexing.
Shrugging at the mystery which would no doubt resolve itself in time, he removed his glasses once more to rid them of another coating of the fine spray, wiping it away with a handkerchief. As he was doing this he found himself gazing up at the grey sky, at what appeared to be a face composed of breaks in the cloud. Returning the spectacles to his nose, he found that there wasn’t a face there after all.
Over the next forty-eight hours more of the statues began appearing across the city in various odd places: At the bus station, near the taxi rank, huddled in alleyways and crouching among piles of rubbish, perched on top of walls outside the shopping arcade, even in the middle of run-down housing estates – over twenty in all. There was only one further addition to the Sculpture Park.
Nobody who saw these strange, milky-white figures could account for their sudden appearance; it was as if they appeared in the blink of an eye. It was suggested that whoever was responsible was in some way trying to cheer up the city, to divert attention from what looked like an imminent city-wide gang-war – it seemed that the past week had seen at least a score of notorious local villains from various factions going missing, with each side blaming the other for the disappearances, and promising revenge.
But to most people the statues were just another element in the city that had to be avoided, along with what came to be known as the freakish ‘coastal spray’ coating everything and everyone that happened to get in its way.
A few days and several statues later, a scruffy man with long hair and a beard entered the offices of the local newspaper.
“I was wondering,” the strange smiling figure said to the girl on the reception desk, ‘if you could give this note to your editor as a matter of urgency.”
The receptionist stopped chewing her gum for a second, looking the man up and down. “Why, what is it?” she said, suddenly feeling a little queasy.
“It will explain certain recent features of the city and what I am trying to achieve with them.”
Before she had a chance to answer the man turned and walked into the mist. Before he had reached the end of the street she rushed to the nearest sink and vomited, the note staying on the desk where it remained for several days.
The artist found the delay in getting back to him inexcusable. Didn’t these people care? Maybe the additional four dozen statues he’d placed around the city weren’t enough. He realised that he’d have to make a statement that would capture the city’s imagination: He knew that another inspirational tour through the streets was in order.
And as he wandered through the shabby streets he saw what the problem was; people were hanging their heads, looking at the pavements, not at each other or the skies; and it wasn’t just to avoid the sprays blowing in their faces either; no, it was because things were worsening, the city was sinking fast. It hurt him to see his work being neglected like this.
However, this disappointment soon turned to resolve – his next work would be something that would make people sit up and take notice.
Up a dark cobbled street rich with the twin odours of vomit and urine he found just the place; a dingy little establishment with electric blue and blazing pink neon above the door. Despite the weather a huge man in a bow tie was stood outside, his bulky arms folded across his huge chest. Making his way past the bouncer, the artist stood looked at a man behind a sheet of glass with a roll of tickets in front of him.
“One, please,” said the artist.
It was safe to say that the officer had never seen anything like it in his life.
He’d been wandering the streets for hours, and despite not having encountered any trouble he found himself on edge. The city was in the grip of a substantial crime-wave – the sudden rash of disappearances in the area was truly alarming – and, he realised as he passed another smooth white figure in the cobbled alley near the Logo A-Go-Go club, these stupid white statues that had started cropping up all over the place weren’t helping his mood either. Then he spotted another statue, this time standing outside the club.
Wrinkling his nose against the smell of the alley, he made his way towards it.
It was standing right in front of the door, large as life. It was then he realised that something was wrong; there was no noise coming from inside the club. Squeezing past the bulky statue he went inside to investigate.
A few minutes later he radioed his station.
“Yes,” he said to the aggressive voice at the other end, “I know how it sounds.”
The voice at the other end asked him to repeat something.
“I said,” the officer replied, looking around him in disbelief, ‘that there’s even one of them wrapped around the dancer’s pole.”
The next morning when the newspaper editor heard about the visit by the strange man and the note he’d left behind, he was not best pleased. The receptionist told him that shortly after the man had left she’d been taken ill and that was why the note had not been passed on.
