each day was the same.
bleak.
insipid.
sterile.
no matter how much he tried to paint his world a plethora of colors, how much he tried to add spectrum to his palette of life, it was always just a blank canvas.
maybe he was using the wrong paintbrush. the wrong colors. whatever it was, he just couldn't find it.
he heard the soft thump of wood hitting wood as he mindlessly dropped his paintbrush on the floor. painting as a metaphor for his life, how classic.
he stared at his work, situated on the rickety easel. stared at it until he began to hate the sight of it. it just didn't look like what he thought it would in his mind. maybe it was the just the easel. definitely the easel. he'd be buying a new one later.
he closed his eyes after what seemed like an eternity and let his head drop down onto the desk, bringing him a sharp pain on the forehead and a loud boomf sound. too lethargic to even bother saying "ow", he sat there, unblinking.
his eyes meandered, and soon he found himself staring through his window. cloudy as always, with a 100% chance of pessimism.
he tore his eyes away from the window and directed them to his artwork. the blue and the purple complemented each other well, intricately sketched stars dotted the canvas and shined as if they were real. the splashed watercolors and acrylics were an odd bunch, but somehow the disarray of it all was what gave the piece its identity.
why do you paint? they would ask him. honestly, he didn't even know. all he knew was that painting was almost his safe haven.
on a canvas, he could add all the colors of the rainbow. on a canvas, he could manipulate his paintbrush anywhere he felt like. on a canvas, he could erase his mistakes and wipe away the pencil shavings.
you couldn't do that in real life. there's no going back when you make a mistake, and there's no wiping the traces away when you do.
i guess that's why he liked painting. because it was so contrary to life.
after finally picking up his dropped paintbrush, he set it down with a pensive sigh. his coffee had gone cold long ago, the flavor dissipated into a taste so bland it reminded him of himself.
when would it end? when would he stop chasing after a light he doesn't even know shines? when would the sun rise and the day come after an eternal nighttime?
he stared at his painting.
the endless nightscape immortalized in a single canvas.
perhaps he, too, was stuck in an endless nightscape.
