The Projection Room: Two from the Cubist Mist

Chapter 1

IT WAS WORLD WAR I. GEORGES trudged warily with his fellow soldiers. It was an unforgiving, cold autumn. Their French Army uniforms were barely sufficient against the damp winds and mist that seeped into their very bones. It was a soggy fall twilight. The damp made the cold worse, and it chilled clear through their jackets and seeped into their very bones. There was no barrier against the frigid air. There was only the smell of decaying leaves and the sound of boots trudging through the thick mud that caked and weighed down their steps.

Georges looked to his left to see the body of a fellow soldier, stiff from rigor mortis, who had turned an obscene color of pale blue. The dead man’s eyes were blank with a milky haze growing over them. The mouth was open and black, like the grave awaiting him. Georges looked away and kept moving. He recognized the soldier but didn’t have time to contemplate the passing of another life. He was mildly hardened to the sight of death by now, but only mildly. He could only hope time would exorcise the horrors of what he had seen.

Soon after he passed the fallen soldiers, the sound of bullets flying hotly through the frigid air erupted. He hit the ground and winced at the cold solidness of the earth beneath him. The bullets whizzed past him, making a banshee cry near his ear. They were followed by the sounds of shells and mortars exploding in the mist before him. He briefly felt the stroke of the explosion on his face, and he instinctively lifted his arm to protect his eyes and face. He was okay; it wasn’t close enough.

Men nearby cried out and panted for air as they tried with all their might to move through the mud. The sucking clay pulled like little hands holding them back and tugging them down as if complicit with the enemy. The sounds of gunfire, mortars, and men’s shouts increased as the final, timid streams of light pierced through the clouds before fading.

Georges got up from the mud and ran, following two fellow soldiers. The three of them dashed for cover, but it was too late. Through the mists and mounting darkness, bullets flew and finally found them.

There was a flash of light and buzzing, and he heard the sound of his own heavy breathing. Georges was lying in the mud on his belly. His helmet had been forcibly pushed off his head. He touched his head and then looked at his hand to see his own blood. Only then did it dawn on him he had been shot. He couldn’t even recall how he had ended up lying in the mud. The insectlike buzzing sound in his ears persisted. He thought it odd to hear buzzing in this cold of autumn. For Georges, time seemed to have changed, moving forward in fits and spurts. One of the other soldiers was facedown in the mud; he was already dead. The other was slumped against a tree stump, breathing his dying breaths. Sights and sounds momentarily blended together and moved in spasms till they flowed back to normalcy again. The hot buzzing in his ears subsided.

Georges finally became aware of his pain. His eyes narrowed from the agony. He strained to focus his vision at some movement up ahead. At first he thought it was German troops, but there wasn’t the universal movement of urgency and stealth common to soldiers in the heat of battle. Suddenly, two men seemed to form out of the very mist itself. They seemed unaware, unconcerned about the violence and chaos around them. They were unflinching, steadfast, almost casual about the bursts of gunfire and mortar explosions around them. They didn’t seem to react to any of it. Only the dying men around them seemed to pique their interest.

Georges watched them without fear. His curiosity outweighed his persistent dizziness and pain. Both men were modestly dressed, like peasants or poor farmers. Both had crude, soiled cloth satchels at their sides. One had a cruel, hungry grimace on his face. His cold, blue eyes were large and set deeply into cavernous orbital bones, but the irises seemed far too small. The eyes were set unnaturally close to each other, adding a ravenous, predatory look. Those eyes hungrily scanned the horizon in quick, jerky movements. The man’s features were pointed and sharp, giving him an overall reptilian look. Thin wisps of dirty blond hair swept over and around his head when the damp wind chose to move them. Georges retained enough of his faculties to feign death as the man looked in his direction. Georges acted like hiding prey, a baby rabbit keenly aware of a merciless, hungry predator nearby.

