The Mona Lisa

Where am I? That was the first question that came into my mind as consciousness gripped me. Nothing can be heard in the distance except the air as it blows in my face. Looking back, I see a pathway and the pathway leads to a stream which went as far as my eyes could see, fading into the blur of distance. The stream flows silently and peacefully. The water, reflecting the cloud on its surface in the absence of the sun were blue.

My face hurts like I have been smiling for so long. Why have I been smiling? Who am I? Am I one of those crazy women who have lost their senses? Women of repute in Florence like myself should not be lost in a place like this? Why would I be sitting on a chair in front of a stream? I look around for a peasant who I can call to take me home but I find none. Peasants are never around when you need them.

 Looking around and searching for answers or clues which would later yield answers, my eyes fall upon a room which did not fit into my reality. The room looked disarranged and rough with paper littering it. On these papers were extremely detailed sketches which by the pencil work I could tell they were hurriedly drawn. There was a plate of food on a table that looked abandoned while the room is littered with patches of green, yellow and other subtle colors. Yes, this must be a painter’s room!

The room looked cheap and dirty, it smelt of mush and wet. I tried to enter the room but could not gain access. I screamed but none could hear me. The room looked so close, I could smell it and peer into it, yet I could not access it. It looked like the realm of death, it is all around. People die. You see it, yet you cannot visit it without dying yourself.

Suddenly, a man bursts into the room

“Who dares scream in my abode” he says in low born Italian.

The man’s face is filled with hair that has turned white. He looked old, yet wise and he wore peasant clothes. His clothes were grey and clean but his left hand had been smeared with paint which proved him to be the painter.

“Who are you peasant? And tell me where I am”

The man looks at me with a startle, like he knew who I was but I was not supposed to talk. He looks at me with an amused expression and smiles. Then he uses his left hand to stroke his beards as he comes close to me. Like he wanted to inspect me.

“Who are you Peasant?” I ask again

“My dear lady,” He begins softly

“I am Leonardo Davinci, Your painter and honestly speaking my lady, you are not supposed to be talking”

“My painter? You do not tell me when I am supposed to talk Peasant!” I scream at him

But he was not shaken by my rude words, he smiled like he expected me to behave like that. Like a high born who looked down on peasants.

He walks around the room stroking his beards with his left hand while speaking to himself in a foreign language.

“I am sorry to speak out of place my lady, but tell me, do you remember anything before this moment?” He asks intelligently with a glint in his eyes. Still inspecting me.

The question hit me. As my reality catches up with me, I did not exist before I regained consciousness. I have no behavior I could call myself, no identity, only what he chooses to call me. His left hand smeared with paint, the oddities in my appearance and the chair at a stream. The nonsense makes sense now as I see the room and my surroundings for what it really is. The man painted me a smiling highborn sitting in front of a beautiful backdrop.

I am a figment of the intelligent peasant’s imagination.

I scream!