Lotus Blood - Age 6
It wasn't unusual for me to have been in the basement but it was unusual to find new things down here. For the most part, I had explored every square inch of the basement there was - not really anything worth noting but some more boxes and a large accumulation of dust.
The past couple of months of my life had been riddled with dilemmas and misery. Not that I wasn't already upset about being constantly ignored; I had a new issue on my hands.
I had no paint.
Sitting on the familiar concrete floor of the basement, paintless, and a blank canvas in front of me was agony. I itched to feel the cool, refreshing feeling of the smooth paint trickling through my chubby fingers, and buying new paint wasn't exactly an option considering I was only six years old. Another factor happened to be the fact that my mother didn't like me painting because she didn't like it, which made absolutely zero sense because painting was something I wanted to do.
I think it reminded her of my dad.
That was the thing we shared. Our love for painting.
Drip.
"Seven hundred and twenty-nine." I murmured, wobbling to my feet and crawling into my tunnel. I enjoyed the tunnel because it was just darkness - all my feelings of regret and loneliness were lost in the still dark I craved.
Though, something was off. As I laid on my back staring into the murky abyss, I found a sliver of light interrupting the complete black canvas, it inched in and tainted the damp feeling of the tunnel. Exasperated, I sat up and surveyed the absolute black to discover an opening in between boxes. The light was dim, but against the soothing dark it seemed to light up the entire tunnel - unfortunately for me.
I used all the strength in my little body to push a box to the side and didn't realize that all the boxes could have collapsed into a heap on top of me, because I wasn't as careful as I should've been.
Stupid boxes.
Nonetheless, I made it out of the tunnel of boxes and found myself in an unfamiliar room. The room itself wasn't any larger than a bedroom, but to me it was a whole new frontier to explore. Gasping in awe, I spotted three large paintings about the same height as me leaning up against the grey cement walls.
I can't hear the water dripping anymore.
The erratic reds came from the leftmost canvas while purples danced across from the rightmost one, gradually melding together to create the softest of indigos on the canvas in the middle. I brushed my tiny fingers over the smooth transition from painting to painting - it seemed as though all three paintings were meant to be hung up together.
I turned my attention to the bottom corners of the canvases to find a small signature.
M.B.
Miles Blood.
My father.
The space behind the boxes was just as cluttered as the other parts of the basement. Plus, empty paint cans were scarcely scattered around the room - in corners and lined up on shelves of the walls. Luckily, these boxes were smaller and lighter, so if I ever did want to clear up this area it would be easier for me.
But it was upsetting to find that all the paint cans I encountered were all empty and lined with dried, cracking paint. Glued to the ceiling, my eyes wandered the shelves and realized that they were empty because full paint cans would be too heavy to sit on shelves.
As I wandered, my eyes paid close attention to the cracks on the walls until I tripped over a small cement brick and clear glass shards pierced my hands.
"Ow!" I hissed. Standing up, I plucked the tiny glass pieces from my skin to make way for my crimson blood to bubble up in my palm. Fascinated, I dipped my finger in the flushed red liquid only to realize it was a touch runnier than my red acrylic paint.
It's like paint!
A crooked grin adorned my features and I cupped my hands together carefully, to prevent the wastage of the precious paint-like liquid.
I deduced that I wouldn't be able to make it to my blank canvas because I would have to move boxes with my hands currently filled with blood. So, instead, my brilliant plan was to use the concrete walls as my canvas - as they didn't absorb the blood.
"Lotus, get up here this instant or you can go straight to bed!" I flinched at the booming sound of my mother's voice, she didn't really care much about how much I ate. Besides, at that point, I was severely underweight anyways. My arms and legs were as thin as noodles and I strongly resembled a scrawny chicken - plucked of its white feathers.
I transferred the blood from my right hand into my left hand so I would be able to use it as a palette as I painted. Using my already wet, right hand, I harshly slapped the wall to create a handprint - my signature, and the first splatter of blood upon these walls. The blood trickled down the wall for a moment before it dried to a brick color, then mellowed down into a soft reddish-brown.
Dancing across the grey walls, my hands quickly became coated in blood and the thought of food slipped my mind completely. The thick, red liquid splattered the concrete - sometimes on my clothes as well. And when I was complete with my first masterpiece, I looked down to find my entire front half was heavily splattered in blood.
Oh well.
I shrugged to myself, as I rubbed my wet hands on my shirt to rid them of the blood. Peeling off the sopping piece of clothing, I balled it up in my hands so when I went upstairs to shower my mother wouldn't see me wearing a bloody T-shirt.
"Lotus!"
"Coming mother!" I called back, shivering and tucking the sodden shirt in my armpit before I retreated back into my tunnel.
That night I killed the old me... but the new me wasn't much better.
What a fun chapter! Yeah by now you should get the vibe of this book... anywho, stay safe and stay home!
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Finger Painting
Mystery / Thriller"I WORE THE SMELL OF BLOOD AND DEATH LIKE PERFUME" I may have been angry at my mother and brother - but I was angrier at myself. Angry for the person I knew I was becoming. Drip. "One thousand nine hundred eighty-four." I felt it and I knew I couldn...
