The Muse

The Student Union Bar was in the continental cafe phase of its lifecycle this year. Cheap, hopelessly fragile steel chairs were clustered around small, unsteady circular tables. The newly installed fluorescent lights would have been unreasonably bright for an operating theatre. Last year it had been dark, dank, gloomy and neglected; in six months the committee would survey the wreckage and decree that the new design for next term would be sturdy, practical and last a lifetime.

Anna sat in an unobtrusive corner, balancing her notepad on her knees to keep her lecture notes off the sticky, puddled top of the table. She was sketching the intricate decay of the Victorian church opposite the bar. Pausing for a drink of cold and bitter coffee, she surveyed the result of her labours and remembered the comments of teachers past. "Very...accurate dear, but there's not much feeling to it. Have you ever considered becoming a draughtsman?". The emotion was there inside her as she looked at the freshly scoured face of the church, with its crumbling and blurred carvings stripped of the corrosive patina of a century of Mancunian industry, but nothing she did seemed to impress it on the mannered lines imprisoned on paper. Studying History of Art, rather than trying to make a career as a painter had definitely been the right choice.

"Do you mind if I join you? I hate sitting alone." The speaker was a young woman with the kind of improbably natural beauty which usually takes days of preparation to achieve. A Pre-Raphaelite vision in jeans. Long, smoothly waved red hair framed an earnest oval face with huge eyes the colour of liquid honey and flawless, pale skin. Anna shrugged to indicate her indifference, wondering why the girl had wandered in. Stylish students hung out in trendy wine bars and coffee shops near the city centre. They wouldn't be caught dead in here. She intended to simply carry on with her sketch; making conversation with strangers had never been something she was good at, but she noticed that the newcomer was peering at her drawing with considerable interest.

"It's very good. Would you like to be a professional artist one day?" Anna was surprised at how much the question hurt, at how deep the wound had gone when she realised that simply wanting would never be enough. She shot a quick look at the woman but her face seemed entirely innocent of sarcasm. Her gaze dropped to the careful pencil lines on the pad, searching for a hint of that elusive style that she had tried so hard to develop. There was none. She felt suddenly sick and tired of the pointless seeking after a talent she would never possess. Rippling the sketch from the pad she prepared to crush it, when the stranger grasped her wrist. "If you don't want that, do you mind if I keep it? I really do like it you know." Anna let her take the page, then shouldered her bag and walked out. Her final view of the woman as she turned to go through the door was of an expression of slightly smug satisfaction on her face while she stroked the edge of the page gently with a long, impeccably manicured finger. There were some really weird people about.

Anna felt drowsy and strange for the rest of the day. She should have known better than to risk the food in there. She went to bed early, hoping that her housemates had plans to go out for the evening, because she was normally a light, restless sleeper. In fact, she slept heavily, waking at noon the next day to the bleary realisation that two lectures and a tutorial were already finished. A dream from the night seemed to lurk in her head, of defiantly cheery streetlights, rain soaked streets and looming, grandiose buildings. Anna started to sketch on the big pad of good paper from under her bed even before she'd been to the bathroom. The compulsion to capture her vision on the page was irresistible. She worked all day, stopping only to let the colours dry. By the time she finished a headache was hammering away, almost blinding her with pain.

The city square in the painting seemed to be bursting with life: hurrying crowds, children lurking on the corners, beggars hunched in doorways. Dusk was falling and the daytime regiments of shop and office workers were scurrying home to be replaced by gaggles of brightly coloured pleasure-seekers on their way to pubs and nightclubs. The buildings were simply a ghostly backdrop to the seething mass of humanity, indistinct blurs in a wild mix of styles from the Victorian Gothic spires of the Town Hall to the looming seventies slab of tiles that was the Arndale. Not a real square then, but the distilled essence of the city centre, captured on paper like a butterfly pinned to a card.

