Mr Smith's Vain Period

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Mr Smith watches the children playing outside his local school and
smiles. He is remembering what it was like to be a child; the vitality,
innocence and new experiences to be had, the sheer, unending
possibility of a nearly blank canvas. Art lessons with Miss Reno,
painting with fingers, making collages with newspaper, fine yellow sand
glued to colourful card in rainbow patterns. Certain parents,
collecting their children, eye Mr Smith suspiciously, and his smile. He
walks away gloomily, remembering the burden of adulthood.

Sitting at home, Mr Smith plays monopoly against himself. He has just
landed on Park Lane with a hotel on top. He surveys his assets,
wondering how to bargain with himself, thinking he can maybe strike up
a deal, but secretly knowing even all the properties and cash in his
left hand combined will never be enough to cover his debts. He resolves
to hold up the bank, a daring but inventive move, he feels.

The birds circling overhead pay little attention as Mr Smith makes his
way to the local shop. Today he has decided not to wear shoes. Many
passers by notice the absence of anything on his feet, but feel
uninclined to mention it, despite their stares. However, one man stops
him, says "Hey buddy, you forgot your shoes?" He does not seem
satisfied by Mr Smith's response that they are in his refrigerator
today, cooling off. Both men walk away unfulfilled by their small but
not insignificant conversation. Small pieces of gravel collect in
between Mr Smith's toes. The sensation caused by this is uncomfortable,
but Mr Smith continues to the shop unabashed. He has principles, after
all.

Mr Smith's vain period lasts a full five days. He spends the night
beforehand preparing himself, believing a full evening of preening to
be suitably narcissistic. Darkening hours are spent in front of the
mirror in Mr Smith's front room, combing his hair to one side, then the
other, his eyes appraising each different style carefully. He must be
certain not to underplay his vanity. At three o'clock in the morning,
with cold wind seeping underneath his front door, making his uncovered
feet begin to feel numb, he decides to keep his hair parted down the
centre as it has always been and just wear darkened spectacles instead.
This way his vanity can be reflected on all those who look upon
him.

The next door neighbours hear Mr Smith singing in the shower. They do
not complain as his track list, despite being distinctly uniform and
rigid, comprising as it always does of Buddy Holly's True Love Ways,
Til there was you, as sung by Paul McCartney of the Beatles, and the
classic As Time Goes By, is quite a pleasing accompaniment to their
evening meal, all in all.

Gregarious. Mr Smith stares down at the word on the novel's page before
him. He has to squint through his darkened spectacles as the print in
the well-thumbed second hand book is small and faded, and the light
from his reading lamp is only just adequate to read by even when not
wearing darkened spectacles. He likes the look of the word, likes the
way it sounds inside his head, although he is not sure of its meaning,
or correct pronunciation. It is not a word he is familiar with, but he
makes a note on his note pad to look the word up in his dictionary,
when he is not wearing darkened spectacles any more.

Mr Smith watches the white queen fall underneath his right index
finger, spraying pawn, rook and bishop across the black and white
squares. In a bad mood, he heads to the kitchen to make some tea. How
can he have been so naïve as to not spot that final, deadly move?

On the third day of Mr Smith's vain period, he nearly loses all heart
in the project and raises a comb to his auburn hair in order to flick
it out one way or another. Thankfully he changes his mind at the last
second and lays the white, hotel-free instrument on his mantelpiece. He
breathes a sigh of relief and heads for the kitchen carefully, the
darkened spectacles proving something of a hindrance inside his ill-lit
two-up two-down.

Putting to one side the ordinary things in life, Mr Smith has a few
favourite collector's items. One is a small rubber stamp with the word
FRAGILE in raised letters on one side. Another is a rigid, prickly
quill made from a peacock feather, while the third is a shard of
crystal glass, smashed from one of a set of wine glasses presented to
him at his wedding. These things appeal to him most specifically due to
their constant battle with fragility and strength. The rubber stamp is
far from FRAGILE, despite its declaration to the contrary, the feather
often harsh to the touch and capable of piercing the skin when held in
a dangerous fashion, while the crystal, also capable of cutting, still
reflects light serenely and beautifully. What jagged and deceptive
objects they are, thinks Mr Smith.

Mr Smith is thrilled by mirrors. They are the true art of the art
world, he thinks. It is not a view shared by his colleagues. One
morning he wakes up and decides to visit a hall of mirrors, if he can,
and spend a day surrounded by his own reflection, and the reflections
of others, within mirror-lined corridors and confined spaces. He visits
a nearby town where a carnival is being held and enters the hall of
mirrors, his darkened spectacles reflecting himself to himself and
back, much further than he could have ever thought, as though he is in
a chorus line filled only by him. Along the chorus line, he spots a man
who is balding, obviously quite rapidly, standing beside other balding
men. Mr Smith walks into mirror after mirror in horror, trying
desperately to find a way out. He has to lie down for two days.

