The Painter and His Muse (short story)

The Muse

I was eight when the painter moved in next door. He was eighteen then, just old enough to be a legal adult, and he lived in the house alone. It was a frequently talked about mystery, how he payed for that house, but I never really cared about that.

Most of the time he painted in his front yard, and the spot where his easel sat contained grass blades spattered with all the colors of the rainbow. When I was that age, I sat on the sidewalk in front of his house, on my brother's basketball, and watched him paint for hours, until my mother forced me to come inside for dinner. I loved to see his hands transform into parts of the brushes, loved to see the colors come out of the little hairs. One minute, I was staring at a blank canvas, next, his paintbrush-hands touched that canvas, and it was suddenly bursting with color. But even more than the painting, I loved to watch him. His hair was blond, and it looked soft. I wondered if it was as soft as my mother's, and I always wanted to go find out. His arms were long like my dad's, covered in the same fur, but his fur was blond and looked almost as soft as the hair on his head. His legs were longer that my dad's, and his sneakers were worn out, and I wanted to put them on and walk around the neighborhood. He glanced at me, sometimes, and sort of smiled, but it was quite a while before he asked if I wanted to join him on the grass.

The Painter

She came out the first day that I painted on my new lawn, that little girl, and she sat on a basketball and just stared expectantly at me as I painted. I was kind of worried- I don't know why, but for some reason I didn't want her to get bored. But she just sat there on her basketball for hours, watching me paint without saying a word, until her mother came out of her front door and called her. Then I would watch from the corner of my eye as she picked up the basketball- looking huge in front of her tiny torso- and hurried over to her house, up her driveway and into her house, the front door slamming closed behind her without her giving me a second glance. I don't know why, but I never felt like painting any longer once she was inside, so I would close up my easel and head back into my own house, where it suddenly seemed lonely.

The Muse

On my sixteenth birthday, Jimmy Lane was my boyfriend, and he threw me a surprise party in my own house. My parents had planned it with him and kindly removed their presence to the movies. At that time, I was still sitting on the sidewalk when the painter went in his front yard, but he came out less often, and I never went on the grass, and I didn't stay out all day, only an hour or two. He had stopped inviting me on the grass after the first time I declined the invitation- it had been my fifteenth birthday then, and he had looked surprised and broke into a bright blush when I shook my head at his invitation. That was also the first time I went in so early- I only sat there for forty-five minutes before the uncomfortable feeling radiating off of him got to me, and I stood up, taking my basketball with me, and walked back to my house-as always, not looking back, though I could feel his gaze on my back.

On that day, of my sixteenth birthday, Jimmy and I were in the front yard with a small crowd of my peers, sitting around a bonfire, making s'mores in the rarely-used fire pit. Jimmy had his arm slung over my shoulder and I was leaning slightly forward, watching my marshmallow slowly burning, when I saw, from the corner of my eye, the painter's front door open. I felt like he was sort of testing me, and I would never have jumped to that conclusion except that he had never painted outside at night before. I might have stopped sitting with him on the grass, and I might have been going in much earlier than I used to, but I had never completely ignored him. I always went out, even if I only stayed out for ten minutes. The smoke was blowing in my face from the fire and Jimmy's hand was sweaty on my shoulder. He was talking to Kathryn Phillips about something shallow and materialistic, and I was, frankly, bored, so I took the challenge and stood up, pulling my marshmallow out of the fire and placing the metal stick in the spot where I had been sitting. Everyone looked up at me, and Jimmy rose an eyebrow, but I simply looked at my feet as I walked quickly toward the garage. I disappeared in the side door and came out a minute later with my brother's old basketball. He hadn't lived in the house for three years, but my parents knew I used the ball, so they kept it. I held it under my arm and everyone- including the painter, though he tried to do it from the side of his eyes, not moving his head away from the canvas he was setting up- watched as I walked over to the painter's house and sat down on the basketball in his driveway. He paused for a moment before dipping his paintbrush in his paint and moving it onto the canvas. I noticed quickly enough that he was writing something with the paint, and, curious to see what he would write, I dropped my plan to only watch for a couple minutes and leaned forward on the basketball. Jimmy and a couple of my friends walked over to me after a few minutes and asked what I was doing. I sort of half-shrugged and my friends gave me weird looks but went back to my party. Jimmy, however, stayed for a couple minutes longer, first watching the painter with me and then attempting to coax me back to the party. I shook my head and muttered, "I'll be back soon enough." Eventually he gave up and went back to the party. He stayed in the yard for a while, watching me from the corner of his eye, but eventually he wafted back into my house with a small group of people, giving me that one last glance that I never gave the painter.

