René Magritte's Most Famous Work

René Magritte's Most Famous Work
by Pauline Hsia

Sunshine, like a flood light, poured into the room, not through the windows but through a fat fissure in the ceiling. “I don’t know. I don’t know. What should I do?” He’s looking at me like I had all the answers. I didn’t have any, only the ones he wanted me to spit back at him. The answers he already knew. I folded my hands. “Go after her. If you want her, you have to make it happen.” His knee knocked into mine and instead of moving it, I left it beside him. The walls were crumbling and I could hear chunks of concrete falling. The vines grew past the opening of the windows, the ones without glass, and were now stretching towards the sky. A grasshopper was in the corner, its butt in the air, and a millipede was lounging around above his head, moving its many legs. “I really like her,” he said. I respond, “I know.” His hair, when the sunlight caught it, lit up into red fiber optics. There wasn’t anything particular about his face that was especially eye catching, in fact if any specific facial feature stood alone, he would be considered ugly. But together, it wasn’t so bad. His smile lines crowded his mouth, his nose hooked at the bottom, and his eye brows would arch dramatically when he spoke about her. “Here’s the plan. I’m going to ask her if she wants to hang out with me sometime. In the near future. In the very near future,” he said while a lady bug landed on his wrist. “I’ll slyly grab her hand and suggest that we should go catch dinner soon. I won’t take no for an answer. Then when we’ve had a couple of dates, I’ll kiss her. How does that sound?” “Good. Really good.” The lady bug crawled up his forearm, but he didn’t notice. “From there, I can do no wrong. I just need her to see me. Get her to notice me. We’ve been friends for a while, but I don’t know. It feels right.” “Isn’t that what you think every time?” “But this time is different. We click.” The lady bug reached his bicep and flew off onto the adjacent wall, where a horde of his friends swarmed. “Why do you like her so much? Same taste in food? In music?” “It’s not even that. It’s really the way she looks up when I speak to her. It makes me feel like I’m needed.” “I need you.” “That’s not what I mean at all. I’m not talking about that connection you have between friends. I’m talking about the need you have for someone you desire.” “It’s not like you know how that feels.” “And you do?” The ladybugs took flight and their fluttering wings made a soft symphony. “No. You’re right. I don’t know what it’s like to need someone like you need her.”

I know. I still have kinks to work out, but this is the most recent draft that I've liked.