One evening, at his local public house, Mr Smith surveys the
multifarious "works of art" displayed on the terracotta painted walls.
He admires the spatial dynamics between the wall and each of the
frames, although the content and composition within each mock
sepia-print photograph would no doubt be sneered at by his peers. Peers
are as irrelevant as flashy hub caps, thinks Mr Smith. Quite pleased,
he repeats his new-found phrase under his breath, over and over, whilst
waiting for another glass of port.

Mr Smith has his quiet moments too, as we all do from time to time, but
he takes special care to keep them to himself. He is an art critic
after all. It doesn't do to have too many reflective moments, not in Mr
Smith's profession. Another art critic, a contemporary of Mr Smith,
once scornfully remarked that Mr Smith was "too didactic" in his
summations. Mr Smith resolves to look the word up, writing it on his
note pad below "gregarious", once he has removed his dark
spectacles.

The event which eventually ends Mr Smith's vain period is a momentous
occasion in his life. Days later he will be too horrified to even
recall the event in its entirety, so shocked is he at what happens
next. Whilst he is standing in his kitchen, at the rear of his house,
appraising his features in the antique mirror hanging delicately above
his kitchen table, careful not to think about the baldness he is now
aware of, he overhears a female voice chattering in the garden next
door. Always eager for new experiences, especially those of other
people, he moves away from the mirror and inclines his ear towards his
open back door. What he hears chills his blood. It is a woman, indeed,
and evidently either an estate agent, or a potential new tenant for the
vacant terrace next door. The woman is speaking into a dictaphone,
mapping the scenery with inept, ill-chosen words. Mr Smith almost
flinches as she describes every small anal detail of the property, the
length of the garden, blemishes along the rear window, cracks in the
plumbing and guttering, insignificant aspects of brickwork. However, it
is the deprecating tone of voice she uses to describe the property's
flaws that really impact most upon Mr Smith, as she minutely observes
paint splashes on the walls, too-tall hedgerows, a broken gate, the
lack of space and ventilation in the kitchen. She measures the
elevation and size of the garden in feet and inches, never mentioning
the odours and colours and aesthetic beauty surrounding her. It is
summer, but a dull gloom hangs over Mr Smith's head.

In the gallery Mr Smith wanders around the ornate inner halls,
appraising the works of art with his hands held loosely behind his
back. He leans for a closer look at one or two of the pieces, his
well-trained eye scrutinising the minutiae of the various offerings. He
forms views and comments that will eventually be posted alongside these
works inside his head, although no one nearby asks him to shed his own
particular light on the subject. Mr Smith sees a couple, evidently in
the early stages of courtship, discussing a particularly fine opaque
white geometric sculpture trussed to a white wall, and he steps over to
hear what they are saying. The boy says, "What I like about this is its
ordinariness. The way it draws attention to the fact that it is
ordinary and yet in a gallery, which immediately makes it stand out
from everything else," before moving on to examine a vast green canvas
spotted with purple. Mr Smith cannot bear to hear any more and, hoping
it was just beginner's luck on the boy's part, leaves the gallery
immediately.

"The thing about a marriage," Mr Smith tells his antique mirror and his
glass of port, "Is that it observes no defined rules of shape or form,
or indeed any qualities that can be measured against precedence." The
mirror says nothing. "So how do you know whether it's any good or not?
Hmm?" The glass of port declares it would like to be drunk and Mr Smith
obliges. Tomorrow Mr Smith will wear only beige. He despairs that
anyone will notice the statement underlying it all, but he resolves to
go ahead, regardless.

In the corner of Mr Smith's kitchen, opposite and at an angle to the
kitchen table, Mr Smith keeps a jar full of ants. They scuttled in
through an as yet undiscovered hole in the sideboard, and every now and
then Mr Smith feeds them crumbs of sugar. He likes visitors, the
companionship they offer. Only two weeks later, when the ants have
begun quarrelling and actually eating each other, does Mr Smith realise
the monumental error in judgement he has made. These ants are not
visitors or companions, but terrified cannibalistic detainees. However,
things have now gone too far to release these mutants back into the
outside world, to unleash this unwitting scientific abomination upon
the normal, non-cannibalistic ant society. Mr Smith immediately washes
the whole lot down the toilet. This leads to a further two days in bed,
sweating - cold droplets running down his cheeks - when he thinks about
what hybrid horrors he has sent to the succulent sewers.