The Son of The Artist
His father came home in a drunken state. The child knew to stay away from him. This was the artist’s black period. Nearly every night, he came home drunk or crying, not frequently was it though, that he came home both.
The child endured his pain. The artist was soon to be found in his room. He used colors only to be perceived as dark blue, dark purple, and several wavelengths in between, but still, the artist’s colors could only be perceived by humans as dark. And low in amplitude. Hardly perceivable, as was the artist’s paint to none but his own perspective.
It was the animal in him that hurt his child and ravaged his paintings. The artist always woke up in a haze. In pain. He would often see blood on the floor. He knew what he had recently been doing. This time, a broken bottle sat next to the evident red streaks. Last time, a thick belt, and the paradigm before that, several wooden dowels, all of them broken except one.
The child knew not to stay within his father’s vicinity. He often spoke to the artist though. They were not separated by this devil, but brought together. He could ask the artist why he came home an animal, and why he would so frequently do so. The artist had not an answer. Not that he would tell his son anyway. The artist looked around. His paintings hung nowhere. 4 lie on the floor underneath their nail-posts. Several though, were nowhere to be found. Their kitchen had nothing within it besides a table, two chairs, some cereal boxes, and the left paintings, or clear counters all heavily covered by dust, the rest was an old photograph, not yet dust-clad.
The boy had nothing left but to talk to the artist, and avoid the horrible feral beast. The changes the boy saw daily were fantastic. It was one particular night though, the night of the bottle, that scared him the most. He still bore it’s marks. Several small cuts were left, most made circles of only one radius. He had only been hit four times that night. His captor said he would kill himself. He did not bring this up. He knew it would not be true. Was the artist capable of something like this, or was he sinking deeper and deeper into depression? He had not the money to pay for anything to quarrel with his depression.
Sure enough, the boy slept. He did not get beaten that night, which became something of a luxury, but at the same time, was just as much torture as had been his beating.
He woke the next morning. Another photograph was to be added to the kitchen. Several years past. The boy collected his bequeaths. It was nothing more than a table, two chairs, and two photographs. More than the artist had gotten. There was one last thing. A painting. A face. A half-painted canvas. The child, happy. The other half was wet, dark, but in the corner, one tear drop was left. Whose was it?
