Trifecta Week 12 - Image

This is my response to Trifecta's Writing Challenge for the third definition for image, as found in Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary. And just because she can't hit a deadline, doesn't mean my girl JC can't write. Check her late non-entry out at Chicago Chronicles.

 

a : exact likeness : semblance (God created man in his own image — Genesis 1:27 (Revised Standard Version)b : a person strikingly like another person (she is the image of her mother)

Lost

The tension in the room is thicker than anything I’d ever felt, like the electricity that hangs in the air before a really wild summer storm.

Wait it out, he says with a sigh. Just. Wait.

I wait, frozen in an impossible pose for what seems to be forever, then sneak in what feels like the tiniest of breaths.

FUCK!

His shout comes at me like a cannon ball, at full force. He slams his fists down on the table and shoots me an accusing look, intense and full of meaning. I look at him through slitted eyes, afraid of what will come next. I know better than to wince.

Nothing.

He utters not another word; he just sits there with his head in his hands like my father used to do at my childhood dinner table before losing his shit in rage. I wait, exposed to the same old juvenile feelings, no way to fix this, no place to hide.

Being an artist’s model is hard enough. Attempting to pose for someone because you are the spitting image of their old lover is the height of all miseries.

In another place, I would really like this guy, maybe even fall for him. He is so intensely creative, so careful, so determined to make his mark. And though he's big -- almost twice my size -- he's pretty cute, too. But here, naked and vulnerable in his ice-cold atelier, all I feel is my own intense fear of failure. I'm not certain he feels any different.

He picks up his tool and silently but deliberately jabs sharply at the sculpture's chest once again.

I hold my breath and wait.