Anna barely emerged from her room for the next two days. Originally she huddled in bed taking aspirin at precise, four hour intervals in a hopeless attempt to bring a premature end to her migraine. When it finally receded it was replaced by a tidal wave of depression as soon as she picked up a pencil. Whatever had inspired her had fled, elusive as the dreams that had accompanied it. After so many years of hopeless longing she had touched the genius that was her heart's desire. Until now she had believed that to create one masterpiece, to prove herself to the world, would be enough. As her housemates and their friends slipped in one by one to stare at the painting she knew that she had been wrong. Everything she did from this point in her life would be judged against the standard of the picture in the corner. She would inevitably fall short.

Her brooding was interrupted by a soft, insistent knocking on the bedroom door, an unexpected courtesy in this house. She tried ignoring it, but after several minutes snapped "Either come in, or get lost, for God's sake!"

"Not very appropriate, but I assume that was an invitation". Anna looked up, her gloom temporarily dispelled by astonishment, as the woman from the Student Union Bar slipped gracefully through the narrow gap created as the opening door wedged against a tangle of abandoned textbooks and laundry. She walked straight over to the painting, but rather than leaning close to peer at the details like the others, she stood facing it and stretched out her hands, palms forward, as though warming them in front of a fire. "I could see you had it in you. I think you could be my best yet!"

"What the hell do you want?" Anna growled, furious at having her room invaded yet again.

"You aren't the grateful type are you? I've come to make you an offer".

"It's not for sale. I keep telling them to say that it isn't".

The woman laughed. "That's not what I'm here for". She walked over and leaned close to Anna staring intently "Would you like to paint like that again?"

Her eyes were flecked with gold and green specks which seemed to flicker and change. Anna tried to break eye contact and failed. "Would you?" she repeated, more softly this time. "I think you would, and I'm very rarely wrong. I think you'd give up almost anything for that."

"Yes! Who wouldn't" Anna finally wrenched herself away from that compelling gaze.

"Very few actually. Most people are quite content with comfortable mediocrity. I had to search quite a while to find someone who wants genius so badly. I can give you what you want, for a price. That painting is a demonstration, just a small sample of what I can offer."

"What are you?" Anna whispered, shrinking back against the woodchip wallpaper and drawing her tatty duvet around herself as if it could offer some protection. Common sense told her that the question should have been who, not what, but instinct had overruled it. The face before her was perfectly symmetrical, the milky skin smooth and unblemished. Beautiful from a distance, close to the effect was disturbingly inhuman.

"I'm your Muse. I can give you the inspiration, the passion that you've always wanted. Accept my offer and your name will never be forgotten, your work will be a marvel for centuries. You've seen what I can give you."

Temptation and suspicion warred within Anna. "You mentioned a price. What is it - sign away my soul or something?"

The Muse laughed, a low throaty purr. "Your soul? Whatever would I do with a human soul? Hell to keep clean and so easy to lose. Besides I'd only collect when you were dead and where's the fun in that? I'm afraid I have much more old fashioned ideas about sacrifice. Where do you think the headache came from? What I want from you is pain."

Anna looked at the painting in the corner. The migraine seemed a distant memory. Perhaps the Muse was a bit behind the times. There were much more powerful drugs than aspirin nowadays. Surely it would be foolish to let such a chance slip away just because she was afraid of a little headache?

The Muse smiled kindly "It doesn't have to be forever you know. If you stop wanting it, then you can give it up. Just like that."

"Done." Anna started to reach out to shake hands then attempted to conceal the gesture; she couldn't bring herself to touch this counterfeit of a human being. With a tiny nod the Muse got up and exited as gracefully as she had come. As she closed the front door she felt the first warm trickle of human pain and smiled in satisfaction.

The Devil had definitely got it wrong, with his fixation on immortal souls, the Muse reflected. One lapse into remorse at the end of a lifetime of self-indulgent corruption and the investment was wasted. Her playthings were her slaves for as long as they lasted, because they knew they could give it up, just like that, whenever they wanted.