The man walked past Georges. He approached the fallen soldier and poked him like a cruel child would a pained and helpless animal. He bent over to look into the man’s face. The soldier was not yet dead. The dying man looked into the eyes of the cruel one. Immediately, the soldier started to scream. Soon afterward, his eyes went empty and still. He was dead. The cruel one placed his hand over the man’s face. Long, bony white fingers seemed to draw out what must have been the last of his breath. A vapor rose out of the dead man’s mouth and formed a small, pulsating sphere in the cruel one’s hand. The vapor seemed to ball up tighter in the man’s hand as he looked it over with cold disinterest. With his other hand, he opened the cloth satchel. To Georges, it seemed a mournful moan came from deep within the satchel. He could see a deep darkness that absorbed all light in the satchel. The man with the cruel eyes placed the ball of vapor into the darkness, closed the cover, and moved on.

More movement caught Georges’ eyes. The other man was dressed in almost the same manner as the cruel peasant, but Georges read something entirely different in him. His features were rounded, thick, and strong instead of thin and sharp. His face was oval, and he had brown, calm, clear eyes. Auburn hair swirled about his features from time to time. His jaw had a determined set to it as his eyes scanned the horizon. Much like the first man, he seemed to be seeking something. But he didn’t seem as much to be hunting as looking for a lost child or beloved pet.

This second man approached the second fallen soldier. He turned him over gently and looked sympathetically into his dead face and eyes. With thick fingers reddened by the cold, he also drew out a vapor from the dead man, but when he opened his satchel, a distant light emanated from within it. There was a peaceful stillness where there should have been sound. He placed the vapor into his satchel and moved on.

The dead man’s face momentarily flashed a look of peace before the pallor of death continued to grow over it. The other man moved on, seeming to follow his companion. But before he did, he locked eyes with Georges, who wasn’t able to feign death as quickly this time.

Instantly, the cruel one reappeared at his companion’s side. It was almost as if there had been some form of communication between them. They both looked at Georges. They seemed almost as surprised that they had been detected as Georges was to have gotten their notice. The cruel one stepped toward Georges, but the other one placed his arm in front of him to block his path. The cruel one looked angrily at his companion, as if he wanted to spit venom at him, but then he impatiently moved on over the battlefield. It seemed that while they were companions, they weren’t friends. Georges had the sense that they were adversaries forced to work together for a common cause.

The kinder of the two men looked at Georges briefly, knowingly. They locked eyes for a long moment, but then he moved on, following his cruel companion. They both looked back at Georges briefly as if to say they’d meet again.

Georges closed his eyes and lost consciousness.

Chapter 2

GEORGES’ SENSES SLOWLY AND FITFULLY ROSE to the surface of consciousness and to the sounds of clanging bedpans, the muffled patter of nurses’ footsteps, and hushed voices. The cries of pain from men were punctuated with other sounds in and around the military hospital beds. The smells of disinfectant, urine, and blood hung in the air. In time, the pained cries of the men were tended to, while others stoically waited for help with their pain. Georges touched his head and was surprised to feel a layer of gauze where he expected to feel hair and skin.

Then he too cried out. His was a fearful cry, like that of a child who has been thrust into the cold world to discover it is alive. The sounds of rapid steps neared his bed. A woman’s soft, comforting voice spoke to him while strong hands and arms held him down to prevent him from hurting himself. Georges could feel his hands shaking uncontrollably as they sought out something to hold onto.

He recognized her speaking French and was assured and calmed a bit to hear his native tongue spoken.

You are going to be okay. You sustained a head wound, a fractured skull, but you’re expected to make a full recovery.

He relaxed some, and she continued calmly, It seems that the bullet had to travel too long and too far to kill you. Either way, it wasn’t your day. You’ll live. It looks worse than it is. Don’t be alarmed.

Georges calmed down even though he only comprehended every other word as he rose to full consciousness. He watched half the world through gauze and the other half through his uncovered eye for long moment. Finally, he found himself thinking about those two men as he looked only through the bandages that were wrapped across the right side of his head. As his eye tried to focus through the gauze, it reminded him of that fragile gossamer mist that was drawn from the two soldiers on the battlefield. The thought chilled him even through his fevered panic.

