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Just feel like doing a bit of writing. It's not KA; it's just a quick thing. I don't want to write about people with anything special. I already do that a lot. I just want to revel in the ordinariness that is real life, and write about that. Maybe I can add something special to it. I hope I can. It hints at romance but other than that, it's without a genre.
.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.
She sighed, glaring down at the blank canvas, as if waiting for a beautiful painting to appear there on its own.
She lightly balanced a thin paintbrush on her knuckles, watching the bristles, stiff and paint-stained, catch the dusty light from a reading lamp. The paint palette waited patiently for her to dip the brush into one of its many smudges of paint.
The only problem was that there was nothing to paint. She leaned her back against the uncomfortable wooden chair in silence. She dropped the brush gently next to the palette and closed her eyes, meanwhile pulling her long hair back into a low ponytail.
Monica had waist-length brown hair. Monica had almond-shaped black eyes. Monica had the suntanned skin of her Costa Rican ancestors. Monica didn't have a rebellious streak, but she wasn't exactly an angel. Monica was of average height, not particularly fat or thin, well-proportioned, but by no means beautiful. But Monica wasn't ugly either. Monica had nothing precious, or special.
What she did have, she lost a year ago, to the very day. It was not a part of her looks, or a part of herself at all for that matter. It was something she held close enough, however, to be associated with her own personality. It was a part of her, but it was ripped away against her will.
But she didn't remember what it was. She didn't even know that today was the anniversary of the day she lost something she would never have given up, had it not left her.
She lifted the paintbrush again. She was inspired, no doubt, but she didn't know what to paint. She was feeling something, but she could not quite name what she was feeling. She frowned deeply, her eyebrows knitting together, and dipped the paint brush into a blob of colour. She stroked the bristles across the paper. A line.
"It doesn't look like anything," she mumbled, pointing out the obvious. Well, it was obvious at first glance. It was simply a line. Or was that all it was? She stared at the thin strip of newly drawn paint that smeared the white paper. She cleaned out her brush in the small metal pot of water, and repeated the process. Another line.
And another, and another, and another.
She stopped.
It was a person. It was a girl. She looked a bit familiar, but Monica didn't know who it was. The girl came from her own head.
The woman in the painting had a serious face, and looked elegant and vain. The painting stopped at the woman's shoulders, and her body faced the side while her head was turned at an angle to the front. She stared at Monica with teasing eyes. The woman would have been beautiful had her skin not looked so ashy, had her eyes not looked so dim, had there not been a vague hint at something melancholy in the painting's colours. Her hair was kinked and wavy, but it was painted in such a way that it looked dirty and oily.
Monica gazed at her thoughtfully. "Who is she?"
Monica frowned again and stood up from her chair. She left the dark bedroom and walked into the small kitchen in the next room. She leaned against the refrigerator and gritted her teeth, feeling heavy and stressed even though there was nothing to worry about.
She felt as though something was missing. But she had no idea what it was. A strange, blind anticipation haunted her.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door.
She sprinted from the kitchen to the front door of her small house and fumbled with the bolt in the door. She twisted the doorknob and pulled open the door. But no one was outside. The street was empty of life, and the icy wind blew past her and into her house. The naked trees were stark and lifeless against the overcast sky. She could have sworn she heard a knock.
Perhaps she was hearing things. She felt slightly disoriented anyway; she blamed it on her delusioned mind. She must've been hearing things she wanted to hear. She couldn't think of why she would want to hear a knock at the door, though. The thought troubled her and she stared at the three stair-steps that led up to her small porch. Her small garden was brown and dead from the deadly chill of winter. Nothing was green. Nothing could be, in weather as harsh as this. It was the week before Christmas, but there was no life in the neighborhood.
Monica gulped and looked out into the desolate street once again. Suddenly she remembered what she lost. Today was the day Jacob left. She didn't know why he left, really. He just got up one day, early in the morning, picked up his bag and left. She didn't understand why he could. She never betrayed him, or hurt him, or did him any wrong. At least, not to her understanding. The pain of his absence was enough to kill her, but it was only that way for a month or two. And so she forgot about him. Or so she thought.
She wanted to rip her heart out.
But there was nothing she could do to change the fact that he was not here.
She walked back inside, strolled into her vacant bedroom where he once slept next to her, and stood next to her painting. She cast a sidelong glance at it.
When she realized who the girl in the painting was, her face turned dark and she seized the artwork, marching to the front door. She opened it as roughly as she did before, walked to the empty trash can in front of her garden, and dropped the painting into its depths. She heard it thud when it hit the bottom and smiled wryly. She walked slowly back inside, locking the deadbolt behind her.
DEL!R!UM · Wed Jul 18, 2007 @ 02:41am · 0 Comments |
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