While a couple was enjoying the sunset, they noticed the sky was warping far beyond the impressionist style in which it was created. The oily sea, despite its appearance as a body of water, was not enough to quell the increasing heat. The frame and the limits of the canvas became a hellish trap. Unable to flee, they embraced in the left corner, in the third farthest from the flames. Their colors were changing until they floated amorphous, homeless. The first victims had disappeared.
On the left side, a cubist horse galloped crashing against the walls of his prison, his rectangular legs made it difficult to jump, the two eyes that were on the same side widened in terror as vertebrate columns of yellow and shades of red moved towards him.
On the right side, an old woman of three-dimensional hyperrealism could not help but cry, hoping that her tears would suffocate the burning threat that advanced with fury and without mercy in the face of her sadness.
The entire congregation of a Renaissance church, to no avail, searched for the door of what would become their crematory mausoleum, as its author never considered to paint one within the scene. Not even Christ could escape from such scorching chaos.
The firefighters, who hundreds of years ago were honored by being painted in watercolor for their heroic actions, could not fight their old enemy. Their immortality succumbed to instant power.
The tapestry that decorated the walls only served as a multidirectional dynamite wick. All the paintings, except those of still life, saw their end closer and closer. The insatiable fire had no compassion.
Despite everything, a ray of hope lit up some, and not because of the flames.
When the fire reached one end of the wall, he ran out of tapestry fuel, and no matter how hard he struggled, he could not leap into other vulnerable material. However, on the other side, he was about to turn the corner.
A plethora of philosophers and scientists from different generations of ancient Greece regretted not being represented by a sculptor. Time for thought was running out. From another frame, they asked them to stop talking and act. It was difficult for them to hear, as their own voices and the crackle of latent threat interfered.
The heavy steps in a contained stampede, of what had been a procession of a Maharajah, and the screams amplified by the trunks of their elephants tortured by the heat, finally brought the gathering to a halt.
Aristotle and Pythagoras devised a plan. They would all move in coordination, from one side of the painting to the other, to balance like in a swing on the surface of the wall. Their goal was to hit a big bottle of water on a stand. It had to explode, not just tip over.
They calculated the exact spot to hit a bust, such that it reached the bottle and broke it. One chance was all they had.
From other paintings, with a better view of the scene, they oriented them. “Stronger. Higher”, they said. Such was the momentum that they were inadvertently flying. Hippocrates, Aristotle, Plato, and so many others embraced while waiting for the impact. Pythagoras took a quick look at the angles and clung confidently to a column.
The corner of the frame struck Alexander the Great in the jaw so he went to the conquest, smashing the glass container of the saving liquid.
The wall was wet almost to the ceiling and some of the water went in a direct attack on its flamy counterpart, even with pieces of the shattered glass. Alexander was lying on the ground like a beheaded man, now without a nose, minus one ear.
The clan of flying Greeks landed on the ground, and in their two-dimensionality, they struggled not to drown. Fortunately, they made the canvas slightly inclined and thus moved to where it had not been flooded.
The voracious fire wanted to continue advancing. Could not. Defiantly, he ate what has left behind that damp barrier the ancient Greeks had created. The elephants had no chance.
With grief, the survivors gazed at the smoldering, wet, and smoking mess. Missing their companions already, who they would not see evermore. After so many years of keeping company and sharing opinions about onlookers who came to criticize or analyze them, it would not be easy to forget.
The next morning, the gallery owners put their hands on their heads in surprise at the losses. The appraisal estimated a large sum that had literally disappeared overnight. The miserliness to save on smoke detectors and fire irrigation systems turned very expensive.
Over time, new inhabitants arrived to repopulate the mourning walls. Little by little, those who did not succumb to the tragedy accepted them and enjoyed their stories about how they were created. Henceforth, they would monitor the possibilities of disaster more closely. The neighbor’s smoke would never be ignored again.
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Written by Lunyzbreid Lopez
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