Maryam

It had been a whole day and fair Maryam didn't return home. Out of the canvas, bathed in the colours of a new life, she had escaped the painting when her master Damien was sleeping.

Damien searched for her through the busy streets, peeking at houses through hazy windows and whispered her name in the garden of lovers. She was nowhere to be found.

Damien walked towards home heartbroken. First it was drunken Faun, who escaped the hold of his magical paintbrush and ran for the shop of skinny Yuya, drinking his way to death. Then came Rizwan with his potbelly, a man so full of gold and glitter that he spent all day donating to beggars unless nothing was left of him. Rizwan then begged Damien to paint for him money and a mansion, but his master could only grant life to memories.

Yes, Damien created from his memories. Spanning several births, they flooded his mind and twisted his sanity, forcing him to take up the brush and give them life. The souls wanted to escape and relive the earth. They wanted to taste the rain, sprinkle snow over cherry lips and lick the wounds of Damien, telling him stories of how each of them had met him in a different life.

"Maryam, where are you?" he called out near a pond. She was the most notorious of his creations. These portraits were getting out of hand. Whenever he closed his eyes, he could see them smile at him, often cursing his creativity if he didn't meet their demands and give them life a second time. Maryam too uttered the most vile things, unimaginable for a woman, and coerced Damien into painting a maiden of ginger locks and sparkling blue eyes that matched the colour of the pond that rested in front of Damien.

He sighed. Maybe he had lost her. He didn't know if he was a god. Breathing life into inanimate objects wasn't his duty. It was equal to rivaling the rulers of the sky. What if the Divine became upset with him? He was poor in heart and bodily institution. He couldn't handle the wrath of some blessed immortal.

Yet, he sincerely wished his creations to be eternal and live through them. Till now, all the humans he painted died tragically. Like Rizwan- he rotted slowly as a beggar, getting beaten up by so-called gentlemen who blamed him to be a thief. Damien could only see from afar and cry silently.

"Were you trying to find me?" Out of the bushes came Maryam, jerking Damien out of his thoughts. "I am here. Embrace me." She spread her arms, waiting for him to accept this love.

He hadn't ever been welcomed by a woman before. Unlike the ladies who spat at him for being ugly and of a low caste, Maryam invited him to lay his head on her bosom. She was caring and so very surprising.

"I wonder who you were to me," he said.

She smiled, pearls shining in her eyes. A sheen of water glistened in the light of the moonbeams. "I am scared, Damien. All your creations have died. And I will too, one day."

"It's not in my hand. They somehow drift away."

"I don't want to leave a second time." She caressed his face, feeling the sharp edges of his unkempt beard. "You don't take care of yourself at all."

He chuckled. "I am unloved by my own existence."

"Then do something to keep me alive. I will teach you how to love yourself, and then we can live happily ever after."

"Why do you seek in me a companion? I don't have riches. I can barely survive."

She stiffened. He touched her cheek, feeling her cold skin. His fingers traced down to her heart. No, she had none– the lub-dub was missing. "Who were you to me?"

"Your wife, Damien. You were a prince, and I was married off to you by the king."

Damien was awestruck. Mouth agape, he listened to her story.

"You didn't love me. Your passion was stolen by a dancer. I, even though royalty, was never treated like one. I had everything in the world but was still caged in a palace. I saw you abandon me day after day. And..."

"And?"

"I died. I died out of loneliness."

It pricked Damien. "Forgive me. Maybe I am already paying for my sins."

She came closer, her breath fanning his lips. "Catch me in your arms. I am yours. Forever."

He closed his eyes, waiting for her to capture his lips. But it never happened.

She vanished, her remains floating like golden stardust over the gelid breeze. She was gone.

Just like that.

Damien clutched the paintbrush in his hand. He didn't want to paint any longer. He fiercely gripped it, wanting to break the object into a million pieces.

"You can bring me back, again." He heard her whisper. She was there– in the wind, in the waters, hiding behind the rustling leaves and the crunching twigs.

She was there. They were all present– Rizwan, Faun, Maryam– each belonging to realities once owned by him, when he was someone else, something different.

An intense pain swamped his mind and he fell to the ground. Colours haphazardly swirled in his vision. The beautiful paintbrush in his pocket throbbed with life.

They were calling him, smudging the lines between the past and the present, between truth and imagination. He had to paint again.

****

word count: 920 words

This is based on the Aim to Engage prompt #5, where a painter sees his paintings get alive. I wanted to do something dreamy with this one ✨