One: Creation & Creator

Cursed Number 24

  The craft of the strokes of the brush, never seeming quite right, each on the canvas, so desolate, so inconsistent and incoherently scattered that my very own knuckles punched through the canvas.

The canvas bled out the ink of the wasted hours  of myself of my own high standards, it never looked this horrible, distressing with endless failures on each work I tried hard to fix. Never less, I never once felt the rage of a bull wanting to destroy the failed canvases on the paved space, yet I felt it crashing in, endlessly trying to snag its way out.

My skin was tearing at the knuckles, before the surge of pain hit me over to my head. My arm automatically pulled out the canvas gazing at the slight injury of my fist. Blood and ink was mixed together in my hand.

I reached out to the nearest water faucet, grabbing it by the green steeled face, turning it outwards. The flow of the water was on my knuckles at first, the pain still stinging, annoyingly buzzing within my inner hand. I held my inner groan of pain, frustratingly cleaning the wound I make myself.

"Grants, give me another paint brush!" A gruff voice came from behind me, I could visualize the man with his worn out shirt standing there beside me with impatient eyes. "Yes sir." I passed a hand made goat brush, with my right dry hand to the right.

He nodded in response, before working at the canvas covered with the dried paint. His other arm, holding the palette filled with mixed colors of the bright oranges to the darkest of greens. I could clearly see his white hair sticking out his brown hair, clearly aged by the stress with his face full of wrinkles that suit him well.

My hand closed the faucet, shutting the flowing water off. As I drag forward to the spare first-aid kit box, my injured hand began to open it in a quickened manner.

My hand still feels the sting from before, my fingers wrap the tight bandage around the knuckles; but it's better than the injury being infected.

Clack.
I shut the first aid kit, standing upright.

"You shouldn't work too hard on that project you dealing with young man, might as well start something new like a sculpture." His gruff voice was behind me, my ears peaked in curiosity.

"Sculpture? I haven't tried it, sir." I turned, standing near his finished paintings, and the workshop painters hanging above me with their ropes and makeshift structures to paint high on the-nearly-complete-project.

"Don't call me sir all the time, have you forgotten?" He turned to side eye me, before turning back to the canvas. "Anyway, making sculptures is pretty fun if you don't let yourself get frustrated, Grant." He added on, the brush was carefully placed between the two contrasting colors, painted on to give a blended look.

"I'll try it today then, Lance Edward the Third." I joked, since the jokes about the monarchy were common. "I'm not a king, just call me by my normal name: Lance Devon." He dismisses me, not even wanting to laugh at the terrible joke, waving away for me to leave work.

"Yes.. Lance." I flipped my heel, taking my worn out jacket, through the newly built iron machine, roaring through up the sky with its heavy smog. The air was thick of smoke, but my lungs can handle itself.

The city looked so crowded, but so dystopian beautiful in its buildings, with its people either sitting on the benches or the others sitting at the alleys, begging for money to survive. Each person has a story of their own, but I stopped myself from going back to the workshop to paint another story.

The train station was nearby, hearing the train tracks and metal screeching with some orange sparks. I walked towards the train station, paying the attendant with a few coins enough to ride the train. The train was large enough to fit a hundred people, with its painted red walls, and many screws of metal engineering, made me admire the work of the thousands of workers who built upon it.