The editor, waving her apologies aside, grabbed the note and took it back to his office. Reading it through he tutted, then shook his head.
Despite his reluctance he knew that he’d have to check it out. He grabbed his coat and left. Between the newspaper offices and the disused building he counted twenty-seven statues.
Looking up into the crumbling face of a gargoyle he wondered at the lengths some people would go to for publicity.
The note, a sheet of grubby paper covered in tiny handwriting, had informed him that the statues were the work of an artist who signed himself “Rated X’. He’d had to smile at that. At least whoever he was he had a sense of humour. It also meant that whoever he was, he knew the area.
The editor was too young to remember the old place as a church – he knew it as a dingy old picture house, a vile-smelling fleapit catering to the worst the city had to offer. Now it was derelict, another eyesore in a town full of eyesores. Oh, yes, someone had a sense of humour all right.
After taking a deep breath he looked for the gap between the battered old door and the wall that the note had mentioned. Wondering again what he was getting himself into, he managed to squeeze into the gap, feeling like a rat disappearing into a piece of skirting board.
Passing over the threshold the sound from the street behind him shut off immediately. He found himself standing in darkness so complete it was as if he’d never had eyes. Slowly, he began to move forward.
He’d walked only a few steps when a small-lit candle appeared on the floor ahead of him. Guided by its flickering light he made his way towards it, avoiding the broken seats and rubble that littered the floor, trying to make out the blurry figure behind the flame as he went.
“Be seated, please.” A voice told him, making him start.
Reluctantly, the journalist sat down. When he asked if he could record the conversation a pale face framed with long straggly hair appeared, the hair almost touching the candle’s flame.
“By all means,” the face told him, a mouth filled white teeth appearing through the hair.
“So,” the journalist said, clicking on the machine. “You can tell me all about the statues.”
“I can enlighten you as to their origin, yes.”
The journalist fired off several questions – why the name, where were the other artists, where did they all come from?
“The name,” the artist called “Rated X’ said, ‘came to me suddenly as I was approaching your city. I knew when I arrived that it was singularly appropriate.
“As for “others” helping me, I work alone. It merely takes a touch to create, and I work as I go along with the subjects I find. I suppose in that sense it is a collaboration. I would not be here were it not for them.” The artist paused before resuming his answer. “Am I local? If you consider the world “local”, then yes.”
The journalist wanted to know why his name was ‘singularly appropriate’.
“Oh come on,” the figure smiled, leaning into the flame again, ‘this city is a cesspool, you can’t deny that? It is a city full of people who have seen too much, perhaps in this very building.” The journalist felt himself blushing in the darkness.
“They see these things and are not held to account for them. All I do is see these things in people and reflect it back at them. Some people see what they are when the time arrives, but most do not. Some people are affected more than others. It’s a matter of degrees.”
Such talk meant little to the editor. He decided to try a different tack.
“And what is so dreadfully wrong with our city,” he asked of the face beyond the flame, ‘that means it needs several hundred statues to improve it?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” the artist replied, ‘you are not alone. I have been to many places before this and there will be many more when I leave. You are by no means unique. All I can do – that is, all my work can do – is represent. The statues in themselves can put nothing right – they are merely one manifestation of the problem.”
“But,” the journalist said, his voice rising, ‘what are they supposed to represent?”
“Rated X’ thought for a while before answering.
“Have you heard of the ancient legend of the Medusa, or more appropriately, the story of the wife of Lot?” He said. When the journalist didn’t reply he continued. “Both stories tell basically the same tale, but in different ways. The Medusa was one of the three dreaded Gorgons, and was so hideous to look upon that any who tried were turned to stone. On the other hand there’s Lot’s wife, who –’
The journalist, hearing enough mumbo-jumbo, rose to leave, his sudden movement blowing out the candle. Before he had a chance to move a cold hand encircled his ankle.
“The point I was making,” the voice said in the blackness, ‘was that sometimes we have to pay in life for the things we witness. That is all. An “X’ can also denote a mistake, among other things. Now do you understand?”
