Paint never dried properly in winter, not in Thorn’s father’s house. Even when it wasn’t snowing, the damp crawled in like a slug, out of the weather, sucking up warmth and candlelight and cheer. The paint stayed tacky while the pine needles browned and drooped. Thorn didn’t really celebrate Christmas, or much of anything really. Yule, perhaps, in a vague way. But the year was turning, and that had a stronger significance. Endings had power.

There hadn’t been much in the way of holiday celebration. If his father’s family hadn’t insisted they both come over for Christmas dinner, they would probably have had takeout chicken instead of a real turkey. Grandmother on his father’s side was a great cook. He’d had to talk to everyone, though, in payment for the meal - various cousins and hangers-on he could barely name, all prospering and excelling in their fields. They’d asked to see some of Thorn’s own art, to ooh and aah over his own accomplishments, but it hadn’t occurred to him to bring anything to show off, only the sketchbook that he was urgently filling while the conversation circled. They didn’t want to see his rough work. Most of his last batch of paintings got wrecked back in October, he’d told them, when he’d tried to sell a few for Halloween. The awkward discussion quickly turned to bats and public safety, and Thorn had faded out of it.

As soon as his father drove them home, Thorn had returned to the room that was still technically his, to his work, and his father didn’t bother to call him back. By that point they’d both sunk back into their own holes, their own thoughts, and the house was quiet. It had remained like that for several days now, as the sales raged on outside and the year slowly crept to its finish.

But the paint didn’t dry. Thorn watched it, occasionally pushing at the thickened edges with the butt of his brush, denting new patterns into the work where they didn’t need to be, worrying at it. He couldn’t start another. There were no new canvases left. Unless he wanted to paint over an old one, which was always an option. Like Da Vinci, the old masters, burying hidden images beneath some new work. Hidden, or just unsuccessful? Thorn supposed that it was time alone that made the difference. Every artist hated their own work, right? Or else were smug wannabees taking up gallery space with pointless self-centredness. The teen stared into the layers of paint he’d applied, wondering if it would be better to be the latter or the former. Time, he supposed, would tell. Examining his own painting too much only ever brought out all the flaws. It would never dry if he kept re-doing it. It would never heal if he kept picking at it. He picked up his brush again.

He felt restless, the uneasiness of change on the wind. The moon outside just past new, the thinnest of slivers.

With Christmas done, they were just waiting. To ring out the old year, hold it a whole big funeral, ring in the new. Like the new year was going to be anything but more of the same. Like from minute to minute, fifty-nine to midnight, the world was going to change. Like the artificial edge of time could be softened by wild parties and explosives and promises you were never going to keep. Some ridiculous resolution couldn’t change all the things that came before, couldn’t change who you were or…

But the paint wasn’t dry yet. Maybe if he just kept working at it, it would make a difference.



(611 words)