THE AESTHETIC FOOT RACE

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Dispatches from the Abyss Superhighway

It was a dangerous afternoon for the Republic of Art. I was sitting at my desk with a cup of coffee, a black cat, and the growing suspicion that civilization had finally discovered a way to turn imagination into a competitive sporting event.

Forty votes! Five free generations! Rate your fellow artists and collect your reward!

Good heavens. They had put a carrot in front of the horse, and the horse was expected to become an art critic.

I had already awarded thirty perfect scores. Five stars for the magnificent, five for the ridiculous, five for the wonderfully incompetent, and five for the occasional masterpiece that appeared to have been assembled by a sleepwalking plumber.

But the machinery demanded ten more judgments.

This was getting serious.

I took another drink of coffee and began drawing.

The spiral became a mushroom. The mushroom became a cathedral. The cathedral became a woman whose skeleton was playing a guitar somewhere beyond the ordinary jurisdiction of human perception.

Then I fell asleep.

I woke up inside the drawing.

There were enormous mushrooms along the highway, ancient stone arches, and a moon large enough to bankrupt the astronomical establishment.

A woman wearing a crown of roses sat beneath the ruins, playing a guitar. She was entirely skeletal, which immediately improved the conversation.

She asked whether I had won anything.

“Absolutely not,” I said. “I’m conducting an investigation into the mass hypnosis of the aesthetic foot race.”

She laughed so hard that several vertebrae changed positions.

“Then why are you running?”

This was an excellent question.

I explained that I believed in collaboration, but also in working hermetically, without allowing the collective imagination to establish a permanent residence inside my skull.

She offered me her hand.

We danced beneath the moon while the mushrooms leaned toward us like curious philosophers.

Nobody awarded points.

Nobody announced a winner.

There were no judges hiding behind the ruins with clipboards.

For the first time in days, the entire enterprise seemed perfectly reasonable.

Later we lay beneath the stars with the black cat sleeping beside us. The woman explained that death had liberated her from several inconveniences, including fashion, property taxes, and the need to maintain an artistic reputation.

By sunrise she had vanished.

I found myself sitting on a mountainside with the cat, watching the first light spill across the valley.

There was no competition up there.

The mountains were not trying to outperform one another. The trees had no rankings. Even the clouds refused to submit their portfolios.

Back at my desk, I began drawing again.

The spiral became a mushroom. The mushroom became a cathedral.

And somewhere inside the cathedral, a skeleton was laughing.

The cat watched carefully.

I had finally discovered the secret of the aesthetic foot race.

You don’t have to finish. You don’t even have to start.

And the carrot?

Let the horse eat it.