Mid- Week Flash Challenge - Week 23

This week's photo prompt is an image of  a 'Mirror Man'. This is one of four sculptures that was on display at the Four Season's hotel, in St Fillins, Scotland, back in 2013 (although a comment on the site in July 2017 suggests there is still one there). They stood in Loch Earn for visitors to enjoy. The hotel commissioned artist/sculptor/photographer Rob Mulholland to make them. This particular photo was taken by Flicker user Alec Gibson. 

My first attempt at writing for the picture seemed lack-lustre - particularly in light of the picture. I did make a second attempt but didn't like it, so reworked the first. I hope you enjoy it.

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Connection

Lori lay in the plush surroundings of the room she’d booked for the week, absorbing the peace and the early morning light that streaked across the thick carpet. The bed was warm and cosy. She didn’t want to move.

She was exhausted – physically and emotionally. Touring the country to promote her work had taken its toll: all the talking, the standing, the pacing on stage, the networking, the late nights, regurgitating the same old answers to the same old questions, finding new ways to say the same thing and give the same advice; eventually the mind gets fuzzy with all that noise.

And then coming home to find her home gone, her possessions gone, everything she had owned and all the art she’d had stored there, gone. Her adjoining neighbours were also gone, the gas explosion having emanated from their boiler, taking the lives of their children and their pets. It had made her feelings about the loss of her art seem trivial.

And then it had all stopped; she hadn’t been able to function. Family took her in, but she couldn’t get her thoughts together, her mind constantly returning to all the time and effort that had been wasted, how easily it had gone, and how it all seemed so pointless now. Every time she attempted to do anything creative she drew a blank.

So after more than a year of nothing, despite finding another home and settling again, and with the pressure to provide more work for sale and exhibition mounting, she had booked this trip in an attempt to relax and just be for a while, without any expectation. 

As the room became brighter with the rising sun, Lori was lured out of the bed by curiosity. She had arrived late the night before, so had yet to glimpse the views promised when she had made the booking.

She was not disappointed; the Loch swept away to the horizon, the lodge perched at one end of it. Sunbeams peeked through broken clouds lighting up the water, creating a myriad of sparkles that danced across the surface. Lori felt drawn to it. She wanted to get closer, even touch it if she could.

She dressed and took the main stairs down, hoping not to encounter any guests or staff. The early hour afforded her this luxury, and she left through the front door unseen, striding across the lawns at the front down to the water.

Once there, she was relieved to find a small strip of shingle enabling her to step into the water. The cold bit into her toes, but she found the chill refreshing as she continued in until the water was at her knees.

Lori stood still, letting the cold numb her lower legs while she watched the light glitter across the surface. At this angle she felt as though she was a part of the glimmer, as though it reflected off her too. The warmth of the sunlight kept her there, disembodied from the knees down.

She imagined herself floating on the surface, her body rocking with the sway of the water while her mind drifted with the clouds above. She wanted to stay there forever, imagining herself a statue like those she used to create. But as the freezing water started to lap at her thighs, she came too, knowing it was time to return to the lodge and hopefully breakfast.

Lori went to turn but nothing happened. At first she thought her feet had gone to sleep, but her upper body hadn’t moved either. She tried again and nothing happened.

Looking down, she was shocked to find her torso a beacon of light. It shone out of her, moving and jostling, scintillating like the light on the water. She moved her hand to touch it and found her hand reflective too, her eyes captured by its trancelike qualities. She had become as beautiful as the radiance around her. She wanted to capture this moment, and recreate it in art.

Her head buzzed with ideas and this seemed to unlock her. She moved; the light across her body dying as she turned and waded out of the water, wanting to return to the lodge and release the images lining up in her mind clamouring to be created.

The need for rest and peace was forgotten. Lori’s mind had come alive with what it needed to construct. This would be her greatest work yet.