Frederick L. Olson stared at the old oil canvas in front of him thinking as most men do at his age that his life had ultimately amounted to nothing. Diagnosed with terminal brain cancer a month prior he had spent the last of his retirement fund on one final vacation, a trip he’d wanted to take since he was a young man fresh out of high school. He’d told himself over and over that he’d take the trip as soon as he could but then the harsh reality of life reared its ugly head crushing the man’s dreams even before they had even begun to bloom. Life had taken his dream of becoming an artist and shoved him in a small grey cubicle working for an insurance company instead. Life had caused him to invest in a company that failed, causing him to lose most of his savings, and shoved him deeper into debt for the art major he had never ended up using. He’d managed to eke out a living, though in his small one-bedroom apartment where the kitchen was so small if you opened the closet door while you were in there you couldn’t get back around to the stove and bland faded floral walls. His parents had died and he had no siblings or cousins, he’d never gotten married, he’d never had children, he didn’t even had friends he was utterly alone, and standing in front of Whistler’s Mother he had never felt more so.
All the art held within the Louvre was beautiful and priceless, all its artists remembered. “Remembered,” Fredrick Olson mumbled to himself as he inspected the brushstrokes on the old woman’s dark brown dress. He realized that he would never be remembered by anyone--he had no family and no friends; he had done no great works or contributed anything to society. When he died nothing would happen. The realization was painful but he supposed he’d already known that all along why else would he have spent the last of his savings on a trip to Paris. With no one to give his money to when he died he pulled all of his savings together and quickly planned his last trip in a matter of two weeks.
It’d actually been simpler than he’d expect to just pack up and leave; he’d left his apartment, sold his car, and quit his job. Before he knew it he was on the flight to Paris and arrived on the same day. A flight from New York to Paris hadn’t taken as long as he thought and he was soon settled in his hotel room. He’d spent the week exploring the town visiting all the usual tourist destinations and stopping at different cafes to sample the local foods. It was now his last day, and Olson had awoken in his five-star hotel room’s king-sized bed, determined to make it his best.
Standing alone now staring at the oil painting, he realized how utterly lost he was, and yet it wasn’t a bad feeling; no one would miss him, he wasn’t hurting anyone, and he wasn’t doing the world any good by hanging around. He’d be damned before he let some doctor in a hospital that smelled too much like cleaning chemicals tell him when he was going to die. He didn’t want to die in a hospital bed surrounded by needles that poked and prodded at his skin, monitors that glowed unnatural colors and made endless white noise, and doctors flitting in and out of the small cramped room trying to save a man who couldn’t be saved. No, his death was going to be beautiful and poetic--his last and only work as the artist he’d always longed to be; he’d vowed this to himself.
Perhaps he didn’t have a family to remember him by, but the world would remember him instead, remember his single great work, his magnum opus. He swore this to himself; he was not going to die like some simpleton out on the street who had no knowledge or appreciation of the great arts. He told himself that he was not going to die like the uncultured swine that even permeated the beautiful walls of the Musée d'Orsay attempting to take pictures even though the guards frequently reminded them not to. Olson scowled turning away from the painting and walked down the hall passing the many people who were standing and staring without understanding at the paintings scattered around the building. It was quiet other than the sounds of feet clicking on the marble flooring below the tourists feet due mostly in part to the audio guided tours that most everyone was listening to; the silence was comforting. He went largely unnoticed as he exited the building.
Leaving the Louvre behind him he didn’t even bother to look back at the glowing glass pyramid the building boasted as its focal point. He opened up his black umbrella to guard himself from the rain that had begun to fall while he was inside and called a cab. He didn’t have to wait long; there weren’t many people about in the dreadful weather. The cab screeched to a halt in front of him and he quickly opened the door getting in with a huff. The driver was agitated and in no mood for Olson’s choppy and flawed French, and Olson was in no mood for the driver. He scribbled the address down on a scrap piece of paper and handed it to the gruff looking man up front. The driver grumbled to himself and pulled the car out of its parking space, taking one final check of the destination address. Olson looked around the small cab taking in its staple taxi appearance: the ash tray full of week old cigarettes, grubby windows, matted seats, and that peculiar smell that all cabs seemed to have no matter where you traveled that smelled like a mix cheap men’s cologne, booze, coffee, cigarette smoke, and after shave.
Quickly becoming bored of looking around the backseat he decided to stare out the fingerprint-smudged windows drinking in the appearance on the city around him; he was happy these were some of the last images he’d ever see. They were much more beautiful that the bland streets of New York even with the cold rain washing out all the colors of the city together and mellowing their hues. Olson realized he was hungry but he didn’t care to stop; he wanted to make it on time. He glanced down at his watch and then at the street sign the cab had passed. Olson thought he would calculate the miles in his mind; the thought made him happy.
