54
The studio had always felt like a womb, a warm and inviting place filled with inspiration and possibilities. Now Garth struggled with his materials, but nothing seemed right. Nothing seemed alive.
He stood in the middle of his half-completed project. APATHY. Though Garth felt he had a better technical mastery and sophistication than he’d ever shown before, after the lukewarm success of LOSS the critics were saying he had fallen into a rut. He could not figure out what else to add to APATHY, how to make it more exciting. He just didn’t care—which, he supposed, was the point.
Juanita Cole’s shooting-star success had surprised and disoriented him—not because of her amazing work, but because of what it showed him about himself. At first, she had seemed a threat to him and his position, but Garth eventually realized he was really angry at his own career misconceptions. The success and the accolades had become addictive, and he could see why Mordecai Ob had wanted so much to be a part of it. Now, he didn’t want to see it trickle through his fingertips.
He stood in front of a glowing filmscreen, scrutinizing flat images of Juanita’s new works, which Pashnak had surreptitiously clipped for him. PR holos showed a tattooed young woman in her studio, smiling as she immersed her hands in vibrant aerogel foams. He watched sound clips, heard her talk about the ideas bursting out of her, as if the world might not offer her enough time to accomplish everything she wanted to do.
Garth remembered exactly how that had felt, but he didn’t know how to recapture that enthusiasm. He blanked the studio COM screen, turning back to his work in progress.
At Club Masquerade, Garth often wandered through the outer experience rooms, the imaginative decor of the Arabian Nights room, the Mars colony room, the safari room, the Titanic room. Standing under the towering faux sequoia trees, Garth recalled the first time he had entered Club Masquerade with Eduard and Teresa. The three of them had come through this very room, lost and amazed. They had been so young then. . . .
Standing in front of the swapportunities board, Garth realized it had been a long time since he had found a single item that managed to catch his attention. He would scan the flurry of hopscotch requests and let out a long, slow sigh. Even the most bizarre appeals had a monstrous sameness about them.
At one time, each fresh idea had been filled with possibilities and wonder. Garth had mined those overlapping lifetimes for his artwork. It had been a great ride. He’d been an explorer of the human landscape, pushing onward into new territory—and finally he had no place else to go.
His whole life had been built on having something to say, a point of view to express through artwork. But how could anyone be profound and moving every time, piece after piece after piece?
What does an artist do after he has already completed his masterpiece?
The cream swirled in his cup, mixing slowly. Garth usually drank his coffee black, but Pashnak insisted he needed to mellow out. At this point, he was ready to try just about anything.
The two of them sat in a cozy kitchen nook where sunlight streamed through the lattice windows. After his increasingly successful shows, Garth had recently bought an extravagant home, complete with security systems and privacy screens, and he still had more credits than he could spend.
Generous by nature, he gave Teresa more than enough money to get by so she could devote herself full time to her search. He even gave her the first drawing of her face from the portrait spectrum, the original features she had worn for most of her life. If he ever heard from Eduard again, he would offer his friend whatever he needed without the slightest hesitation.
Now Pashnak poured another cup of coffee. He powered on his schedule and called up the notes for the day, scanning appointments and upcoming events. “Don’t forget, I set up a hopscotch opportunity for you this Thursday.”
Garth looked up with only feigned interest. “What is it?”
Day after day, the assistant sat with him, pointing to item after item on the ever-diminishing List. At last the few minor things left had seemed frivolous: blue eyes, brown eyes . . . black skin, freckled skin. In some bodies he had enjoyed the taste of broccoli, in others he found it offensive.
Did he really expect to learn anything new from that? Wasn’t everybody the same, as long as the definition of “humanity” was broad enough? People were people, no matter how profound their external differences.
“It’s a tough one,” Pashnak said with a smile of anticipation. “You’ll be swapping with a young man who has little muscle control and suffers from seizures. He’s weak, he can’t walk, and his condition is degenerating.” He slid the schedule across the table so Garth could see the image of the sickly young man. “It’ll give you a chance to feel out of control, at the mercy of external forces.”
Garth shook his head. “Cancel the contract. Helpless and out of control—the idea sounds too much like the way I already feel.”
The assistant was surprised. “But Garth, it’ll be one more item to check off on your List. There aren’t many left. Look—”
Garth took the datapad from him, scanned the few topics left on his List, and then deleted them, all at once. “There, I’m done.”
The assistant stared in horror at the blank, milky-white screen.
“No more List. All finished.”
But Garth experienced no sense of accomplishment or rush of victory. He just felt empty.