Chapter Fourteen- The Art Centre
The Art Centre kept itself separate from the city, allowing the four-legged creatures to roam, sniff, and roll in the grass, exposing their stomachs for a good rub. The four-legged creatures were loved and sometimes worshipped, making the Foreigners a joke to most in the city, including James the Strong.
He, like many in the city, celebrated everything with the burning of a four-legged creature followed by the peeling of flesh to eat and skins to decorate walls with.? The Foreigners preferred paint.
James the Strong loved the skins of the four-legged creatures so much he even had a pouch with long fluffy hair for his family member.? Not something Aggie liked to ponder on. It was all a bit meaty for her. She had tried to make the best of things over the years, but no amount of cushions and color could camouflage the skins that hung in their bedroom.
When James the Strong didn’t take the hint about separate bedrooms, she rehung his animal skins in his “sulking room,” and when he still didn’t take the hint, she moved in a bed and spent most evenings feigning a headache, a stomachache, or instigating an argument—sometimes all three.
After a particularly long meeting about the cost of statues, James the Strong, knackered with a spinning head of figures he could not comprehend, entered his bedroom.? He had heard rumors, rumors that in his heart he knew, and he was fed up.? Aggie, mid cushion fluffing, said nothing.
“Folk are talking,” he said. “I hear their sniggers, and quite frankly, it’s embarrassing . . .”
“Talking?” said Aggie without looking up.
“Our son, not being much like me.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Aggie.
“He walks like he’s tripping over something,” said James the Strong.
Aggie tossed a cushion into the corner and picked up another.
“And his head’s always in some sort of reading device; what’s that about? I mean I tried to teach him how to pull a spaceship, but all Manifesto the so-called Great wanted to do was play in the pickling thing.”
“He is only ten,” said Aggie.
“But spaceship pulling is every boy’s dream—it’s our heritage,” said James the Strong.
“Hardly heritage,” muttered Aggie with an aggressive punch at a pillow.? She looked at him. “Maybe you should give up the spaceship pulling.”
“Give up my birthright?” snapped James the Strong.
“Has it not been done to death?” said Aggie.
“Done to what?” said James the Strong.
“Have we not moved on?” said Aggie.
“How can you move on without a spaceship?” said James the Strong. “And they’re still in good shape, bit like you . . .”? He eyed her, pondering a waist grab.
“Doesn’t mean you have to drag them out every year, flog the whole arrival thing like a caveman.”?J
ames the Strong slumped on the bed. “Are you saying I’m a caveman?”
“Well, if the spacesuit fits,” said Aggie.
“You used to like all my caveman stuff,” sulked James the Strong.
He watched Aggie move about the bedroom. After ten years of ownership, he still yearned for her. She had aged well; he even told her once,
“Bet you say that to all the girls” is what she said.
He peered down at his “out of action” family member, limp as a used tea bag under his “going to bed” toga. It, like the rest of him, was a giant, and, like the rest of him, had been a master in the bedroom, spouting forth in seconds like the great waterfall itself. Women used to go crazy for it, especially Aggie—she even dressed it up when “in the mood.”
He sighed.
These days, there was as much chance of Aggie dressing up his family member as his so-called artistic son reaching for a rope to pull a ship.? James the Strong stared at his woman. Even a cuddle would help.
He looked at Aggie with his best smile and patted the bed. “Why don’t you come and sit down.”
Aggie said nothing; she was engrossed in pillow fluffing, a habit she had taken to when James the Strong had his “fancy a toss over my shoulder” look. Pillow fluffing usually had him running to his sulking room.? She reached for another cushion, wondering how many it would take. He seemed planted on the bed, talking like no one had listened to him all day.
She sighed. What she would give for some decent conversation . . . .
“Do you know what he called me the other day?” said James the Strong.
Aggie didn’t answer.
“Daddy—Daddy!”
“What’s wrong with that?” said Aggie. “Apparently, it’s all the rage.”
“Rage?” said James the Strong. “We are royalty. We don’t follow rages, we make ’em.”
“He is only ten,” muttered Aggie.
“Ten? Ten?” snapped James the Strong.?“
Yes, ten,” said Aggie. “What were you doing at that age, picking your nose or just your bum?”
“Well, I certainly wasn’t an arty-farty picklehead,” snapped James the Strong.
Aggie grabbed another pillow.?“
It’s like living in the Art Centre with him, and what’s all this ‘abstract’ bollocks? What ten-year-old talks of ‘abstract’?”
Aggie let out a here we go sigh.
“I mean he pulls things apart, puts them back together.”
“It’s called recycling,” snapped Aggie.
“Recycling’s boring,” huffed James the Strong.
“Why doesn’t he go and join the Foreigners and their so-called arts corner? Them and their ‘save the four-legged creatures’ sewage talk.”
Aggie tossed the cushion into the corner and picked up another.
“He’ll be making statues next,” snapped James the Strong. “And it’s not like we don’t have enough of them. I mean how many statues does a city need?”
Aggie sighed.
“And they’re all covered in flowers—a walk down the main street gives me a headache. I nearly passed out the other day.”
Aggie pulled a face.
“And . . . there’s not even one of me—not one!”
“I wonder why,” muttered Aggie.
“I mean I am the leader. You’d think there would at least be a head—somewhere.”
“Well, there has always been the problem of your height and materials,” said Aggie. “I mean your nose alone would take up half the road’s budget.”
“Well excuse me for breathing,” huffed James the Strong. ?He patted the bed again.? Aggie fluffed with vigor.? He looked at the walls. He missed his skins.
“You should be proud,” said Aggie. “Manifesto the Great has been assigned.”
“Assigned? You sound like one of those leaflets the readers like to print,” he muttered, “for the masses.”
“Our son’s been assigned his own corner of creation.”?James the Strong scowled.?“Our son?” Memories of the sniggers flooded back.“He’s more like you than me.”
Aggie stopped.? “That’s just because he’s ten—he’s not a man.”
“So you say,” snapped James the Strong.?“He did give you that reflector,” said Aggie.
James the Strong flicked his hair, rolled onto his side, and jumped out of bed; beating Aggie verbally was as easy as trying to understand one of her formulas, especially when she mentioned that damnable reflector (mirrors which the men blamed for the dissatisfaction of their women), which, thanks to his son, had “taken the city by storm.”
“Yes, well, thanks to those reflectors, no one has time for anything anymore but looking at themselves,” he snapped, and with a slam of the door, he huffed to his sulking room—a place, it seemed, he was destined to spend most nights.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
https://kerrienoor.medium.com/dive-into-petes-log-an-android-from-planet-hy-man-1d022f1211f