Oran Warner
August, 2022
The light strokes of his pencil drowned out the voice of his professor as he lazily sketched the dimensions of the classroom. Still stuck in his own world, he tuned back in, just in time to hear his professor, “Alright, discuss amongst yourselves.”
Uh oh.
He glanced wide-eyed at his tablemates.
He didn’t know the name of the lanky, pale color-covered person who sat on the other side of the table and they weren’t there regardless. Today it was just the blonde all-American, Lavender, and himself.
The all-American yawned, stretching his arms out in front of him. “Well I don’t know about you, but I like Monet better.”
For the first time he’d seen that morning, Lavender glanced up from her sketchbook, her expression stony. “What?”
“Listen man, Monet’s works are just like… nicer. They capture the essence of light and life and growth and shit. Van Gogh could be kinda like… emo, I guess.”
Oran snorted at that. Though not his favorite, he respected Vincent Van Gogh for his creations. “Van Gogh had his darker works for sure, but if you look at his lighter works like cherry blossoms, sunflowers, and a number of other works-”
“Van Gogh was a textbook case of bipolar disorder,” Lavender stated sharply. “He lived at a time in which mental illness wasn’t something that was well known about, nor something people really wanted to know about. And, if we’re gonna base our arguments on the artist rather than their art, then don’t even get me started on Mon-”
“Look, I’m just saying,” Austen waved his hands dismissively. “At least Monet didn’t cut his ear off or some weird shit like that.”
“Monet was a serial cheater and a narcissist,” Lavender hissed. “While the mother of his children was dying, Monet was having an affair. An affair, I might add, with the wife of one of the men who housed Monet and his family because Monet couldn’t make enough money to pay for a house, if that.”
“So?” Oran fought against the sour look threatening to spread across his face. “If you look at anyone through the lens of what we think is acceptable now, every historical figure would be an asshole.”
“If you knew the slightest bit about the time period Monet lived in, you would know adultery wasn’t acceptable then, either.”
She looked like a hurricane, only a moment away from unleashing terror upon all that lay before her.
Austen crossed his bulky arms over his chest, his face scrunched like a toddler about to throw a tantrum. “Yeah, but like every historical figure back then cheated, so it doesn’t even matter.”
Lavender’s expression turned blank. “Monet married one of his in-laws.”
“Well, I… at-t least… H-he-”
“Which inlaw, you ask? Well, that would be one of the daughters of his second wife from her first marriage.”
“Oh shit.” The words had flown out before Oran could stop himself.
For the first time that class period, the all-American had nothing to say.
The three of them sat there for a minute, listening to the hubbub of conversation around them. Lavender sat agitated, and Austen glared off into space.
“I wonder,” Oran thought aloud, well against his better judgment. “What made Monet want to marry again?”
The look Lavender gave him was one of mild disdain and confusion. “What?”
Oran wanted to stop himself, but continued anyway. “I just wonder what, at the end of his life, made him think, like, ‘Oh. There’s my step-daughter. We should bang.’”