I was going to stay out there for as long as it took, but it ended up only being a little over a half hour before the painter finished his painting and started collecting his supplies up, leaving the painting on the easel as he did so for me to stare at. As he had painted, I had gone from curious to confused as he followed a dramatically painted 'B' with a block-letter 'U', and then an 'O'. But now, as I stared at the gibberish in front of me, the letters connected and I recognized the words. The painter probably thought I didn't speak Italian, especially since it was pretty obvious what language I was learning by the French vocab I pronounced carefully over and over on my front steps, often as he was washing his car or taking in groceries or doing something or other about his lawn. But my best friend Lillian was taking Italian, and just earlier that day, at school, she had greeted me with a hug and an excited, "Buon compleanno!" which she then translated to mean 'happy birthday'. And those were the words the painter had so carefully colored onto his canvas. I smiled, now, and he glanced at me for a second before blushing, looking away, and closing up his easel- for the first time, closing his front door behind him before I closed mine- and leaving the now-covered canvas on the lawn for me.

The Painter

That boy who had slung his arm so casually around the girl's shoulders the day before, something I'd been wanting to do since the very day she first declined my invitation join me on my lawn , stopped showing up after the following day. He drove up one last time and walked into the house without knocking, but he came out shortly after, looking mad, and shooting dagger eyes at me as I turned off the hose I'd been watering my plants with before he got in his car and drove off, never to return again.

I hadn't really realized how much I'd enjoyed talking to the girl until the day we stopped. Ever since what I'm pretty sure was her thirteenth birthday, she'd started talking to me more seriously- about books, music, my paintings, other paintings, poetry, nature. Before then, I'd just kind of listened with a smile on my face as she dissected my paintings with her wild childhood imagination, occasionally replying but mostly just enjoying her visions. After then, our conversations had become more of actual conversations, and I was amazed by how quickly she seemed to be maturing. And the books she talked about, the painting she described, the music she raved about- they all seemed way over her age group. I hadn't really thought of her as someone- I don't know, a girl, I guess- not just a little girl, not just the child on the basketball, but an actual beautiful young woman- until our conversations had stopped. After that happened, I found myself watching as she danced with her headphones in as she mowed her lawn, or staring as she walked in front of my house with her dog. I found myself wondering what she was reading now, and when I would find a new song or poem that I loved, I realized the person I wanted to share it with was her. I guess that's why I went out there that night, the night of her sixteenth birthday. I had been scrubbing a pot in my kitchen sink, but my kitchen window looks right out onto her yard, and that boy's arm around her shoulders was driving me insane, and I just couldn't stay inside, wasting hot water as I spaced out every ten seconds and never got my scrubbing done. So I got my painting supplies and went outside, not even thinking about how obvious it would be that I was only doing it for her, since it was night time, and I never painted at night. I wanted to know if she would come over despite that boy's arm, if she would unhook his fingers from her forearm and walk over here with her basketball, her thin arms looking strange wrapped around it. And when she did, my heart started beating at ten miles an hour and any hope of coming up with something normal to paint disappeared in the vision dancing in my mind- the shape of her hips and the sparkle of her lips as she stared at me from her basketball. But I couldn't paint that, no matter how much the little painter voice in my head wanted me to. So I closed my eyes for a second and thought, and then opened them, a brilliant idea in my mind, and I started writing. There was no way she could speak Italian, since she was obviously taking French in school now by the way she mispronounced 'au revoir' day after day. And my mind was filled with nothing but her-there was no way I would be able to come up with anything else. So I wrote her a message. But she smiled, I saw her smile when I glanced back at her, after I finished, and I could tell that she knew what it meant, so I gathered up my supplies quickly and hurried back into my house.