But “Rated X’ knew that he did not, and let go of him and listened to him stumble blindly out of the building.
The newspaper editor, grateful to be away from the filthy squat and the crackpot who inhabited it, squeezed himself back into the street and looked up into a huge face in the sky made up of clouds. Then a sudden thought popped into his head which he soon swatted away.
Walking back to work his body felt cramped, perhaps as a result of being in that damp old building. He wondered about the things the so-called ‘artist’ had said. Was he suggesting that he had something to do with the problems in the city? He swatted that idea aside as he’d swatted the face in the clouds aside.
Approaching the office he saw a dishevelled little man outside, wearing a sandwich board proclaiming that the end was nigh. Shaking his head he winced at the stiffness in his neck. Dragging his aching body into the lift, he pressed the button to close the door. When the door opened a few seconds later the figure inside stayed where it was.
Sitting there in the dark of the abandoned Church/Cinema, “Rated X’ knew that his work in the city was almost done. He’d lost count of the number of statues in the city and it bothered him slightly, as it always did. If these people had seen too much to begin with, weren’t these grotesque parodies of the human form just desensitising them even further? Wasn’t he adding to the problem?
But it was a natural reaction to doubt, and he raised himself from the litter-strewn floor to carry out his last task, the one that gave him hope for the world. Leaving the old building behind, he noticed that it had started to rain.
An hour later, with the rain almost torrential and the wind beginning to rise, he found his confidence slipping once more.
He only needed to find one person, that was all; one person to restore his faith in humanity. But so far that person (if they existed in the city) avoided him.
Stopping despite the wind and rain he looked back at the streets he’d just passed through, every one devoid of people but filled with statues. He reminded himself that he’d started out from a bad part of town, and set off again, eager to find a worthwhile subject.
But as the storm rose in ferocity the streets began to empty, and everyone he reached out to either slowed to a crawl or froze in agony before his eyes, the transformations taking only a matter of seconds. At the end of another thoroughfare he looked back and saw another nine white figures frozen in the rain. As he watched one of them began to drip, white foam dribbling onto the pavement. A few minutes later the gutters of the streets he walked were choked with spume.
And then, his heart was gladdened when he saw a man buckling under the weight of the sandwich board upon his shoulders, his predictions truer than he could ever imagine. Hurrying over to him in the blizzard, “Rated X’ touched the man on the shoulder to say how grateful he was for his presence. But before he had a chance to utter a word the man with the sandwich board fell to the floor, his face a mask of agony.
Then, “Rated X’ heard a frail voice calling to him. What have you done to him, the voice said.
He turned and saw an elderly woman in a raincoat standing next to him, gesticulating. Shaking his head, he reached out and touched the woman lightly on the shoulder.
Instead of keeling over in the road as he’d expected, he saw to his surprise and delight that she remained upright. Licking at the small amount of salt that had formed on her thin lips, she carried on walking, stepping over the ever-whitening body lying in the gutter.
Breathing a sigh of relief, “Rated X’ smiled to himself, knowing that his work in the city was complete.
On finding a suitable vantage point “Rated X’ stopped and washed the salt that was caked to his feet off in a puddle. Then, slicking his hair away from his face he looked down on the city.
Even through the driving rain he had a good view; scores of white statues glistened in the night, while others collapsed to join the rivers of salty foam sweeping through the streets. A few of the more resilient statues had even begun to crystallise, their jagged lights sparkling like diamonds in the storm. Despite this, and despite knowing how rotten and corrupted such people must have been, he found the sight strangely beautiful. Life, he realised, was full of such contradictions.
For example, he knew he couldn’t allow himself to stare for too long, either.
Turning from the city and into the rain once more, he set off for the next place that needed his touch.
In the middle of the worst storm he’d ever seen the artist left the city, satisfied that his work there was at an end. His face was covered in the fine white spray blowing in the wind, his feet and ankles covered in the thick white foam running along the pavements, roads and gutters.