The cab pulled up to the Bastille Opera house at precisely 6:00pm just as they started their show on its opening night, but the opera wasn’t his final destination. Instead he turned toward the small gated cemetery across the street. He stepped out into the beating rain and bone chilling wind. He clutched his trench coat close to his body guarding himself against the spray of water, the tires of the taxi kicked up as it drove away speeding off into the city and disappearing into the dark.
Now he was alone again--just him the rain, the glowing street lamps, and the faint sound of Opera coming from the theater behind him. The Opera made things more dramatic; he smiled. Olson had planned it that way, which is why he’d been so worried about making it on time. He wasn’t worried anymore; he was elated. Stepping into the street, he made his way quickly across, making sure to keep a good grip on his umbrella and giving a fleeting thought to how ironic it would be were a car to run him down in the middle of the road at that very moment. Olson appreciated irony as much as the next guy, but it was not the form of art he was trying to create; he wanted something beautiful not funny.
Making it across the two-lane road, he stood alone in silence for the millionth time that day planning out his next move. The Lachaise cemetery was a lovely place ringed on all sides by a high stone wall that Ivy and morning glories clung to, its entrance arching high into the cold December sky. Looking up into that sky he saw that the rain that was falling was slowly beginning to turn into snow; by midnight it would be lying thick upon the ground. The gate on the entrance was closed but it didn’t matter; the bricks that built up the wall were easily climbed. Olson closed his umbrella, hooked it into his belt loop, straightened his gloves and was over the wall within fifteen minutes--right on time. Most of the graves we torn up and covered in graffiti except for one that stood out amongst the others even in the darkness, Olson viewed the grave as his savior. Moving towards the one in tact stone angel confidently he came to a stop in front of it reading the name that adorned it Pe`re Francois de la Chaise and smiled widely. At its base there were still gifts even though the man had died in 1804, but unlike the normal leavings of flowers candles or cards, it was bottles of wine and pills that covered the ground in front. Pe`re had died of an accidental drug overdose while incarcerated in what had been the Bastille jail but was now the Opera house across the street. People had destroyed all the other graves but left his for widely unknown reasons and left drugs at his grave. It had become a tradition for teenagers of the area to scale the wall and leave drugs or beer at the angel’s feet so much so that the police had long given up on chasing them away. Olson smiled down at the bounty before his feet, ignoring the sting of wind and soft flakes of snow now landing on his jacket to drink in the wondrous sight of his salvation. Bending down to kneel at the base of the stone angel he picked up a bottle of whisky whose name was too smudged to be read and popped the cork, taking a quick swig. The flavor was unlike anything he’d ever tasted and it warmed the back of his throat, pooling in the pit of his stomach, heating him from the inside out. He quickly downed the rest of the small bottle then plucked another from the ground do the same to it within a matter of minutes; he could still hear the singing from the opera house, the performers getting steadily louder. Putting the drink down for a moment he fumbled with the cap on a bottle of pills briefly before downing the entire contents without bothering to check the label. He sat for a little while on the soaking ground continuing to drink the bottles of alcohol and take the pills around him until he began to feel woozy. Clearing away the rest of the stuff in the dirt he moved to prop himself up against the angel and get comfortable, closing his eyes he let his head fall at the angel’s feet.
The snow fell thickly, covering the world and washing away all of its sins and sorrows. Olson began to drift away with it feeling as if he were floating on the wind itself. The drugs hadn’t taken that long to take effect and now he sat in bliss alone in the cold cemetery, the sounds of music surrounding him. The snow began to pile up around him a marker of time that he could neither feel nor grasp passing. The sounds of singing filled his ears and blocked out everything else except for the flurry of snow blowing his hair out of place and chilling his cheeks. He let out a long breath. It wouldn’t be long now. The angel beckoned him, and he could feel his essence leaking out into the December sky, twisting and turning with the breeze as it ascended to the heavens in one final crescendo. The music hit its peak as the last of his being left him sending it with shout to God. The woman’s voice rang out across the clearing and the musical instruments sang just as true as the opera performer’s as Olson’s soul tumbled on the wind, covering the whole of Paris in his last great work.
Frederick L. Olson died December 18th 2014 of a purposeful drug and alcohol overdose in the Pe`re Lachaise cemetery, Paris, France. He was found two days later when a bunch of teenagers came to leave more offerings at the grave he had passed at covered in snow. He was taken away and buried without a ceremony in a small cemetery a few blocks away from Notre Dame according to his last will and testament.
Frederick L. Olson was not remembered.