The Muse

I was pretty old for my grade, so when my graduation day rolled around, I was only seventeen. I hadn't dated anyone since Jimmy and I broke up. I focused on choosing a school to go to, and getting ready for graduation. Every day the painter had come out since that day, I had sat on my basketball and watched him, but I could feel something was different. There was a sort of energy I felt every time I sat there, and I wanted to know his real name. I wanted to talk to him again, and more than that...I wanted to kiss him. It wasn't really a completely new idea to my mind. I had thought about it since I was about eleven, but I had never really thought about it. I had imagined our kiss in the kind of way you might imagine kissing Johnny Depp. But now... now, I really wanted to kiss him. And for the first time, I sort of felt like maybe I could.

It was my graduation day when I saw him painting on the lawn, after I came home from the ceremony and the celebratory lunch- the first time he had ever started painting without my being there. I wasn't in my gown anymore, but I was wearing a dress- a long white dress that was tight around my waste, strapless, and cut in a straight line under my neck. I ignored my mother's protests- which didn't last long, seeing as she knew I couldn't be persuaded- and I dashed into the garage and grabbed my brother's basketball, hurrying to his sidewalk. I saw his quick glance at me, and his wide eyes, between my garage and his sidewalk, and his cheeks turned redder than my lipsticks when our eyes met for a second before he looked back at his canvas and I sat down on the basketball. I watched as he painted. He had already started with a long strip on the bottom of the canvas, thick and beige, and then he started to create a child- a small girl- on the far side of the canvas, and I slowly realized that he was painting a basketball underneath her tiny legs. My mouth dropped and I watched in shocked silence as he painted me over and over- as a tiny girl, and then a middle schooler, finally a freshman or sophomore, and then, on the opposite far side of the canvas from the me as a little girl, the me he painted was wearing a long white dress. I waited until he was done, waited until he stepped back a couple steps and just stared at the canvas for a moment, before I finally got up and crossed the yard to him.

The Painter

I had only just began when she came back from her graduation- I was painting the sidewalk. I glanced at her for a second as she ran to her garage and retrieved her basketball, and I saw her dress. It was long, white, and simple. And she was the most beautiful muse I had ever seen, her dark hair soft and wavy on her shoulders, her beautiful lips bright red and her bright eyes underlined in black. And my cheeks set on fire as she looked at me with those exquisite eyes for a moment before darting to the sidewalk. I felt the breath gone from my lungs, and my heart was beating against my chest like a snare drum. I breathed deeply and quietly as possible as I started to form that first version of her I'd ever seen on her basketball on the far side of my canvas, smiling as I lost myself in the memories I painted, the journey she went through from that confusing and adorable little girl to the confusing and beautiful woman who now sat behind me. When I finished, I took a few steps back and just stared at my canvas, at her. And then she was next to me. My breath caught in my throat again as I turned to her and she smiled at me and said, "I've always wanted to be your muse." I couldn't help but smile back as I replied, "You always have been." Her smile widened and she put her hands, which were the kind that painters all over the world would kill to be able to have posed for them for just a moment, on my cheeks. I carefully put my hands on those hips which abbreviated the story of why so many painters were inspired by the body of a woman and pulled her towards me. And finally those lips, whose shape could never be imitated on a canvas, came up towards my own, and I closed my eyes and kissed her, not needing to see anything to lose myself in the beauty of that moment.

The Muse

As my mouth molded into his, I put one hand on his arm and one hand in his hair. And I had been right. His hair was so soft.

© 2011

Memory Lane part 2

"I am most positive of it. We should most certainly not be here."

"Oh, Bert, don't you ever wonder what it would be like to forget the rules every once in a while?"

"Ha! Wonder! As if I have the option to wonder about such a thing when you force me toexperience it so very often!" Cole narrowed his eyes, "No one is forcing you, Bert. You may leave whenever you like."

