As I run the paintbrush over the previously blank canvas, I blend the soft colors, the mixture of earthy greens which would soon be a cluster of trees; pines and such appearing as a blob on the white fabric. The scene in front of me is of a warm summer day, the sun's rays shining down on two young lovers sharing a picnic as they munch on turkey and cheese sandwiches and lounging on a fluffy, checkered blanket. They laugh. They chat about life and of their future plans; of what they were doing before they settled down on this picnic blanket and what they plan to do afterwards. In the corner of my eye, snow falls behind the glass of my window and gathers on the freezing ground. A chill fills my petite, pathetic apartment.
My face, clothes, and hands—almost the whole expanse of myself is smeared with oil paint, staining my already ruined smock. I continue to layer and blend soft greens and warm oranges and yellows on the canvas in front of me.
It's already the middle of winter, almost Christmas time, and here I am alone in my apartment and painting my sorrows away. Around me, canvases of varying sizes, some finished. Some scrapped. Among the thrown away canvases, there's a blur of peach and beautiful, lovely golden blonde; a smear of red at the bottom of the fabric square implying the start of a shirt or jacket. Another half finished—I wouldn't call them "masterpieces"—lay against my threadbare couch, showing a scene of a room full of men. They're all laughing and drinking, discussing and debating; having a good time. Among these artistic smears, I can place the features of my dear friends. I have no knowledge of what they're doing at this time, for I've shut off my phone and closed my laptop to be alone. Few, most likely, are going home to their families. Others mostly gang up in small groups and switch gifts. This year, I needed time alone. To think. To contemplate.
And I'm thinking of scrapping this painting already. The trees look horrendous. Those two young, hopeful faces eating and giggling make me feel physically sick. The light in their eyes disturbs me.
I knock it to the floor, discarding of the still wet canvas among the graveyard of the other deserted projects, and plop down on the couch; still covered and oil and a mixture of colors that make me look like a human canvas. The skin is the pale fabric of the blank canvas, and the mixture of oil and colors staining my blemished skin are ones of a rushed, stressed painter.
My head is cradled in my hands. A sigh escapes my damaged, clogged lungs from smoking too many cigarettes. My mouth dry with dehydration from the lack of liquids I've been drinking other than cheap alcohol, the glass bottles littering the countertops in the small kitchen and some scattered on the floor.
As my hands slip down my face, I feel stubble on my chin and the paint being ground into my pores. Though, I don't find the mindset to remotely care about it.
And with a wistful glance around my pathetic apartment, my gaze lands on a gathering of pill bottles of different sizes. A shaky, anxious breath escapes my parted lips as those too familiar, too often thoughts fill my head and make it seem like I'm drowning.
As judged by history, all artists, whatever they may create from paintings to poems, all become famous and loved after they drop dead. Suddenly, people cry on their birthdays and say how they changed their life, when they didn't even care for the artist at all and saw him a mere lunatic. A freak. Too dramatic and too much to handle. For instance—Vincent van Gogh. He burned his paintings for heat in the winter. He would burn them anyway for thinking they're atrocious. Hell, he ate yellow paint because he thought it would make him happier on the inside. Obviously, that didn't work. His death is not officially known—but many thought of it to be suicide. And of course, after he was gone, everyone loved him. Everyone thought if his paintings true works of art and shed tears over how beautiful they were; all the attention drawn to him and labeled a phenomenal man. His masterpieces now hang in famous museums and copied to be resold to some rich snob who thinks that he's getting the real one. But they aren't. And they hang it on their wall and boast and sob about it for years to come.
Maybe I, Aron Grantaire, will be remembered and loved once I pass. Maybe, just maybe, when I'm at rest and six feet underground, will people speak of me with tears in their eyes as they read my poems aloud and gaze at my paintings hanging in a museum for all to see. They'll explain how my paintings, my whole tragic life story, would change their own empty, bland lives. Taught them a lesson. Taught them how to love. How to live, breathe, and accept their mistakes once again.
The snow is still falling steadily outside; watching the bright puffs of almost pure white rain down and stick upon the layers already packed over the dead grass and faded pavement. I tap my paint-stained fingers on the arm of the couch.
It feels like years before I break the silence that has filled my apartment, hauling myself off of the couch to pick up a soiled paintbrush and grab a new, blank, medium sized canvas; placing it on the rickety, used easel. Grabbing the smeared piece of plastic on which I mix paints for desired colors, the mixture already made looks like blood, puke, and dirt. I dip the already used paintbrush into the warm cluster of peach and browns. With this, I begin to paint the outline of a stunningly handsome, familiar face.
Those pills can wait around for another day.