But despite the conditions he couldn't have been happier; large numbers of the statues remained, testaments of his work in the city, subjects made of stronger stuff than anyone but he could possibly imagine. A few of them, oddly luminescent, tried their best to brighten the dreary surroundings of empty shops, broken benches, cracked paving flags and half-eaten food cartons. Wondering what the effect would be from above, he decided that he would find a hill above the city before he moved on.
And so, with a smile on his face, the artist made his way through the blizzard and puddles of white sludge, onto a higher place.
On entering the city he wandered for several hours, his few possessions carried in a small bundle on his back. As an artist he had to breathe in and taste the atmosphere of the place chosen to work in. He found that as cities went it was fairly typical; the only thing that mattered was that this place needed him; and he’d known that before he’d arrived.
Trudging through the inevitable sleet he eventually found somewhere to rest his bones. Instead of investigating further however, he kept walking, knowing that it could wait; before he rested he had to find somewhere to begin; and sometimes it could take hours. So, despite the pains in his feet he carried on, knowing that the end result would always be worth the pain he endured.
And then, just as he’d begun to despair, he found it on the far side of the city – a place almost too perfect for words. He felt happier than he had in days, weeks; and when he entered his chosen place of rest and saw that it was perfect too, he felt that his heart would burst with joy.
Later, preparing himself for the work ahead, a ray of moonlight reached him and moved gently across his hand, staining it a brilliant white. It was the sign he’d been waiting for.
He was ready.
Next day, the first of the statues appeared in the local Sculpture Park.
When it appeared – or rather, they appeared, as there were four of them, scattered around the park – it was assumed by the park’s patrons that these signature-less icons must have been installed without fanfare to add a sense of mystery to the place; no doubt, they thought, looking at the agony-wracked forms of bone-like material, this masterful artist would be named at some point, once a suitable furore had been raised. When the owner of the park professed his ignorance regarding the provenance of the statues and their creator, let alone the fact that they had seemingly ‘popped up in the middle of the night’, of course nobody believed him.
In a bid to solve the mystery (and also realising the free and much-needed publicity the stunt could provoke), he contacted the local newspaper in the hope that they or their readers could shed some light on the situation.
However, none was forthcoming; the editor, sensing some kind of elaborate scam, decided to ignore the statues. Didn’t the Sculpture Park’s owner realise that their were things of real importance going on in the city, such as the alarming rise in street crime and violence attacks, the filthy state of the streets, the opening of several ‘adult’ clubs in the city centre? Why, the editor told the man at the other end of the phone, several people had disappeared in the city in the last twenty-four hours alone. These were the things that people wanted to hear about, not ‘good news’ items, regardless of how strange they might be.
And so the statues, beautiful and mysterious as they were, were largely ignored.
The following day the owner of the park arrived late and was surprised to find that the fine mist blanketing the city was if anything even worse in the park. It was also the reason he was late getting to the park – his windscreen wipers, ill-equipped to deal with the fine particles, dictated that, like every other car on the road, he had to drive at a reduced speed to avoid accidents.
Getting out of his car he walked over to the gate and let himself in, removing his spectacles in order to wipe the fine white spray from the lenses. It was oddly reminiscent of sea mist, but he dismissed that as ridiculous, the city being as far from the sea as it was.
Heading towards the exhibits he half expected the ‘new’ statues to have gone. What he hadn’t expected was that they would have multiplied.
The owner, perplexed but now also a little afraid, looked long and hard at the tableau in his park.
Each statue, evidently cut from a single large block, depicted humanity in the throes of some hideous torment; some stood erect, their blind eyes facing the heavens, while others were curled foetus-like upon the frosted grass as if suddenly struck down by some violent pain.
The owner wished that he could find out who the artist was: Whoever they were, they were supremely talented; the statues were extremely unnerving. He was also curious to find out the substance the statues were made of. He was pretty sure it wasn’t marble – despite having the smooth, luxurious feel of marble, it had none of its coldness; in fact the statues were surprisingly warm to the touch, given the dropping temperatures in the area. The whole thing was, to say the least, perplexing.