Days later, the gauze having been replaced by smaller and smaller pieces, Georges sat up in his hospital bed for the first time since his arrival.

There was the quiet, efficient movement of doctors and nurses attending to soldiers lying in the military hospital beds. He held up his hands and remembered them shaking, almost vibrating from fear; they were steady again. That eternal artistic itch returned. It was time to draw, to create soon.

In the middle of the night, he woke up from a deep sleep. Something seemed to call his name, drawing him from the deep waters of slumber. When his eyes opened, there was nobody there calling his name, just breathing and snoring from the sleeping bodies of the other injured men. The dim light from the nurses’ station glinted slightly from the windows above the other hospital beds. Georges was jolted as he looked at the bank of windows opposite him. He saw the faces of the two men he had seen in the mist on the battlefield. He reflexively pulled his hospital blanket to his mouth to subdue a gasp of fear and surprise. Georges didn’t want to draw their attention, but he watched just the same.

Georges looked at the reflections that hovered outside the window of a badly injured soldier. He heard voices but realized he was hearing two of the nurses discussing how if this soldier made it through the night, he might have a chance for survival. They were hopeful but not overly so.

Georges cried out loudly. Two nurses quickly came to the sound.

What’s wrong? Are you in pain?

No. It’s not me. It’s them. Georges pointed to the window, but they were gone. The full moon’s light streamed past a cloud and into the hospital room now. He had the look of crazed delirium and the weariness of broken sleep on his face. The nurses thought he was in the throes of a waking dream and considered slapping him out of his delirium.

He lifted his arm and pointed at the window and cried out, Didn’’t you see them? The two that signal death. When they appear, it means they’ve come to collect the souls of the dying.

They restrained him as he halfheartedly fought them. One of the nurses ran for a doctor, who was quickly dispatched to Georges’ side. He efficiently administered the sedative.

The doctor pushed him down and said quietly but urgently, You can’t be acting out like this, Georges. You have to consider the other men. Some of them might die from their wounds. We have only so many doctors and medicines to help them. His voice softened and he continued, They need the healing of quiet and calm, not your silly fictions or hallucinations. You can’t be acting out like this. Now rest, soldier, and be quiet. That’s an order.

The next day, Georges awoke and looked hopefully across to the bed with the badly injured soldier. The sheet was already pulled over his head, and the gurney, wheels squeaking as it rolled across the floor, was coming to remove his body. Georges stared stonily at the nurse. Their eyes met for an uncomfortable moment; then Georges turned his head and leaned into his pillow. He stared into space for the longest time. Some of the hope that he had just imagined the two men reflected in the window faded as his eyes stared unfocused out into space. He wrestled with the memory of the specters from the night before in his mind.

Days later, Georges asked one of the day nurses if someone could provide him with a sketchbook and a charcoal stick or maybe even a pencil or two. He filled the evening hours with drawing and recording what he had seen on the battlefield and in the hospital room and what he thought he had seen in the window. Georges tuned out all the hospital’s sounds for several days. The small lamp near his bed provided him his only light at night. Dim as it was, he continued to draw with his now-steady hands. He was focused tightly on the sketchbook on his lap. His hand moved feverishly from page to page. He wore down several pencils to small stubs, wasting nothing. He only paused to consider what he deemed worthy to be committed to sketch paper.

Soon he was able to walk into the adjacent halls but only to stretch his legs; the nurses and doctors still cautioned him against overexertion. Once that was done, he returned to a chair or his bed to draw and record his thoughts. He continued intently even when the pretty young nurse on night duty tried to pull his attention away from his sketches. She seemed concerned that he seemed so withdrawn into himself, and decided to take an interest in her patient.

I’m going to have to turn off the light.

