Friday 11 September 2015

Hiccups



Important announcement: From Monday I am relocating to the UK. That means the timing of publication may change. Sorry for any inconvenience. :-)
Hiccups
For audio click here 
It was the day we thought our art teacher had finally lost it; she'd always been a bit batty - a new hair colour every five minutes for example, but this time she'd gone too far; her instructions were brief but simple, simple but confusing;
‘Today class I want you to draw a hiccup,’ she said writing the word on the board flamboyantly and going out the back to put the kettle on.  We looked at the word and at each other in a state of bemusement.
‘Draw a hiccup?’ Mikey said  ‘Did she say draw a hiccup?’ ‘
‘How on earth were we meant to draw a hiccup?’ I added, looking forlornly at my palette.
‘A hiccup?' Dolly said, ‘she’s having a laugh!’
‘Come on you lot, you haven’t got all day,’ Mrs Broad was back with her coffee that smelt suspiciously of brandy, and a look on her face that suggested this wasn’t a work in pairs type activity.
I stared at the white piece of paper in front of me, and played a hiccup through my mind. Then looked at the word on the board again. Has she spelt it right? Was it hiccup? I thought it was hiccough. I wasn’t sure, I wasn't very good at spelling. I wasn’t much good at biology either so I had no idea what caused them; something about the diaphragm contracting but what did a diaphragm look like?
I looked at my 3 other colleagues; we were the smallest group for A-Level art in 15 years. Something Batty Broad never failed to remind us about. She took her anger out on us seeming to forget that we were the few who had chosen her subject rather than the masses who had shunned her. Maybe she was angry at us for signing up; if we hadn’t, she would have got a free period.
Anyway, Dolly had her sketching pencils out and was busy drawing something that looked like fog descending on a clear day, Mikey was splashing paint towards his easel in a furious storm, while Dan was daintily dabbing his paper with the subtlety of a gentle breeze. Meanwhile, I sat there staring at my canvas feeling sweat rolling down my brow, like rain rolling down a window. How had they had come up with ideas when I was clueless? What could they be drawing? I watched them, looking for clues but they were giving nothing away. I normally complain time stands still in school but today the clock was on coke, whizzing towards the bell. I still didn’t have a clue. 15 minutes left. Maybe she’d let us finish it for homework.
‘Right you lot, 2 minutes to finish up and then you will present what you’ve done to the class,’ Batty said.
What? That was new, since when did we do that? Batty Broad was changing the rules, that wasn’t fair.
‘Right, Mikey you go first.’ Broad said.
Mikey turned his canvas around displaying a storm of bold, cartoon colours splashed across the white paper.
‘It shows the explosive nature of the hiccup,’ Mikey said. We all nodded, even Batty looked impressed.
‘Doreen,’ Batty said.
Dolly held up her paper, the fog had been transformed into a drunken man with a bottle in his hand.
‘It’s the embodiment of the hiccup,’ Dolly said. Again we nodded our approval, Batty said something about the perspective being a bit out, but otherwise praised the fine detail.
I was sitting nervously waiting for my turn hoping the bell would ring before it came. But the clock was coming down from its high and was now sleeping like a dope fiend.
‘Daniel,’ thank god it wasn’t me.
On Dan’s canvas was a beautifully painted upside down V that looked like it had been done with a calligraphy set. It was the most melancholic shade of dark blue I could ever remember seeing. We all gasped at the simple, sun-kissed beauty of it.
‘To me, this is the shape of a hiccup,’ he said. We sat in silence admiring his work before Broad turned to look at me.
‘Can I have a glass of water?’ I said. I was playing for time, the bell was surely just around the corner.
Mrs Broad went and got me a glass from her booze cupboard.

I drank it down quickly,  ‘it worked,’ I said, ‘they’re gone,’  showing them all my empty canvas.

3 comments:

  1. That's what we call conceptual art :-)
    Made me smile on this Friday morning:-)

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  2. "Mrs Broad went and got me a glass from her booze cupboard." ;-)

    ReplyDelete