"Maybe I shall!" Bert declared passionately, his cheeks reddening with Cole's obvious lack of interest in his presence. "Oh, Bert," Nancy whined, "Don't leave." Bert flicked his red hair out of his face and stuck up his chin a bit, "Oh, fine," he said in a very haughty manner, "Since you can't seem to function without my being near you." Nancy smiled, content with pleasing him, (since she was very aware that she was,) and hooked her arm through his, and his haughty act was all but lost with the flames that took over his cheeks. Cole rolled his eyes and we continued forward as Bran pushed into the Fleeters building. Ever since we were old enough to understand what the Fleeters were, they fascinated us- even Bert, though he'll never admit it. I distinctly remember the first time I met one. I was four, and it was still the times when, upon arrival, we didn't know how to tell the Fleeters apart from ordinary Newcomers. He was tall, or at least it seemed so at the time, and he walked with a strange limp. He seemed uncomfortable as he stood in line at the Grocery store, his items tucked under his arm as he fiddled with the string that had gotten loose from the bottom of his shirt. I remember walking up to him and tapping him on the shoulder- well, the back, I suppose, since I hadn't been tall enough to tap his shoulder- and when he turned to me, looking startled, I said to him, "Don't worry, mister, you'll get used to this place. You'll like it here." His face seemed shocked, still, for a moment, but then it settled into a smile, and he said, "Yes, I'm sure I will." He turned away from me, smiling sadly and shaking his head, "Eventually." But I found out a couple weeks later that he never got the chance to get used to this place, because he was sent back to the old one.

Bert took my hand as we moved into the Fleeters building, and Cole's eyes burned into our connected hands as if he could break them apart with his gaze. He quickly grabbed my other hand, glaring at Bert, but when I caught his gaze and smiled at him, his face calmed, and he smiled back. A little boy was sitting by the front entrance desk, just staring at his Welcome Packet, his eyes welled up with tears. He looked about three, maybe four. Fleeters' welcome packets were different from those of general Newcomers', but not by much. There was just an extra page on the end that informed the person that their stay here would only be temporary, that there was no way of knowing how long their visit would last, etc, etc. The little boy's wet eyes were focused on that last page, but the assurance that he would be able to go home eventually didn't seem to reassure him much. "Hello," Bran said, kneeling in front of the boy though he was not really that much taller than the boy was in a chair. The boy sniffled but said nothing. "What's your name?" Bran asked in a sweet voice, his eyes kind. The boy sniffled again and muttered, "John." Bran smiled, "Well, John. It's very nice to meet you." The boy said nothing in response. "You're gonna go home, you know, so you can stop with the crying," Cole informed John. Bran shot Cole dagger eyes and Cole shrugged. John broke into sobs, "I can't stay here another minute! I want to go home! If I can't go home now, I'll die!" Bran looked sympathetic, but Cole rolled his eyes and said, "No, you won't. You can't die here." Bran bit his lip, and John looked at Cole questioningly, "Whattaya mean?" Cole sighed, "You can't die on Memory Lane."

"How come?"

"Just 'cause." John scrunched up his nose, like he didn't want to bother Cole anymore, but then he gave up and asked, "'Cause why?" Cole sighed dramatically, "I dunno, John, just 'cause." John still looked skeptical. "I ne'er heard of a place where you couldn't die." Cole rolled his eyes, "Yea, well. I bet ya' ne'er heard of Memory Lane, neither, did ya', John?" John scrunched up his nose and looked back at his packet. He seemed to still be unbelieving, but he certainly couldn't argue that, yes, indeed, he had heard of Memory Lane in the outside world. No one could argue that.

'Cause no one had.

© 2011

Five Minutes

Five minutes left.

Deep breaths, deep breaths.

I used to dream about being an astronaut. Space, "the final frontier", what could be more fascinating? But now that I'm here...I dream of being home again.

I'm the last one. Once it became inevitable that we would all die out here, I, like everyone else, came to grips with death- with never going back to Earth.

But I never thought I'd be the last one.

And it's just not really something you can prepare yourself for.

There's no food left, of course, and we ran out of water yesterday.

Or, I guess, I ran out of water yesterday.

I could do like the Donners and devour my dead shipmates bodies. But I'm going to die anyway, so what would be the point? I would just make my last moments more torturous.

