Becoming - Flash Fiction Contest Entry

It was after three a.m. when Madison Blaire entered the large, mostly empty warehouse.  The heavy door closed behind her with a metallic “Bang!” and eight heads in white hardhats turned to look in her direction across the cavernous expanse.  She smiled and waved, marveling at the work already completed. 

Her miniature model of wire and cocktail umbrellas had now grown two hundred-fold. Thin, metal cables, stretched between hooks and anchors on the floor, ceiling, and a white-washed brick wall, resembled a 45-foot spider web, silvery filaments shimmering in the bright work lights.  Her “pointillism in sculpture,” with points created by vividly colored umbrellas in various sizes and stages of deployment, was beginning to take shape.  The rooster’s head was complete.  It stared at her, an apparition materializing from its ghostly wire scaffolding, its startled expression suggesting surprise at its own sudden existence.

Perfect.

This would be her largest exhibition yet, and in two days, the who’s who of the art and media world would perform their ritualistic swarm over the children of her creative process.  Every piece would be attended to, scrutinized, and critiqued for originality and depth.  It was an all-too-familiar process, and no one was more surprised than she at her comfort with the showers of attention.

It had been twelve years since wandering out into the darkness, alone with nothing but her pain and desire for new beginnings.  Her early work was subdued, withdrawn, hesitant, until a compliment from her idol, now mentor, Heinz Aeschlimann, famed Swiss sculptor, released her from her emotional chains.  Her work blossomed. 

The world noticed.

Exhibit 323, said the placard. An understated name for a giant chicken, but she decided long ago to let the viewer extract their own meaning from her work.  Privately, she read, Portrait of a Wife Beater.

Word count: 300.  Prompt: chicken, umbrella, brick