"Catastropiece" by Derek Schultz

"What a beautiful work!" The scrawny French art critic was praising a painting by Picasso. I was bored out of my mind. All I could do was stare at the painting and drool. all the formless lines seemed to draw me into the work. I stared harder, ignoring the sensation of movement. I could feel the painting literally sucking me into it. At last, the evil abstract engulfed me.

Several things happened at once: I realized I was inside the painting. My spine straightened and bent at a right angle. My eyes smeared into green circles. My arms and legs combined into a large yellow square.

Every shape shattered into fragments as my reconstructed eyes stacked themselves vertically on top of each other. My hair stretched into thin black lines. "Aw, man! If I walk home like this my mom's going to kick my head in!" It took a moment for me to realize the truth. "Oh, yeah. I don't even have a head anymore." In fact, I had no recognizable form whatsoever! I was trapped in the hellish swirling of lines and circles. Without a leg to stand on, an arm to pull me out, or a mouth to scream for help I could not escape. So when you visit the art gallery next time I'll be hanging out in "Guernica."