For whatever reason, it takes a week, to the second, for this spaceship to self-destruct. We pressed the button last Tuesday at 7:53 PM, and eleven seconds.

So here I sit.

Tuesday, 7:41 PM.

Just waiting to die.

I stare at my hands. They're thinner than they've ever been, just skin on bones, and my fingernails are long and broken. I haven't had the heart to bite them. I close my eyes and think about rain. Summer rain, warm, wet, free. Fleeting, indecisive, wonderful. I want rain. I would give anything to feel rain on my face right now- not that I have much to give, in the present circumstances. I think about music. I play scraps of songs over in my head, wishing they would play now, out loud, wishing they would burst over the busted radio, blowing out my ears for my last few minutes. I think about the glamour becoming an astronaut presented. I think of my friend's expressions when I told them, how my boyfriend split us up because he said he couldn't wait for me, but how I couldn't have cared less because I was going to space.

Things can always go wrong, with anything and everything. Something always goes wrong. Some theater actors wait for something to go wrong, filled with fear until it does- because if it doesn't happen during a rehearsal, then it will happen during opening night.

But this. This is so much more than the lead coming down with the flu the day before the play is set to open. This is so much more than a thesis paper being deleted by a computer glitch. So much more than the streets closing because of an accident when a businessman needs to get the airport to make a meeting in Vancouver.

This is so much more.

7:46 PM.

I wish I could go to sleep. But we've been doing nothing but sleeping, hoping desperately to never wake up again, or to at least wake up on Earth, realize this was all a terrible nightmare.

Because of all those attempts at escape, I can't fall asleep now, when I need more than I ever have before to just be unconscious. To just close my eyes and drift away from this terrible reality- now, right now, so I'll never have to wake up here again.

But I can't sleep, no matter how hard I try, so instead I stare at the clock, watching the seconds tick away.

7:48 PM.

Five minutes left.

Deep breaths, deep breaths.

© 2011

Memory Lane part 1

Chapter 1

Echoes In a Jar

"I'll save you/An echo from the hall"

-A Little Opera Goes A Long Way by Sky Sailing

Bran and I had slipped into the Echo storeroom again and we giggled in the darkness as I reached into the nearest box and pulled out a mid-size jar. I tucked it under my sweatshirt and Bran and I put on our stern faces, nodding at each other before slipping out of the storeroom, back into the main store, where we pretended to browse through the Echo titles as we scooted to the front door. Then we quickly dashed outside, the door chiming behind us, and we took off towards the Sleeping Hall in a mad dash, like we were the robbers we had watched Wednesday night. They had taken off from the Vanity shop, dashing down the street before disappearing in the fog, the items they were trying to steal dropping around them as the store manager ran to collect their Cells for the Crime hall. Bran and I pushed through the main doorways and hurried to the NightLight corridor, slipping into our room. Cole, Eve, and Nancy were huddled on my top bunk, staring at a picture book, but they looked up when we came in, holding up the Echo jar triumphantly with wide grins on our faces. Bert frowned from his own bed, where he was reading the assigned pages from school, but everyone else cried out in glee and hurried down the ladders. We all collected on Bran's bottom bunk, the one that was farthest from the door and covered in the blankets Kyle always remembered having hang from the top bunk, and Bert reluctantly flipped off the light switch, but, though he paused to consider it, decided against joining us, instead laying back on his own bed and turning to face the wall. We drew the blankets tight around us and giggled, counting backwards from five, "Four...three...two...one!" And then I twisted the lid and pulled it off, releasing the howls of a group of teenage boys at a beach cove, as they echoed off of the walls of the sea cave they had found. We all broke into fits of giggles, folding over in our laughter as the howls turned into warrior calls and one particular voice called out the usual, "Echo!" to which the cave walls replied, "ECHO, Echo, echo, echo..." We listened to the Echoes a few more times before I screwed the lid back on the jar tight and slipped it under Bran's bed, where it was not likely to be found any time soon among Kyle's many toys, books, and dirty laundry. Most likely, they would believe the kids in the opposite corridor had taken it, if they thought kids had at all, since they were always the ones who would miss a Circus memory to view another Crime.

© 2011