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by K.C. Shaw
Science Fiction, 11 pages.
Originally Published in Staffs & Starships #1, 2007
(1) Rate this Story Rosemary plunked her brush into the pot of turpentine. “I give up. This looks awful.”
The studio cat, asleep on her cushion in the windowsill, stood and stretched. Rosemary stretched too, grimacing at the stiffness in her back and neck. She’d been working longer than she thought. “What time is it?”
She heard the faint whir as Angelo woke from powersave mode. “Ten minutes until five.”
“I’m about to lose my light anyway, then.” Rosemary frowned at the canvas. It had an amateurish, piecemeal look. She’d fussed over it too long.
She took it off the easel and leaned it against the wall. Maybe it would turn out to be salvageable when she evaluated it in the morning.
“Another canvas?” Angelo said.
“No. I’m through for the day. Well, set me up a canvas for tomorrow.”
Angelo picked up one of the canvases waiting in the corner and brought it over. He walked surprisingly quietly for a robot his size—padded feet and patent spring legs—but Rosemary worried at the faint creaking she heard at each step. His maintenance wasn’t due until February.
Then again, he was almost eight years old. It was time to think about replacing him—but not yet. She ran through the list of her usual excuses: a new robot was too expensive, she didn’t need all the bells and whistles the new ones offered now, Angelo already knew everything she expected of him. That was almost as important as the money. She never had to tell Angelo to feed the cat, for instance, and he knew how to stretch canvases.
She turned her attention to the still life she’d set up on the table. It was a basket of green and red apples sitting on a dark green cloth. It shouldn’t be any trouble to paint, yet she’d spent hours trying to capture the way the apples glowed in the afternoon sunlight.
She had a moment when she wanted to start over, to dash paint on the new canvas as fast as possible—sometimes that worked when a more methodical approach didn’t. But she was getting hungry, and in another hour the light would have shifted so much the shadows would be distracting.
Ten years ago, she knew she’d have worked until she got the painting right, no matter how long it took. She wasn’t sure if she’d become wiser in the last decade, or just lazy.
“Are you done for the day?” Angelo asked.
“Yes,” Rosemary said reluctantly. “Clean up and get everything ready for tomorrow.” She looked again at the still life, then at the canvas propped against the wall, and sighed. “And throw that old canvas away. Put your foot through it or something first.” She shouldered her bag. “I wish you’d paint the damn still life for me. See you tomorrow.”
The autumn light gilded rooftops and windows. Rosemary’s shadow stretched away from her feet. She wanted to paint what she saw, how she felt, and she realized how dull her basket of apples was. She’d throw the still life away in the morning. Maybe she’d take her kit and paint outside; she hadn’t done that in months—maybe she’d visit the same sites she’d painted that spring, display them together.
Full of plans and anticipation, she went home.
* * *
It rained the next morning. Rosemary arrived at the studio later than usual, feeling grumpy at her ruined plans, and found Bev waiting for her.
Bev was sitting on a stool, her hands on her paint-splotched overall knees, staring at a canvas propped against the wall. The room smelled faintly of souring apples above the stronger smell of turpentine.
“My still life’s going rotten,” Rosemary said. “In more ways than one. I told Angelo to put his foot through that canvas last night.” She looked around for Angelo, worried suddenly. He never forgot a command. It really was time to replace him.
“I disposed of the canvas as you requested,” Angelo said.
“Then what are you looking at, Bev?”
“Your still life. It’s amazing.”
Rosemary dropped her bag on the floor and joined Bev. The canvas propped against the wall wasn’t the one Rosemary had painted, but it was her still life. The red and green apples glowed warmly in their basket, late afternoon sun and shadow depicted perfectly—and yet, as Rosemary looked, it seemed to her that the shadows lengthened as the sun set, the painter’s skill tricking the eye. Where had the painting come from?
Bev said, “How’d you do it? I keep looking and I can’t decide. It’s almost as if you painted the canvas from right to left. Did you?”
“Er—well, I guess you could say that,” Rosemary managed. She remembered suddenly what she’d said to Angelo as she’d left last night—I wish you’d paint the damn still life for me. And he had. He never disobeyed.
But robots couldn’t paint. And this was a master work.
“It’s the best thing you’ve ever done, Rose, and I’m not kidding. You need to do more like this.”
“I was just experimenting,” Rosemary said weakly. She shot a glance at Angel -- [End of Preview.]