Fiction short story with protagonist, antagonist, and symbolic narrative elements

¶ … Painted Reality

Jana sipped her drink. The cool bitter liquid skimmed down her throat and she stifled a gag. The cold sun beamed through the window and she wanted to vomit. She took another sip of the drink and stared out of the window, the frozen sun not even blinding her eyes. She put her sunglasses on anyways, as she was going to go outside, eventually. The sunglasses didn't protect her from the sunbeams or the eyes of her companions, whose vision was bearing down on her as she attempted to decide what to do next.

She chose pthalo blue as the base color for the sky. She decided to mix in some alizarin crimson to add a violet touch to the top of the sky. It would eventually be painted sky blue, whatever that turned out to mean, she decided. She dipped the brush into the alizarin crimson, mixed it with the pthalo blue, and applied some paint to the canvas. The watchful eyes glared down at her as she continued to work. Some of the eyes were behind cameras, and some were bare eyes.

Almost none of the eyes were associated with voices, but some were, and some of the voices did not seem to have eyes. She painted and the sun began to set. She took her sunglasses off in order to observe the canvas, and its stark brightness nearly blinded her. More blinding, however, were her companions' eyes. To her they did not seem like companions but often like unwanted intruders, and sometimes like evil animals. They saw phantasms in her paintings that did not exist, and reported on them as though they were newscasters. Sometimes the reports were so realistic that Jana saw the phantasms protrude from her paintings, but when she put her sunglasses on they receded back into nothing, as they clearly did not exist.

The sun had set now, and it was cold and dark, even with her sunglasses off. Jana sipped her drink again and lit a cigarette. The smoke blinded the eyes a bit; it was a good cigarette. The ringing of the telephone startled Jana and she set her cigarette aside to answer the phone…it would be a respite from the eyes and voices after all. When she answered, no one was on the other side. "Dammit," she muttered, and immediately hoped the voices would not respond. She hung up the phone. "Phone call," said a low voice. Jana was so used to the voices by now that she felt merely annoyed. "Uh!" said another voice, apparently in response to the first voice. Jana sighed and cleaned up her painting materials. She was so accustomed to ignoring the voices that this mild exchange barely entered her consciousness. The eyes continued to glare down on her as she cleaned her materials and observed her canvas. The day's results appeared acceptable. Maybe she would paint more later, or maybe tomorrow.

Jana sat down in a chair and stared at the wall for a bit. Her mind was mildly numb, and the eyes and ears were drowned out for the most part. "Jana" one of the voices said, the one she had started to refer to as Todd. This time Todd was so loud she turned around just to make sure no one was there.

Jana saw only a blurry swirl of air and heard only a hissing of "sssssssssssss." She could barely breathe and felt a choke around her throat and neck. She screamed, but was unsure if any sound emanated from her throat. She clawed and bit at the air, at the walls, at the phantasm that was attacking her. Sweat poured down her face, and she was nauseous. She wanted to vomit all over Todd and then destroy him completely, even if Todd was not the entity attacking her. Soon she heard a loud rap on the door, and the police entered the room.

Jana was strapped to a gurney, placed in an ambulance, and taken to hospital. Things did not improve at the hospital. Jana's throat and mouth were parched, her nausea had not abated, and she was still strapped to a gurney. The gurney was placed in a hallway and unfortunately the voices and eyes had not left her. Four bloated garbage bags with grids on them, resembling speakers, sat on the floor across the hallway from Jana. They seemed to taunt her as she flailed on her gurney, desperate for some peace. "This is extremely unpleasant," thought Jana, just as she was finally escorted into the main ward. Finally, she had access to some water. She sipped out of her cardboard cup eagerly, feeling the cool liquid pass down her throat into her heaving stomach. Jana finished the cup of water and then lay down on her cot, where she soon slept.

Jana woke up to the call of "breakfast." A nurse handed her a tray and she sipped a juice slowly. She felt groggy and eager to leave this quasi-jail; after all, the voices and eyes were here as well, though they seemed less pronounced so far. As if on cue, Todd's voice sounded. This time it came from the upper left. "Back again," it said. As usual no one else seemed to hear it and Jana tried to stifle her panic. She did not want another episode like last night, at least not here. "Shut the fuck up," Jana whispered. Her roommates looked up, and then went back to what they were doing. "Left right!" Todd said. Jana was sick of his juvenile wordplay. She sighed and waited. Finally a nurse called her name and she went in to see the doctor, the one who would decide when she could leave.