Self Portrait

Francios drunkenly stumbled into the apartment, falling over himself, his clothes disheveled and his hair mussed. His breath stinking of gin.

Marie glanced over her shoulder and he fell through the door, clinging to the knob, one hand in the air holding up one finger, as if he were about to say something important.

Oh Fancious, you know you can say nothing of any importance. You are worthless; end it all Francious and save yourself, save them all a great deal of sanity.

The sheer negativity was and aura around him, a pungent odor, filling the entirety of the dwelling with disease: The death sentence to whatever comfort the spring night had once promised.

“Francios…!” said Marie softly as she went over to greet him with as little agitation as possible.

He made his way to the den where she made to take of his coat, but he through up his arm and stammered for words, his finger in the air.

“Diago…!” he stumbled,
Marie relaxed a bit, she knew what this was about.
“Diago has a new painting in the gallery!”
Fancious stumbled his way to a window, and threw open the shutters.
He turned his back to this, leaning on the sill.
“He has a new- UAGH!”
He walked swiftly, his coat hanging off of his shoulder, to his study.

He sat in the chair, both hands in the air, hands contorted in anguish with palms towards the sky. He was yelling now, cursing Diago, cursing the God he did not care if he believed in, cursing himself.
Maire followed begrudgingly.

“How!? How can this be?! That man-” he brought up his hand to run his hair out of his face.

“It is not right.” He concluded finally.
IT is NOT right for one man to possess what is rightfully mine! It is- it is not right for him to posess such talent! He does not deserve it!”

Marie stood coolly in the doorway.
“How does one go about being undeserving of that which they have earned?” She said, disgusted with Francios’ display.

Half finished sketches and paintings of all kinds were nailed and tacked to the wall of the study, some lying haphazard on the floor, the latest one destined to die was resting on the easel.

“You have not finished any of what you have started! You do not even know of which you are capable!”

“I know perfectly well what I am!”

“I know perfectly well what--WHAT I DO KNOW,” he said, sdvancing towards Marie, “Is that he does not deserve what I deserve! He does not deserve such talent!”

Marie backed out of the doorway, a bit frightened now, backing up as he continued to advance.

“Is that I  have experienced horrors that he can only imagine! I have been tormented day and night!!”

He mad his way briskly to the window, leaning with both hands on the sill head; low.

Marie could not silence her tongue quickly enough. She should have stayed silent she knew later that night, but nonetheless, the words slipped out.

“And so has he! You are equal. You have both-”

Francios turned slowly. He glared at her, and how words seemed to bubble out like black, boiling glass.

“But his…” he stepped closer to her. “His were beyond his control- his were events that happened to him, not states of mind, states of mind that eat out a man’s very soul.

His pain was caused by others’ brash actions, not by his own envy, his own frustration at what he cannot have! He is in love with life while I spent if fumbling blindly after what I love- something I will never have!

Suddenly he roughly took her chin in his hand.

“And I am in love with pain, as it is with me.”
  
He pushed her away and returned to the window.  

“From his pain comes beauty,” he said,

“While from mine there only comes more.”

And jumped out.