Deadbolts barred the entrance, but the picketers had nevertheless turned out in force. 'Motley' sprang unavoidably to mind -- young and old thronged together, dressed in a spectrum from hand-tailored suits to intentionally ragged t-shirts. The signs were likewise assorted, some produced on wide-format printers, others slapped together with rubber cement, Magic Markers and rage. Street gangs boasted better coordination, yet could not have dreamt of approaching the magnitude of genuine fury.
Swatches of duct tape outlined the studio's largest window, strapping down a sheet of industrial plastic -- bandages on the ragged wound of a guerrilla culture war. Black graffiti slashed the sidewalk: SHIT is Not Expression.
Police were arriving, parking directly on the curb, grinding down the painted outrage. Uniforms emerged and took sentry, deflecting the cries of, "Sellouts! Pigs! Don't any of you have children?" with bulletproof reserve. Urban life cycled year after year; guards had ever been the last line in the clash of ideologies.
Volume and tension rose systematically as, at last, the doors opened. A brick hurtled instantly from the thick of picketers -- the evening's first apprehension was a tottering grandmother in a Guy Fawkes mask, shoved bodily into the shadows of a cruiser. Passion erupted as patrons dashed into the studio, determination to view the future beating back fear of the indignant, rioting past.
Canvases hung stark on the walls. Decoration was forgone, refreshments abandoned when threats of arson frightened away the caterers.
True war demands soldiers, but the culture war had rallied the troops available. Not striding, but slinking, the founder of the conflict took a reluctant center-stage.
"Er," he began, conscious of expectant eyes boring through his flimsy resolve. "Er. Yes. Thank you all for coming tonight. I know the situation has gotten a bit -- er -- heated. I frankly never expected this sort of reaction."
Onlookers waited. Canvases loomed behind them, while past the sheet of plastic and duct tape, a quartet of vitriolic middle-schoolers were bundled off toward a future in juvenile hall.
"Well, a lot of you may know how this all got started," continued the slinker. "My residency was about to end, and I was hoping to show the last of my landscapes when I came down with a nasty cold. Herbal tea has always been my friend there, so I made a mug of it. The studio was a little cluttered -- moving day coming up and everything -- and I, er, got it mixed up with my paint. Not much fun to end up with a mouthful of cerulean blue!"
A few generous attendants helped the moment pass with induced laughter. The crowd had an air of adamance, already resolved to be awestruck.
"So there I was. Mouthful of paint, a week of residency left, nothing of interest to show. And…well…" The slinker gave the helpless shrug of a storm-tossed sailor, smashed against the rocks of fate. "I sneezed."
Sprays of color littered the canvases. Paint, just like a sneeze, could be propelled at over one hundred meters per second. The slinker had repeated this process fifteen times and mounted the results in the spartan hole of a gallery. Below the largest canvas was a tiny square of brown paper: "Sneeze Production #11. $2.5 million."
On the neighboring sidewalk, a picketer hefted his sign -- a three-foot, full-color, high-resolution photograph of the Mona Lisa. As the news cameras filmed, a second picketer took precise aim, extended one arm and savaged the photo with a can of fluorescent traffic-paint. The eyes, which watched the slinker wherever he went, vanished behind a haze of luminous pink.
Writers are fond of claiming that the rest is history. While this inevitably becomes true, history itself never rests.
On the sidewalk of Atelier Le Sneeze, the culture war raged and flourished.
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