I wonder what the marble [[sees]].
I wonder what is left when the [[chisel]] pulls away.But I know what my muse sees.
My beautiful muse.
[[Laurent]]The marble is beside me.
Towering, imposing.
But I am coaxing something [[contemplative]] out of it.I must teach it who it is.
[[Begin with the eyes]]
[[Begin with the torso]]
[[Begin with the legs]]This where the marble breathes.
Where a stone heart pumps stone [[blood]].
You can tell who a person will be from the way they look at you.
But they reveal even more if they only [[look]] away.Posture makes the man--a strong stance, indeed.
One's self worth is reflected by how they [[stand]].This Laurent will meet no-ones gaze.
I coax from the stone a solemn Laurent.
A Laurent content with the company of his own mind.
[[Carve]]
The chisel comes down in clean, confident blows.
Laurent of flesh and blood looks to his feet as I work; he is holding his breath.
He doesn't need to, but I don't stop him.
[[Keep carving]]
[[...]]This Laurent will breathe slow, but strong.
A heart steady but sure.
A Laurent who rests and thinks.
[[Carve]]But not for Laurent.
Laurent sits, hands on his head, in silent meditation.
[[Carve]]The soft stone begins to take shape.
Is this how Laurent sees himself?
How I see him?
Or something else entirely?
[[Keep carving | continue carving]]
[[...? ->...]]Something else is here. A sound.
Barely there.
A [[sound]].Yes, that's it. A sound.
Sound in the silence of the workshop.
[[Plip plop]]
My focus is pulled away from me violently.
I can ignore it no longer.
A great, fat droplet of water has bombed me from above.
[[Look up ->Plip plop]]There is a leak in the roof of the workshop.
It has been there for a number of days now, and it has begun to [[rain]].The droplets become a steady stream.
Soon the marble man before me is drowned, and every fold of his stone musculature becomes a bed for a small river.
[[Check on Laurent]]Laurent was never designed to be drowned.
I orient myself around the unfinished base of the marble.
The stone here is rough and uncarved--awkward to move with no hand-holds.
[[Push]]
[[Rock]]I had instructed my muse to stand impossibly still--to never move.
In this task he was extraordinary.
But it seems he has forsaken his post; his carefully positioned figure now droops to the side in [[macabre]] leisure. I approach Laurent. The humidity of the flooding studio has been horrible on his conservation.
Such careful measures I took.
I wished for Laurent to be beautiful [[forever]].There was a burning in my heart.
Now the flame slowy dies as I sit and watch this limp, ugly thing melt.
It is like a betreyal.
[[Move the body]]Water has soaked into its clothes.
The thing is like a grotesque lump.
I wrap my arms around the space between the shoulders and limbs and lift.
[[Drag it outside]]
[[Drag it into a backroom]]The rain hits me in full force, and soon I am as drowned as the thing in my arms.
The night is warm and sour, and the smell of rot permeates the air.
[[Pull]]
Each pull seems harder than the last.
It is like it now refuses to listen.
Once you were so willing.
[[Beneath the floorboards]]Its legs are sinking into the mud outside the workshop.
It won't stop digging its heels into the ground.
It's trying to stop me.
[[Don't let it]]I'm so close now.
Free of my forsaken muse.
[[Load it into the car]]
I open the trunk of the little red sedan and dump it in.
Drive.
Drive far, [[far away]].
Or even [[farther]].Every sudden turn prompts a dreadful lurch from behind me.
But the dam appears to grow in size around every winding corner.
Closer now.
[[Stop]]
Here we are.
So far down.
[[Never]] to be found.[[... | next]]I know now what my muse sees.
My faithless [[muse]].
Nothing at all.The workshop is so old.
In such [[shambles]].
I rip up the floorboards in the room behind the marble.
The water has seeped into rotten subframe.
[[Dump it]]I watch it fall limply below--sinking slowly into the muck.
[[... | a sound]]
Something else [[... | entirely]]I hear a wailing in the distance growing ever closer.
The whine of weak engines.
The croak of muddied voices.
[[Run]]
[[Hide]]I attempt an escape from the backroom.
They would never understand.
But they've already made it [[inside]].I make the plunge into the sodden ground beside my muse.
And I cover the hole in the few [[moments]] that remain.I don't hear what they say.
I only watch them gasp and cover their mouths and noses.
I knew they'd never [[understand]].The beauty of what could have been.I cannot call for help.
But I am slowly sinking.
Sinking into the tomb of [[Laurent | sorry]].It is our tomb now.The towns go by my rain-spotted window.
They all blend together after a while.
Untill [[... | more sound]]I hear a wailing in the distance growing ever closer.
The whine of weak engines.
I've gone so far, I can't [[stop]] now.I watch a sea of red and blue crest the hill before me.
A tidal wave of [[inevitability]].I go until I know there is no place left.