Shrugging at the mystery which would no doubt resolve itself in time, he removed his glasses once more to rid them of another coating of the fine spray, wiping it away with a handkerchief. As he was doing this he found himself gazing up at the grey sky, at what appeared to be a face composed of breaks in the cloud. Returning the spectacles to his nose, he found that there wasn’t a face there after all.
Over the next forty-eight hours more of the statues began appearing across the city in various odd places: At the bus station, near the taxi rank, huddled in alleyways and crouching among piles of rubbish, perched on top of walls outside the shopping arcade, even in the middle of run-down housing estates – over twenty in all. There was only one further addition to the Sculpture Park.
Nobody who saw these strange, milky-white figures could account for their sudden appearance; it was as if they appeared in the blink of an eye. It was suggested that whoever was responsible was in some way trying to cheer up the city, to divert attention from what looked like an imminent city-wide gang-war – it seemed that the past week had seen at least a score of notorious local villains from various factions going missing, with each side blaming the other for the disappearances, and promising revenge.
But to most people the statues were just another element in the city that had to be avoided, along with what came to be known as the freakish ‘coastal spray’ coating everything and everyone that happened to get in its way.
A few days and several statues later, a scruffy man with long hair and a beard entered the offices of the local newspaper.
“I was wondering,” the strange smiling figure said to the girl on the reception desk, ‘if you could give this note to your editor as a matter of urgency.”
The receptionist stopped chewing her gum for a second, looking the man up and down. “Why, what is it?” she said, suddenly feeling a little queasy.
“It will explain certain recent features of the city and what I am trying to achieve with them.”
Before she had a chance to answer the man turned and walked into the mist. Before he had reached the end of the street she rushed to the nearest sink and vomited, the note staying on the desk where it remained for several days.
The artist found the delay in getting back to him inexcusable. Didn’t these people care? Maybe the additional four dozen statues he’d placed around the city weren’t enough. He realised that he’d have to make a statement that would capture the city’s imagination: He knew that another inspirational tour through the streets was in order.
And as he wandered through the shabby streets he saw what the problem was; people were hanging their heads, looking at the pavements, not at each other or the skies; and it wasn’t just to avoid the sprays blowing in their faces either; no, it was because things were worsening, the city was sinking fast. It hurt him to see his work being neglected like this.
However, this disappointment soon turned to resolve – his next work would be something that would make people sit up and take notice.
Up a dark cobbled street rich with the twin odours of vomit and urine he found just the place; a dingy little establishment with electric blue and blazing pink neon above the door. Despite the weather a huge man in a bow tie was stood outside, his bulky arms folded across his huge chest. Making his way past the bouncer, the artist stood looked at a man behind a sheet of glass with a roll of tickets in front of him.
“One, please,” said the artist.
It was safe to say that the officer had never seen anything like it in his life.
He’d been wandering the streets for hours, and despite not having encountered any trouble he found himself on edge. The city was in the grip of a substantial crime-wave – the sudden rash of disappearances in the area was truly alarming – and, he realised as he passed another smooth white figure in the cobbled alley near the Logo A-Go-Go club, these stupid white statues that had started cropping up all over the place weren’t helping his mood either. Then he spotted another statue, this time standing outside the club.
Wrinkling his nose against the smell of the alley, he made his way towards it.
It was standing right in front of the door, large as life. It was then he realised that something was wrong; there was no noise coming from inside the club. Squeezing past the bulky statue he went inside to investigate.
A few minutes later he radioed his station.
“Yes,” he said to the aggressive voice at the other end, “I know how it sounds.”
The voice at the other end asked him to repeat something.
“I said,” the officer replied, looking around him in disbelief, ‘that there’s even one of them wrapped around the dancer’s pole.”
