The Pacifist [COMPLETED]

Aftermath

Rachel

Two weeks had passed since her night with Mr. Maxwell. Rachel had waited a week and a half before reaching out to him. Both texts and calls had been ignored until he sent one back a couple days ago. It was a brief apology and request that she not contact him anymore. That was as much of a breakup if any, she had decided.

Rachel now stood in the garden shed, eying an empty canvass. Like the previous day, nothing came to her. No colors. No ideas. Nothing. The problem was, for her to paint, she needed to feel and right now, it was gut wrenching dismay. The moment she opened that door, she immediately closed it because it was too much to bear. Maybe that's what I need to paint, she considered. Maybe if I get it out, I'll stop feeling it. She bit her lip and continued to stare down the canvas until its edges blurred and the white seemed to move. Closing her eyes, she summoned her will to feel her feelings. They stirred in her belly and caused an ache in the center of her chest.

Grey-blue. The color popped into her mind's eye, but it was textured, like plaster scraped without care in one angry sweep. Rachel immediately turned to her shelf and grabbed a can and blue and black paint. Scooping out some of the plaster, she folded in the colors and tried not to over mix. It couldn't be perfect. It needed to be... unfinished. She added drops of black to adjust the shade until she achieved the color she had envisioned. The canvas had no base color but she didn't care. All that mattered was getting the plaster onto the canvas. Rachel picked up a plastering tool, a pointed trowel, and scooped up her mixture. Approaching the canvas, she took on almost an athletic stance; a high lunge as if facing a fencing opponent. In one fluid motion that was void of hesitation, she lunged forward and swiped the tinted plaster across the canvass. There was no skill, no care, just defiance. She scooped up some more and lunged again. And again. And... again. Then she squeezed out more of the blue paint she had used to color the plaster, a deep algae blue, onto a pallet. Using a large brush with stiff bristles, she dipped into the paint and flicked it onto the canvas by running a finger across the tips of the brush's hairs.

Stepping back, she decided it needed some red, so she went back to her shelf and selected what couldn't be described as anything other than Devil's Red. With that, she mimicked the angry swipes of plaster with the same stiff brush and switched it out for a sponge.

Rachel worked without stopping, building on top of the plaster base and adding various items such as pearls which were nestled in the crude edges of the swipes of plaster, and newspaper that had been soaked in white glue and crumpled. The work was a mess, but it was her mess. It was what was inside. Usually, Rachel took a moment and stepped back to regard her work when she felt she was finished, but she immediately turned her back on it. Turning off the lights and closing the shed door was almost like a dismissal. Mr. Maxwell wanted to shut her out? So would she.