Keyholes To Flowerage

XII. Keyholes to Flowerage

XII. Keyholes to Flowerage

EMBARRASSED, JC scratched his nape. "The canvas is quite a mess. It needs a lot of fixing and we don't have much time to do this and—"

I showed a reassuring smile and put down the buckets of paints swinging to my hands. "It's okay. I think I'll just cover the stains over there."

"Thanks for that," he muttered as he stretched the bristles of brushes to ascertain they would cooperate with the paints handsomely. He held them out to force them into my hands, the brushes of different sizes slightly off-setting my palms.

"I'll have to go back."

"Ah, okay," I assured. "I'll be all right here." As soon as he saw the look of utter ease upon my face, he made his ways back to where he left off.

Only a few minutes, my hands began to tango; with my right hand slightly gripping the largest brush, I dipped it into the bucket of raw apples and they got stuck between its bristles. Unrestricted, the brush bounced against the canvas; its feet tickled the dull ground, rampaging a wildfire that warned to devastate the whole area. And it did, it destructed the artwork through filling the small details with hum and lullaby.

IN THE middle of painting fix, I heard a click of camera derived from a male standing nonchalantly behind my back. My attention fell into his shirt filled with traces of dirt or rather of dusts as though he just lifted a dusty bundle of chair.

He swung the camera's sling to his shoulder lazily. "It should be taboo for a guy like me to admit this, but I'm getting envious of your talents, leader," he confessed. "I even saw the photos you took, they were taken smartly and creatively. And that."

I tucked the towel between my palms, wiping the paints stuck on my porcelain palms and fingertips as I managed to be receptive to what he was saying. He lifted his point finger high, its tip pointing the backdrop's canvas. "That, leader. How could you be a photographer and a painter all at once? So talented!"

I halted at the mention of talent, with my hands swinging by my sides, I looked at him with difficulty. It put me into wondering that it might be just an excuse for him to abandon us all here particularly that he seemingly spoke of the compliments without him processing the words.

My reluctance to claim the titles I didn't see myself fit wasn't able to pass his stares. "What, you doubt it?" he asked.

"I..." I bit the inside of my cheeks. "I do. To claim it would be wrong. Those that you said are manifestly untrue."

"Oh, I got it." He hastened to approach me, tapping something on my left cheek. I couldn't dodge his touch, he was quick and that he seemed like he'd done this a lot. "We got someone who has no faith in herself here."

After such move, I looked down at his palm; inside it were a few soot I probably got from the brushes.  I don't know I had dirt embracing me without awareness. My head cocked at his continuations. "Rob yourself of a little faith, too, leader."

"Thank you," I thanked. 

"No biggies. But you've gotta recognize the things you can do, ahuh?" I beamed in response. He shrugged off the camera, it landed swiftly on his hand.

"Nanny McPhee told me I should document what you're all doing," he paused to return the camera to me. "So, yeah."

"It's all right." I rolled up my sleeves to allot my camera something it could hang to. "Ah, you know what." I ceased to do my mannerism, which was to bite the inside of my cheeks. "Carley won't like to hear that again."