The next morning when the newspaper editor heard about the visit by the strange man and the note he’d left behind, he was not best pleased. The receptionist told him that shortly after the man had left she’d been taken ill and that was why the note had not been passed on.
The editor, waving her apologies aside, grabbed the note and took it back to his office. Reading it through he tutted, then shook his head.
Despite his reluctance he knew that he’d have to check it out. He grabbed his coat and left. Between the newspaper offices and the disused building he counted twenty-seven statues.
Looking up into the crumbling face of a gargoyle he wondered at the lengths some people would go to for publicity.
The note, a sheet of grubby paper covered in tiny handwriting, had informed him that the statues were the work of an artist who signed himself “Rated X’. He’d had to smile at that. At least whoever he was he had a sense of humour. It also meant that whoever he was, he knew the area.
The editor was too young to remember the old place as a church – he knew it as a dingy old picture house, a vile-smelling fleapit catering to the worst the city had to offer. Now it was derelict, another eyesore in a town full of eyesores. Oh, yes, someone had a sense of humour all right.
After taking a deep breath he looked for the gap between the battered old door and the wall that the note had mentioned. Wondering again what he was getting himself into, he managed to squeeze into the gap, feeling like a rat disappearing into a piece of skirting board.
Passing over the threshold the sound from the street behind him shut off immediately. He found himself standing in darkness so complete it was as if he’d never had eyes. Slowly, he began to move forward.
He’d walked only a few steps when a small-lit candle appeared on the floor ahead of him. Guided by its flickering light he made his way towards it, avoiding the broken seats and rubble that littered the floor, trying to make out the blurry figure behind the flame as he went.
“Be seated, please.” A voice told him, making him start.
Reluctantly, the journalist sat down. When he asked if he could record the conversation a pale face framed with long straggly hair appeared, the hair almost touching the candle’s flame.
“By all means,” the face told him, a mouth filled white teeth appearing through the hair.
“So,” the journalist said, clicking on the machine. “You can tell me all about the statues.”
“I can enlighten you as to their origin, yes.”
The journalist fired off several questions – why the name, where were the other artists, where did they all come from?
“The name,” the artist called “Rated X’ said, ‘came to me suddenly as I was approaching your city. I knew when I arrived that it was singularly appropriate.
“As for “others” helping me, I work alone. It merely takes a touch to create, and I work as I go along with the subjects I find. I suppose in that sense it is a collaboration. I would not be here were it not for them.” The artist paused before resuming his answer. “Am I local? If you consider the world “local”, then yes.”
The journalist wanted to know why his name was ‘singularly appropriate’.
“Oh come on,” the figure smiled, leaning into the flame again, ‘this city is a cesspool, you can’t deny that? It is a city full of people who have seen too much, perhaps in this very building.” The journalist felt himself blushing in the darkness.
“They see these things and are not held to account for them. All I do is see these things in people and reflect it back at them. Some people see what they are when the time arrives, but most do not. Some people are affected more than others. It’s a matter of degrees.”
Such talk meant little to the editor. He decided to try a different tack.
“And what is so dreadfully wrong with our city,” he asked of the face beyond the flame, ‘that means it needs several hundred statues to improve it?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” the artist replied, ‘you are not alone. I have been to many places before this and there will be many more when I leave. You are by no means unique. All I can do – that is, all my work can do – is represent. The statues in themselves can put nothing right – they are merely one manifestation of the problem.”
“But,” the journalist said, his voice rising, ‘what are they supposed to represent?”
“Rated X’ thought for a while before answering.
“Have you heard of the ancient legend of the Medusa, or more appropriately, the story of the wife of Lot?” He said. When the journalist didn’t reply he continued. “Both stories tell basically the same tale, but in different ways. The Medusa was one of the three dreaded Gorgons, and was so hideous to look upon that any who tried were turned to stone. On the other hand there’s Lot’s wife, who –’
The journalist, hearing enough mumbo-jumbo, rose to leave, his sudden movement blowing out the candle. Before he had a chance to move a cold hand encircled his ankle.
