Shorts, Poems, and Imagines

Short # 1 : Paint

Finding inspiration was both hard and easy. Sometimes inspiration just pops up your brain like nothing. But sometimes it's like truffle hunting. You need to search deep in the woods just to find that one little mushroom that's just... A mushroom. Or for some people inspiration hits them like a thunderbolt from the sky. And I bet getting hit by a thunderbolt hurts, bad. I guess you can consider that as hard inspiration. Sounds so similar to mine.

Hi, my name is Sarah. I'm a painter, it's one of my favorite hobbies. I work as a barista in a local Starbucks branch. I'm usually easy to get around with, but I'm not that today. It was one of those days where life hates you so much. Me and my boyfriend, David, got into a big fight (which we never usually do), and now we are broken up. My paintings were rejected once again. I had the worst time at work, and my apartment is a mess. I was planning on hanging myself, but then who would pay for my funeral bills? Yeah, I'm that kind of girl. So what I decided to do was paint. I know what your thinking. You said your paintings were rejected again, why are you painting? Because I like playing with colors. I like blending different colors and see what it would look like. Painting is my refuge, my panic room, my happiness. Even though other people don't like it, I just keep on painting because it makes me feel happy.

I sat on my chair, an empty canvas in front of me. I both hate and love empty canvases. I hate it because the emptiness of the canvas is like a scream from far away. It's like the canvas itself is screaming at you, begging to be painted on. And I love it because of what a Russian artist- Wassily Kandinsky- once said, "An empty canvas is a living wonder... Far lovelier than certain pictures." I love this quote very much. I get it because the canvas is like a person, and an empty canvas is what is inside a person. The canvas is white and that means a person is pure, but unfortunately the canvas needs to be painted on to hide the purity of itself. Because no one should know about that purity or else someone would destroy it. Whoa that was deep. Anyway. I sat on my chair, digging deep into the farest depths of my brain for ideas. But nothing came. Only memory from last night flurried up. When David and I were no longer David and I. It all seemed like a stupid pathetic argument, when in reality it was a huge and serious fight. I remembered it very well. It played in my head like a projection on a screen.

We were in his apartment (we weren't living in together yet) and we were in the kitchen. "Why do you have to make this such a big deal?" He pointed out. "Doesn't this always happen? Can't you, like, move on like you did before."

"This is different, David!" I said. "This is like the thousandth time that it happened. I don't think I could ever live with rejection anymore." I sighed and ran my hand through my short brown hair, as I sat down on the stool. "Maybe I should just quit."

"You are not going to quit." He said. "I know you can do this. I know that the next time you enter they will love-"

"And what if they reject me again?" I said frustrated.

"Then try and try again." He said as he shrugged. His way of telling "duh".

"You know what." I started as I stood up abruptly. "Could you stop saying that? It's not working, and it would never ever work." He stared at me with a flash of hurt painted on his face. "I'm a failure and you should stop pretending that my art is good. You don't know anything about art, you don't know how to paint, you don't know-"

"You stop doing that." He said. "You think I don't know anything about art. You're wrong. Everyone knows what art is they're just too blind to know what's good and what's not good. I'm sick of you telling me that you are a failure, when you're obviously not."

"Well I'm sick of you being my mom!" I retorted.

He chuckled slightly. Clearly pissed as he stared at the floor and was shaking his head. "You know you're lucky to have motivation like this. I never had this growing up and you should be lucky."

"I want to break up." I said. Then he stared at me. His expression unreadable. He flew his arms up and sighed.

"Okay. If that's what you want." He said as he stared at the floor. I knew he couldn't bear to see me. "Get out of my apartment."

Hearing those words felt like daggers in my heart, but I said to him made me hate myself so much I wanted to punch me. "Fine. I wanted to get out of your bullshit apartment anyway." Then I went out tears streaming down my face. I regretted every word I said and every action I made. I didn't sleep at all that night, knowing that my stomach was filled with regret and guilt and other terrible things.

I felt tears streaming down again on my face when I thought about it again. I wiped them away hastily as my hand hovered over the canvas. Still, no idea came up until... I let the brush touch the canvas slightly. Suddenly my hands new what to do and I was painting. In every stroke I felt a wonderous feeling of relief. I was painting something I swore I would never do, because I thought they were too cliché. But this time I didn't care. I told myself that I would never submit my painting in a gallery ever again. So I decided to keep this to myself.

Every detail that was familiar, I painted on the canvas. What I saw everyday when I went outside to go to work, I put it there. The people I love, I felt like was in that painting. Everything that I thought I hated was in fact something I love, was there. I was pouring everything to that painting like I've done before in my other painting. Tears fell down my face. Butterflies flying and dancing around my stomach. I felt like someone was squeezing my heart as I painted. Every stroke, resulted to one tear. And then after a few hours. I was finished.

I stood up and walked to other side of the room. These were my favorites parts in painting. I get to see what I made and be happy about it for a short time, but this was different. I was happy about this one for a very long time. What was in the painting you ask? Well, it's non other than the place I work in. The daily costumers at the windows smiling. Some were talking to each other and some staring at the window. I felt that familiar energy every time I go to work. Staring at that painting, I could almost smell the sweet and bitter scent of coffee. I could almost hear the laughter in the room and the soothing vibe the store had. It was almost as if I was there in that very room. Then of course I saw David. He of all, I thought, was the center piece in the painting. He was one of the people who were staring out the window. He was thinking of something. I know he was. I felt a pang of sadness through my body just thinking about him. This was my fault. This was all my fault.