The Painter

Paintings...

* * * * *

It had been a few days, but I finally made it to the weekend. After a week went by I realized the people pushing me around stared trying to use me. A few had kept asking me for 'help' with their homework.

Why are asking me so early into the school year? It's the first week, homework shouldn't be that hard... I kept thinking as more and more jocks started asking me.

By the time Saturday got here I had already made plans to go to my grandfather's house, you know, to look at his attic. When I woke up that Saturday morning the first thing I thought about was bacon, and it's smell running threw my house. Luckily I had just woke myself up from a dream, a dream unlike any other. It was weird... You know how in dreams you don't feel pain? Well in this one I could feel every last punch thrown at me, and when they pulled me...I felt that, too. I went into the bathroom to brush my hair and I saw the red marks on my skin, and every red mark was where I felt a punch or a pull in my horrible dream...

* * * * *

I finally got to my grandfather's house, it looked so old and like it could fall apart any minute now. I walked up to the front and knocked, the house was so od it didn't even have a doorbell. It took him a few moments to get to the door, he's a 75 year old man, he's gotten slower since he was on his college track team.

"Hallo! Wie geht's, kind? Komm herein! Komm herein! (Hello! How are you, kid? Come in! Come in!)" Did I forget to mention he only speak German in his house, he always said it was easier. Also I grew up with both my parents being from Germany (and always speaking it), I was pretty good at understanding and speaking it. And for all the people really reading the story I'll be happy to translate for you.

"I'm doing pretty good, Opa. How have you been?" I said stepping into his tiny home.

"Ich bin gut, Junge. Was bringt dich hier her? (I am good, boy. What brings you here?)"

"I had this weird dream and drawing, and I just wanted to look around. Is that okay with you, Opa?" I said walking into his small living room.

He nodded his head towards the hallway, the same hallway I went down when I first went up to the attic. The hallway wasn't very long now that I've gotten bigger, but the three rooms within the hallway were bigger (since that's basically the rest of the house besides the kitchen).

One room belonged to Opa and Oma before she passed away a little over a year ago. (If you guys didn't get it by now, Opa means grandpa/Oma means grandma in German.) Another was my mother's ever since she was a little girl, and the one at the end of the hallway was the smallest room, it was Opa's office for his research on history.

"Bevor Sie gehen um suchen, sagen Sie mir ... Wie Sie zusammen mit Ihrer Krankheit bekommen ?

(Before you go looking around, tell me... How are you getting along with your sickness?)" His voice was shaky, just like it was when he found out about my "illness"

"Opa, I'm fine. The doctors say I can probably live a normal life, just like anyone else my age." I told him as he started to smile at the sound of the good news. What I was telling him wasn't completely true, but it was mostly the truth. People with leukemia do have a chance to live a normal life (with some side effects of course), but the rate of people surviving this is only 65%. So, I do have that small 35% chance of me not making it, but that doesn't matter since it isn't how my life ended anyways.

"Das ist großartig! Jungle, Ich gibt es etwas, kommen Sie bekommen? (That is great! Is there anything I can get you, boy.) It looked like he was about to cry from how happy he was to see I was going to be okay...for now...