“The point I was making,” the voice said in the blackness, ‘was that sometimes we have to pay in life for the things we witness. That is all. An “X’ can also denote a mistake, among other things. Now do you understand?”
But “Rated X’ knew that he did not, and let go of him and listened to him stumble blindly out of the building.
The newspaper editor, grateful to be away from the filthy squat and the crackpot who inhabited it, squeezed himself back into the street and looked up into a huge face in the sky made up of clouds. Then a sudden thought popped into his head which he soon swatted away.
Walking back to work his body felt cramped, perhaps as a result of being in that damp old building. He wondered about the things the so-called ‘artist’ had said. Was he suggesting that he had something to do with the problems in the city? He swatted that idea aside as he’d swatted the face in the clouds aside.
Approaching the office he saw a dishevelled little man outside, wearing a sandwich board proclaiming that the end was nigh. Shaking his head he winced at the stiffness in his neck. Dragging his aching body into the lift, he pressed the button to close the door. When the door opened a few seconds later the figure inside stayed where it was.
Sitting there in the dark of the abandoned Church/Cinema, “Rated X’ knew that his work in the city was almost done. He’d lost count of the number of statues in the city and it bothered him slightly, as it always did. If these people had seen too much to begin with, weren’t these grotesque parodies of the human form just desensitising them even further? Wasn’t he adding to the problem?
But it was a natural reaction to doubt, and he raised himself from the litter-strewn floor to carry out his last task, the one that gave him hope for the world. Leaving the old building behind, he noticed that it had started to rain.
An hour later, with the rain almost torrential and the wind beginning to rise, he found his confidence slipping once more.
He only needed to find one person, that was all; one person to restore his faith in humanity. But so far that person (if they existed in the city) avoided him.
Stopping despite the wind and rain he looked back at the streets he’d just passed through, every one devoid of people but filled with statues. He reminded himself that he’d started out from a bad part of town, and set off again, eager to find a worthwhile subject.
But as the storm rose in ferocity the streets began to empty, and everyone he reached out to either slowed to a crawl or froze in agony before his eyes, the transformations taking only a matter of seconds. At the end of another thoroughfare he looked back and saw another nine white figures frozen in the rain. As he watched one of them began to drip, white foam dribbling onto the pavement. A few minutes later the gutters of the streets he walked were choked with spume.
And then, his heart was gladdened when he saw a man buckling under the weight of the sandwich board upon his shoulders, his predictions truer than he could ever imagine. Hurrying over to him in the blizzard, “Rated X’ touched the man on the shoulder to say how grateful he was for his presence. But before he had a chance to utter a word the man with the sandwich board fell to the floor, his face a mask of agony.
Then, “Rated X’ heard a frail voice calling to him. What have you done to him, the voice said.
He turned and saw an elderly woman in a raincoat standing next to him, gesticulating. Shaking his head, he reached out and touched the woman lightly on the shoulder.
Instead of keeling over in the road as he’d expected, he saw to his surprise and delight that she remained upright. Licking at the small amount of salt that had formed on her thin lips, she carried on walking, stepping over the ever-whitening body lying in the gutter.
Breathing a sigh of relief, “Rated X’ smiled to himself, knowing that his work in the city was complete.
On finding a suitable vantage point “Rated X’ stopped and washed the salt that was caked to his feet off in a puddle. Then, slicking his hair away from his face he looked down on the city.
Even through the driving rain he had a good view; scores of white statues glistened in the night, while others collapsed to join the rivers of salty foam sweeping through the streets. A few of the more resilient statues had even begun to crystallise, their jagged lights sparkling like diamonds in the storm. Despite this, and despite knowing how rotten and corrupted such people must have been, he found the sight strangely beautiful. Life, he realised, was full of such contradictions.
For example, he knew he couldn’t allow himself to stare for too long, either.
Turning from the city and into the rain once more, he set off for the next place that needed his touch.