He looked up at the sound of her voice and saw her gazing at him with a concerned expression on her face. She looked down at his drawings, which he had just spread out on the bed, with what appeared to be more than a patronizing interest.

So you’re an artist? What are these? What are you sketching there?

The something I saw—or thought I saw—when I was shot. It was right before I lost consciousness. Most strange.

Yes. Strange in what way?

Georges looked up at the nurse and smiled slightly. No, you probably already think I’m mad. I’m quite sure most of the nurses and doctors already think so. After all, I was wounded in my head. He pointed to his head and grinned in a self-depreciating way.

The nurse looked curiously at what he had sketched. She pointed to his sketchbook. May I look?

Georges nodded. He waited to see what type of reaction his work would garner. She opened the sketchbook. The faces of the two men Georges had seen on the battlefield the day he was shot were sketched on opposing pages. Below each of those faces, he had started to abstract them. He had written notes on the pages of the sketchbook as well. The nurse looked first at the most realistic renderings and then at each abstraction and distortion of the faces with interest.

She pointed at the drawing of the first one. He has a cruel and ugly look about him.

Georges nodded in agreement.

She looked him in the eyes. Does this have anything to do with your nightmare the other night? These drawings?

He looked down at the page and self-consciously pushed back his coarse, brown hair. He continued talking while he drew. Oh, you know about that? Yes, I saw two men. They didn’t look as if they belonged there; they had no fear of bombs or guns being fired. It didn’t matter to them, as if the bullets weren’t meant for them. Two other soldiers were shot near me. Those two strange figures approached them, approached us. It was as if they were there to harvest their souls.

The nurse looked at Georges with surprise. He noticed her reaction, and his green eyes unflinchingly met hers this time. He grinned, but more in response to his own thoughts than for her benefit.

See, I’m not surprised you think it strange, but let me tell you something about the two soldiers that died. One was a kind soul. He knew he would have to kill on the battlefield, yet he would share his rations with anyone who asked. He would take out his prayer book as we ate and silently read. The other was a wild brute of a man; he always looked for a fight and enjoyed killing the enemy. He saw it not as necessity but as a pleasure. He always mocked the other man for his kindness. He saw kindness as weakness. He even found sport in shooting stray dogs. On that battlefield, when the two strange men approached them out of the mist, one died peacefully; the other did not. I still can sometimes hear that brute’s screaming as I sleep.

Georges put his head down on the pillow, held up his sketchbook with outstretched arms, and looked at his drawings thoughtfully. He then sat up and resumed sketching. I saw them again, you know, he said as he worked. Over there in the glass, in the window reflection.

Georges looked up at the same window and pointed. Right there where that soldier lay dying. I knew he was going to die.

But not a difficult guess. He was in bad shape, she answered back, calmly and rationally. I mean no disrespect.

Georges smiled with resignation. You’re right. It was hardly a mystical, second-sighted moment.

After a moment of awkwardness, she looked down at his sketches. May I see what you’re sketching right now? I’ve heard that you are an artist. Is that true?

Yes, but nobody famous. Not yet.

And that is what you are sketching in your book? Just those two men?

Yes, I am still drawing those two from the mists. I’m not pleased with the previous sketches; they missed the mark. But if I can truly capture them, their elusive essence, then maybe, just maybe they will never be able to come for me. I can trap them on the canvas.

The nurse smiled with amusement. If only that were possible, then we’d all strive to be artists. But look around. You’ll see that death halts for none of us.

Georges continued to look down at his sketchbook and draw. That is true, but I am neither saint nor brute. Perhaps I wouldn’t feel so haunted if only I knew which one would be coming for me.

The nurse looked into his eyes for a moment as if looking for signs of lunacy and then turned abruptly and walked away.

Chapter 3

THE YEARS HAD CHANGED HIM. HIS brown hair had become peppered with gray, his cheeks had begun to sink some, and the whites of his eyes had begun to yellow slightly with age, but Georges continued to draw and paint with considerable