Genevieve; the Third of January by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Chapter 16

Another fashionable jump cut imposed itself on the weary!

Or maybe it was just the delusional product of the aftermath of anecdotally relieved fatigue. Genevieve woke up at home in her wicker bed. For a fraction of a second she was tempted to remain under the warm covers which competently fend off winter. But, her first mini thought was soon overtaken by the delightful expectation of breakfast. Veggie sausage and eggs came to mind, to the dismissal of the possibility of soggy Belgian waffles ruined by whipped cream.

Veggie sausage and eggs; the kind courtesy of Pexels,com under their CC0 license.

Since she had to get up, or thought that she did out of long instilled habit, Genevieve decided to make some in-between and hopefully non-annoying use of her laptop. After all she needed a backup timepiece in case her microwave died. She

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downloaded a free drawing program. It took some getting used to, but after a few minutes of trial and error, she saw that it was designed so that anyone could quickly use it in a rather un-skilled, decent fashion. No surprise; it was exactly like the computerized standard marketing tool aimed at the lazy deficient. “Beat Tiger Woods.” Yes, beat the tiger. Just $19.99

for the current version and $29.99 for a lifetime of updates, the invisible print saying; “as long as this fly-by-night warrantor is in legal existence, also remains an independent entity, recognizes your spurious claim, and etc., etc., etc. You need any more un-enforceable details jerk?”

Despite the standard nonsensical disclaimers and value=less claims now issued in cyber-ese, Genevieve got to like the art program’s undo button a lot. That eye-opener took less time than it took her to finish breakfast. Of course she might have been going slowly with her coffee, veggie sausage, and eggs due to her new and artistic pre-occupation.

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Boggy Cleave view; property of the author.

Genevieve was proud of herself. On her first untrained effort she had made a reasonable depiction of one of her favorite places; the Boggy Cleave River with the Denial Mountains behind it. ....... Well, okay. There have been more realistic illustrations of a river’s flow. But this was true art! Not a mere photograph. She decided that she would next stress the abstract aspects, thinking that this would obliterate any possible critical evaluation.

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Sun on the flowers; property of the author.

The early morning sun was angling its way through the tall greenery to reach the flowers; the drawing seeming to be from the flowers’ point of view. Genevieve liked it and gave credit to the program’s special effects at her disposal, but also found this particular rendering to be wan. Perhaps that was as it should be, but to her the notion of “wan” was something like

“washed-out,” and for her had something of a negative connotation. The dichotomy was that the sun seemed to be blaring. It could easily be viewed as an abstractive goal, but that didn’t preclude her from finding fault. Genevieve thought;

“If I can do that with untrained eyes, just imagine what a pro could do.” She decided to abandon the “difficult-to-clarify”

nature of abstraction, and again approach realism, but this time from a less precise, impressionistic perspective.

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Rainbow Bridge; property of the author.

Genevieve’s attempt to revert back to a more “realistic-by-way-of-impressionism” approach, became like that accidentally and naturally displayed in her first drawing, that earlier effort substantially due to her inability to draw as well as a camera. She only used the special effects which minimalized her drawing blunders while still retaining the picture’s “vitality.”

It was of “Rainbow Bridge,” the place where she hoped to one day find her long lost Dillon again. She stared at the drawing and shed a little tear; quickly overcoming the emotion through a technical observation. She thought; “The rainbow does not look anything near real.” She would now proceed with minimally practiced abandon.

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Flowers; property of the author.

Without attempting to do so, Genevieve basically redid the pale flowers of her #2. This time the result was much less wan and perhaps odd in that respect, as she had made use of the direct light of an unobstructed, afternoon, overhead sun, rather than the angled display of the earlier morning. These flowers had now grown quite a bit and the point of view seemed to be coming from somewhere beneath them. She thought; “The golden details at the end of the petals might be seen by some as ambiguous, but that is generally not the case. Such a conclusion is suggestive of poor eyesight or an otherwise faulty inattention to detail. Generally. There are golden areas which have some attributes of gray. Proud of herself, Genevieve considered sending the picture to “JUXTAPOZ,” but after reading of them decided that they were trying to be all things to all people, with a supposed emphasis on the punky modernism. “Not for me,” she thought.

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On another Genevieve level, the drawings must have been some sort of Genevieve subliminal wish. When she simultaneously looked at her drawings using the program’s four screen feature, Genevieve realized that she was drawing scenes of an abundant spring and/or a typical summer in Poochville.

She had seen many of them. But, for some strange reason she was not aware of, she thought that this coming one would be special. She had always made heartfelt note of the two robins who had always appeared at her back door whenever the last of the snow and ice was turning to water, nourishing the ground in its sun dictated, unwillingness to sacrificially fade.

Spring robins property of the author.

After a few years of always simultaneously seeing two, Genevieve had gotten a book about robins. It said that they mate for life, and Genevieve always liked to think, and maybe it was

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the case that it was the same two who kept coming back to her yard every year to let her know that the coldness was over.

Maybe like the robins, Genevieve could smell the return to life; the wild onions’ fragrances the first scent to be noticed every time. This was the repeating event which she’d always remember.

This coming spring Genevieve wanted to surely share her difficult-to-articulate feelings with all of Pacific Lane; all of Poochville. She thought of the possibility of a carnival in the inevitably coming days of Spring. There would be almost unlimited space one block over in Bunny Park. If one could avoid going down the rabbit hole there, which wasn’t all that difficult, and actually wasn’t all that treacherous, then all attending could be assured of a wonderful time.

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