Free The World Behind the Door by Mike Resnick

shock, but to please. Regardless of the effect, they were drawn—or when I get better they will be drawn—for an audience." She walked over to a bookcase and withdrew a volume. "The author of this book wanted it to be read by others. If not, he could simply recite stories to himself in the shower and save all that wear and tear on his fingers and his typewriter. By the same token, you paint because you want to share your vision with the rest of the world. Admittedly it has to be a unique vision to be of any lasting worth, but if it is so unique that only you can understand it, why should anyone care to look at it?"
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "People have always been fascinated by the bizarre," answered Dali. "They would look at the fat cow simply because they have never seen a cow, fat or otherwise, walking erect, wearing a dress, bursting out of a girdle, and carrying a purse."
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "That is true," agreed Jinx. "Paint anything bizarre and they will look, just as they watched an eye being cut open. Draw a man with two heads or a nude woman with three breasts, or a baby that is bigger than yourself and they will look. But such paintings would just be curiosity pieces, just like The Andalusian Dog , which is already forgotten by almost everyone. Such paintings would not touch or move your audience, because they would be tricks. They would have nothing of you in them."
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "But I am bizarre," said Dali.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "You pretend to be."
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "How could I not be?" he insisted. "I am a replacement for my dead brother. My father killed my mother and I have said so publicly. I had my first art exhibit when I was 15, while all the other boys my age were busy playing soccer. Everything about me is strange and bizarre."
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "Then you must paint bizarre things that have meaning to your audience."
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  Dali couldn't quite repress a smile. "Have you been talking to Freud?"
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "Why?" she asked. "Do I sound like him?"
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "Very much."
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "I've never met him," Jinx assured him. "But you talk about him incessantly."
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "He has had a profound effect on my thinking," replied Dali. "He's taught me that the visions I see, the images that come to me, have meaning if I can just comprehend them. He has encouraged me to explore all the hidden corners of my mind—my dreams, my fears, my lusts, my longings, my nightmares—and since they are all essential parts of myself, he tells me that I should find ways to use them in my art. And you, young Jinx, have told me much the same."
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "Then perhaps there's something to it," she said.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "I know there is," said Dali. "But what?"
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "I'm sure Dr. Freud would say that is for you to decide."
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "It is very confusing," he admitted. "The other day we were discussing limp watches. The day I met you I saw a red elephant walking on twenty-foot-tall stilt-like legs. I know I am to find meaning in the images that I see and that I imagine—but what meaning is there such a beast, or a burning giraffe, or a limp watch?"
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "Do you know what I think?" said Jinx.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "What?"
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "When you know the answer to that, you'll be ready to paint them and stun the world."
    Â 

 
    Chapter 9: The Camembert of Time
    Â 
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "Good afternoon, Salvador."
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "Good afternoon, young lady," said Dali, looking up from the newspaper he had been reading. "Where have you been these last two days?"
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "I have a home, you know."
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  "I don't really know it," answered Dali. "I have a feeling I might still be imagining you." Suddenly he tensed. "No! Don't kick me