The Window
by Brian Doucet

    Marv did not want to be there and his body language kept it no secret. His frown drooped down to his slumped shoulders and his foot hammering on the timber floor told the room how he felt. He stood on his own little island, arms folded, dangling a glass of tepid wine.

    He looked around the gallery. Canvases in frames more deserving protested to the white walls in splashes of primary colors and crude shapes. Modern art, hmmf. Child’s play more like it.

    He heard that macaw-like laugh and knew his wife was in her element with a group of pony-tailed artists and critics discussing the hidden meanings of smearing paint on canvas. Idiots, all of them. He only came to this private showing because he was tired of hearing his wife nag about his lack of culture.

    A distant shout caught his attention and he looked up and into the frame in front of him. It reminded him of a scene from a Dickens novel. The details were thoughtfully lined and rendered, the perspective like from an angel looking down at the scene. In it was a man dressed in a suit gripping the arm of a little boy. His other hand pointing at what appeared to be a homeless lady. Her clothes were drawn from the elements of the street, dirt and ash, the grey of car exhausts. Her face, fearful and tired, was imprinted from the creases of sidewalk cracks and cardboard boxes. There were other people in the picture but their lack of detail made them just forms highlighting the the central drama.

    It was the child that caught Marv’s eye. His features were not fully rendered. His face was smudged with a shade of white. Strokes of fear etched the lines of his eyes and mouth.  Like a rag doll he was being pulled and shoved by the man in the suit. A hurt and frightened puppy. That’s what Marv saw in the kid. And he saw himself.

    Marv didn’t remember his mother and he tried to forget his father. But it was hard to forget slaps to the head, spittle loaded words, nights locked in his room, and laughter coming from the front room, laughter from a man who could be so cruel. How could a man share mirth with a stranger but not let even a single crumb fall for his son?

    Then the laughter stopped. His wife jabbed him in the side. ‘Why are you being such a bastard? Why don’t you mingle? At least pretend to be having fun. You’re embarrassing me in front of my friends.’

    Marv looked at her, then back at the picture and the small boy. He thought of the loneliness and darkness that were his constant companions. He remembered wishing that an angel would swoop down and save him from his isolation and hurt.

    Marv dropped his wine glass and leapt into the picture frame.

    The boy looked up at the sound of glass breaking and for a moment he did not feel the tight grip on his arm. In the sunlight, he saw glitter falling from heaven.