STORY DRAFT · CANVAS OF THE PAST
Before We Say Good bye is a fictional story inspired by Claude Monet and Camille Doncieux. The artist’s lover is called Claire; the bird and painted world are invented for this adaptation. The research and design notes are in Story Research: Monet and Camille (The Painted World).
The gallery
At the end of a quiet museum corridor, a visitor stops in front of a painting called Before We Say Good bye. It shows a room with a candle on a table and pale light beyond the window. A man stands beside an empty chair. Several portraits hang behind him, their faces partly covered with white paint.
The visitor leans closer. There is a small mark on the window ledge, almost lost among the brushstrokes. It looks like a bird.
A short whistle comes from somewhere nearby. The visitor turns, but the corridor is empty. As the visitor looks back, the exhibition light changes. The visitor feels dizzy and closes their eyes. When they open them, they are standing on wooden floorboards. The gallery is gone. The room around them has the same window as the painting, but parts of the walls are missing. Beyond the gaps there is only bare canvas.
Room one: a place to come home to
An artist stands at the far end of the room, working on a woman’s portrait. A parasol rests by the door. There are two cups on a table and a small dish on the window ledge. One of the chairs is missing a leg.
The artist looks towards the door.
- “She is still outside. Could you help me finish the house before she comes back?”
On the wall, separate shadows form parts of a house. The visitor adjusts the light and lines them up to complete the image.
When the house image is complete, the room returns to its original state. The broken furniture is restored. Laughter drifts in from outside, and a child runs past the open doorway.
For a moment, the visitor sees the room from high above the table, near the window ledge. The light is warmer. Claire comes in and folds her parasol.
- “Come and eat something first.”
- “Just a second,” the artist replies. “The light on your sleeve looks so good.”
- “Then be quick. It will be somewhere else soon.”
Claire raises her arm to see what he means. The artist laughs, puts down his brush and pulls out the chair beside her. Before sitting, he taps the window ledge three times and drops a few crumbs into the dish. A small bird hops into view.
Claire holds out one more crumb. The bird takes it from her hand.
The memory fades. The visitor is back on the floor. The furniture is still there, but it is all dusty. The small dish is empty too.
The artist has stopped painting.
- “Did you hear her?”
He looks at the portrait. Its mouth is visible now, though a pale streak still crosses the eyes.
- “I remembered the dress. I thought I had forgotten her voice.”
The same short whistle comes from the window. By the time the visitor turns, there is nothing on the ledge. The visitor feels dizzy again. When it passes, they are in the next room.
Room two: the last light
The next room has the same window and the same marks on the doorframe. A bed stands where the table was. The parasol is folded in a corner. A cloth hangs over a portrait beside the bed.
There is another small dish on the ledge. The visitor can see a little seed caught in a crack beneath it.
The artist remains at the threshold.
- “You can leave that one covered.”
On the wall are pieces of a candle’s shadow. Wax on the floor and the outline of a candlestick suggest the missing shape. The visitor adjusts the shadows to complete the candle.
When the candle image is complete, a flame appears on its painted wick. The light reaches the covered portrait, and the cloth falls away.
The second memory begins. Again, the view is near the window, looking into the room. Claire lies in bed. She has died. The artist sits beside her and says her name once.
After a long while, his brush touches the canvas. He adds a little violet, then lowers his hand.
- “I can see every change in the light,” he says quietly. “Why am I still looking at that?”
He reaches towards her hand and holds it. The candle burns lower. When its flame goes out, the scene fades.
The memory continues. The bed is gone. The artist has brought his easel back to the window, but Claire’s chair stays pushed beneath the table. Sometimes he sets out two cups before putting one away.
The bird is still there. It sits beside him while he works and calls when he forgets to fill its dish. He taps the ledge three times, just as he did before.
- “All right. I haven’t forgotten you.”
The bird takes a seed from his fingers. Later, it settles on his shoulder while he covers the final portrait with a cloth.
More days pass within the memory. The light changes, paint dries on his brushes, and unfinished pictures move from the easel to the wall. The bird keeps returning to the same place beside him.
Then the visitor sees another day. The artist is sitting in his chair, one hand resting beside the dish. The bird nudges his fingers. He does not move. It whistles and waits for the three taps. But this time, no answer comes.
The memory fades. The visitor is back beside the bed in the second puzzle room. The artist from the painting is next to them. He looks towards the window ledge.
The one who stayed
Still in the second room, the visitor finds one last faded image beside the window ledge. They line up the remaining shadows into the shape of a bird, and colour begins to return to the painting.
The bird lands beside the empty dish. It is the same small bird from both memories. It taps the ledge with its beak, and the artist answers with his fingers. Three taps.
Behind it, a pale patch on the wall fills with colour. The visitor can now see the room as it was after the artist died: the empty chair, the dry brushes and the bird waiting at the window. Over that still image, the outline of the artist slowly appears again.
The visitor looks from the image on the wall to the man beside them.
The visitor realises these were the bird’s memories. It had lived with the artist and Claire, heard their conversations and watched them at the table. After Claire died, it had stayed with him through the quiet days that followed. When he died as well, it kept waiting.
Its attachment had taken hold in the painting. It had rebuilt the home it knew and brought back a painted version of its owner. But the days kept returning to the same moments. Some parts had worn away; others had been covered over. Each repair had given the bird back a little more of the life it was trying to keep.
The artist reaches towards the bird. It steps onto his hand.
- “I kept waiting for her,” he says. “And you were waiting for me.”
The bird presses against his fingers. For the first time, he turns away from the door where he had expected Claire to appear.
The last adjustment
One strip of floor still ends in bare canvas. Beside it, the lamp can move along a track. Turned towards the window, its light reveals the bird’s shadow and the outline of an open path beyond the frame. Turned towards the table, it restores the warm room from the first memory.
The visitor moves the light between the two positions. Outside the window, the sky begins to brighten, then stops. From the other room comes the sound of cups touching the table.
The artist watches the bird.
- “If we stay, she will come through that door again.”
He pauses as the sound of the cups repeats.
- “But it will always be the same day.”
The bird looks from the table to the window. Both routes leave a way back to the gallery for the visitor. The visitor can look at each before settling the lamp in place.
1st Ending: Let morning come
The visitor turns the light towards the window. Morning reaches the last portrait, and the artist looks at it. The summer picture remains beside it. Neither has to be covered now.
He places his brush next to the cups and carries the bird to the open window. It grips his finger when he raises his hand. He waits.
“You can come with me.”
The bird loosens its grip. It flies a short distance along the path and lands on a fence, turning back towards him. The artist follows.
A bright flash fills the room.
The visitor hears the museum announcement and finds themselves in the gallery again. In the painting, the window is open. The artist’s chair is empty.
A bird is painted on the fence outside, beside a small figure walking away from the house. The visitor had not seen them there before.
2nd Ending: A little longer (stay)
The visitor turns the light back towards the table. The missing floor fills in. The bird leaves the artist’s hand and lands on the back of Claire’s chair.
Outside, a child runs past and a woman laughs. The door opens. Claire folds her parasol.
- “Come and eat something first.”
The artist glances at the window, then pulls out the chair beside her. He knows what she will say next. This time, he answers before she has to ask again.
- “I’m coming.”
He puts a few crumbs into the dish. The bird hops onto his shoulder as he takes his place at the table.
Behind them, the painting’s frame opens onto the museum corridor. The visitor steps through. When they look back, the room is warm and complete. Claire is looking at the light on her sleeve. The artist is beside her, with the bird resting close to his neck.
Two cups touch the table. After a little while, the same sound comes again.
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