Lost Art

Camel stared at the canvas. Crude black lines formed squares within rectangles, forming buildings in ruins. Red and orange flames licked up from nonexistent streets. Stick figures-those simple men and women drawn easily enough by children-hung in the purple and gray skyline, their arms and legs splayed out as if they were flying.

Camel grabbed the canvas and threw it across the room. The wood frame cracked and splintered against the wall. Wet paint left smudges and spatters in their wake. A line of red dribbled to the floor where the canvas lay broken. He shook his head and left the studio, feeling his way along the dark hall until he reached a room to his right. Inside, the white light was harsh and stung his eyes. He put a hand up to shield them until they adjusted.

A picture hung on one wall, its canvas still on its wood frame. The buildings and flames and smoky sky the same as all the ones he had smashed against the wall in his studio. On this one he had painted no stick figures leaping from rooftops. Yet, one was there. He looked closely at the image, at the smudge of gray with a green spec where an eye would be on a round gray head.

Camel pulled it from the wall. He thought back to the day he had painted this one, the day Ward had died, a diseased little boy, his spine curved, legs and arms bent at funny angles.

He would have died anyway, Camel thought with tears in his eyes.

Come back.

The whisper tickled his neck and sent shivers along his spine and down into his tailbone. He turned to see the fading outline of a crippled boy.

"Where?"

You know where.

The outline faded completely.

"To where I lost my art."

***

The canvas sat on the backseat, the smudge looked more and more like one of the stick figures in the other paintings, the ones leaping from buildings. Camel glanced in the rearview mirror. Ward sat beside the canvas, his legs beneath him, eyes staring at the picture. His hair was greasy and tangled. He touched the smudge, his finger tracing the bent angles before he faded.

Ahead, the dead city remained; charred shells of buildings greeting him, their windows shattered or covered in ash. Burnt cars sat along the road.

They should have demolished this town years ago, he thought as he drove through the debris-laden streets. His car lurched forward as he went up on a curb, the headlamps lighting up the building in front of him.

Are we there?

Camel shook his head, glanced at the boy on the backseat.

"Almost," he said, but Ward was already gone.

Camel left the car, taking a flashlight, the canvas and his paint bag with him. He walked along the side of the Seth building, one of the few skyscrapers that hadn't completely collapsed when the city fell to flames and disease and looting. A rat scurried from the alley, sniffed the air and returned to the safety of the shadows.

The side entrance opened easily and with a metallic groan. Eighteen flights of stairs loomed before him. He flicked on the flashlight. The white beam cut a cone shaped arc into the stairwell. Laying at the foot of the steps were the skeletal remains of a man, his skin like crumpled paper, brittle hair still clinging to his scalp, his clothes caked in dirt and grime. Camel stepped over the corpse and started up. His old legs protested after six or seven steps, the muscles already aching. Ash and dust stirred with each ascending step, caking his nose, lips and mouth with black soot. By the fifth floor Camel was wheezing and there was a stitch in his side. At nine he was coughing, plumes of black air billowing from his mouth. By eleven his other side had a stitch in it. By thirteen the flashlight was no longer out in front of him, but bobbing about as he used the same hand to hold the handrail. At sixteen he was barely pulling himself along, his lungs burning, legs like concrete, eyes stinging. Yet, the boy followed, not a gasp of air coming from him.

Are we there yet?

"Almost."

Camel pushed the door open on eighteen and fell onto the roof. He let the canvas and paint bag drop beside him as cool air swallowed his sweating body. He shivered and coughed until his head hurt and white dots danced in his vision. He opened his eyes to the starless sky above him. Exhaustion held him close and his breaths came in labored bursts. Camel rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself to his knees. His body twitched from the struggle to get up the stairs.

Ward sat by the canvas, his finger tracing the image again. This is me.

Camel shook. "No. It's not you."

Yes, Father. It is.

Tears spilled down Camel's dirty, aging face, leaving streaks in their wake. He inhaled, and then coughed hard. It hurt his ribs and throat and blackness came from his mouth.

The boy stood and hobbled the best he could to the edge of the building. Camel knew that edge quite well. It is where he stood when...

Why?

Camel shook his head, his vision blurred. The boy stood near the edge of the roof, his back to him, his body twisted, skin pale against the black backdrop of night.

"You were going to die," Camel said, and sobbed, his shoulders heaving as he did so. "Just like all the other children. You were going to die, and I couldn't bear to watch you suffer."

Ward turned to him, his piercing green eyes shimmering in the new night. I didn't suffer, Father.

"I have," Camel whispered.

Then come, Ward said. Find your art, Father.

With that, Ward stepped off the ledge.

"No!" Camel yelled and lunged forward as if he could reach his son from so far away. He landed on his stomach and lay there for several minutes as the tears dried on his face and his heart slowed from the heavy pounding from the exertion of going up the stairs. Camel struggled to his feet, the muscles in his legs fighting him, begging him to just hold still and let them rest. He staggered to the edge of the building, dropped to his knees and looked over the edge. The boy-Camel's horribly crippled son-sailed through the sky, his arms and legs no longer bent, but straight, the angles somehow painted right.

Camel's heart cracked and then broke all over again as Ward faded into the night, his final words hanging in the air.

Find your art, Father.

Ward pushed from the ledge and crawled back to the picture, the only image he could paint since that day so many years before. The grey stick figure was there, its arms and legs straight, as if it were flying against the purple and black skyline. Beside it was another figure, one a slight bit longer. One arm touched the arm of the shorter gray figure-the arm of the boy once lost to a crippling disease and a father's decision.

Thunder rumbled off in the distance. Camel stood slowly and shambled his way to the edge of the building. He looked out at the bruised sky. Though the world wasn't burning like it had on that night many years earlier, the city was still in ruins.

Camel smiled.

"I love you, Ward," he said and stepped from the ledge.

~End~

Thank you for reading 'Lost Art.' I appreciate you taking the time to do so. I hope you enjoyed it. I would love to hear your thoughts on this story.