Disclaimer: I'm not Stephenie Meyer, I don't own any of the characters, and I'm definitely not making any money out of this. I'm just having some good-natured fun with her characters.
He sighed in frustration. Another pointless meeting, another polite refusal, another hour of his life wasted. Not that he'd expected the gallery to be interested anyways, they were too modernist for his style of painting. And too cheerful. Still didn't change the fact that he didn't have a show, hadn't had one in years. Scratch that. Had never had one. Nobody wanted to show dark, depressing pictures painted by a dark, depressed guy trying to get over his dark, depressing life. Which made everything more dark and depressing.
Whatever. He already knew what was coming next – he'd drown his sorrows in coffee, then dress his frustrations in red, grey and black acrylic, drink more coffee, strip the painting, start all over. Channel the emotions, create meaning from them, his shrink would have said, but this kind of fancy talk was exactly why he'd stopped going to her. He'd only gone because he'd been required to anyway, and now that he'd done his mandatory sessions, he was a free man.
He stared at the canvas, cup in hand. Of course, he could try painting something cheerful. Something a gallery would want to show, something that someone might actually buy. Looking at his collection of paints, it dawned on him that yellow, green, orange were the only shades completely untouched, never replaced – they were the exact same tubes he'd bought years ago when he'd gotten his first set of paint. Countless tubes of black, red, white littered the studio, but only one tube each of yellow, green, orange.
You could just make a change. Force yourself to do something different for once. He snorted. Yeah right, like you haven't tried escaping before. Did it ever work? 'Course not.
Then again, maybe today would be different. Hope springs eternally. He packed up yellow, green, orange, and some blues and reds for good measure, threw in a few brushes, grabbed a block of heavy paper. Left whites and blacks home on purpose, slung his bag over his shoulder, headed out to the park.
An hour later, he was sitting by the pond, looking out at playing children, smiling parents, swimming ducks. He knew it was a lovely day, saw the brilliant blue sky, could feel the good mood hanging in the air. But it didn't touch him. It never did. Not since he'd come back. Before the thoughts of what he'd come back from could take a hold of him, he fixed his eyes back on his block, started to trace the outlines of a family of three, father, mother, child, picknicking on a checkered blanket. The paintbrush seemed to take on a life of its own, doling out the lively colours, yellow sweater for the child, green grass all around, slices of oranges for all. No dark colours required.
But it didn't look right. It wasn't right. The family before him were a photo out of a glossy magazine, the image of love, comfort, happiness. Yet the family on his painting was a ghoulish caricature of that picture, despite the lively hues. Something in the mother's smile (too many teeth), the father's look (too aware of the surroundings), the child's pose (ready to spring). They were all mocking him from the page, casting threatening shadows over the grass in the painting. He hurled the block away from himself and laid back into the grass, closing his eyes. The pool shivered slightly in the breeze, the leaves whispered "just give up on it already, the park ain't gonna fix you, cheerful colours ain't gonna fix you, nothing can fix you".
He groaned and threw his arm over his face, shutting out the sunlight and the sounds of happiness.
Darkness. Darkness all around him. Too much darkness, too little sound... something was up. He signalled his men to move forwards, ghosting towards the rebel camp... then, hell. Thunder and lightning erupting from all around them. A trap. Of course a trap. He felt the ground vibrate from the gunfire, saw his comrades fall, mown down by the enemy.
Somebody yanked him out of the desert and back to the park. "You know, that is some twisted shit you've painted there. Why'd you make them all scary?" A voice made of silver bells and violins. Straight out of a dream.
He kept his eyes closed, he didn't want to ruin the dream. "Didn't mean to. Just happened."
"Well, it's good stuff. Twisted, but good" the bells chimed.
"Thanks. That's the first time anyone has said something nice about my painting." Why he kept his face hidden he didn't know – perhaps he didn't want the owner of that voice to see the landscape of scars that made up his features, or maybe he just didn't believe she was actually there.
"Anytime." A tinkling laugh, wind chimes mixed with a flute. "Maybe you've just had the wrong people look at your paintings. I'm Alice, by the way."
"Hey, Alice. I'm Jasper." he mumbled through his sleeve.
"Hey Jasper. I'll leave you to your thoughts then. Have a good day!" He pulled his arm off his face quickly, but not quickly enough. The girl with the bells-and-violins voice had already vanished between strollers and promenading couples, leaving him with nothing but a fleeting impression of spiky dark hair. Somebody liked his paintings. Somebody with the voice of a dream and whose face he'd never seen. She'd liked his painting and he hadn't even looked at her. Alice.
He laid back onto the grass and closed his eyes again, trying to replay her voice in his head. Silver bells, violins, wind chimes. Frowning, he attempted imagining a face to go with the music that was her words, but all he got was a blurred shape surrounded by dark pixie hair. He silently berated himself for not looking at her face. She'd liked his painting. Nobody had ever liked his paintings, except Rosalie, but twin sisters didn't count. They were supposed to be supportive.
A laughing child ran past him and drew him out of his reverie, reminding him of where he was. His painting utensils were still strewn around him, the twisted image of the family lying a little way off. The real family itself, he noticed, was gone, only a discarded napkin and his painting remaining as proof that they had ever been there. Surveying the painting again, he realised that she'd been right – in a twisted way, it was good. It wasn't what he'd meant to achieve, but it was still good. Maybe he'd frame it and hang it up somewhere in his studio, as a reminder that he could paint something that didn't have any grey and black in it.
He went over to the pond and rinsed his paintbrush in it, then started putting his things back in his bag. The sun was just beginning to set, dipping everything into molten gold, intensifying the greens, making the pond sparkle. Before he knew it, he'd dumped the contents of his bag again and started sketching the landscape, just a few quick brushstrokes, pond, lawn, trees, a couple on a bench by the water. This time, it didn't look twisted and ghoulish – in fact, it didn't look much like his usual style at all, more like some crossover between Monet and van Gogh. Not bad at all. A bit unbalanced, though – the left half of the painting looked a little empty if you compared it with the right half that had the couple on it. Without even thinking about it, he dipped his brush into the red on his palette and dabbed a red sweater onto the left bank of the pond, followed by blue pants and short dark hair. Her face was turned away from him, towards the water, but he imagined that she was smiling. Much better. The balance of the composition was right now.
While he waited for the paint to dry he wondered if he'd ever see Alice again – then again, how would he, seeing that he'd never really seen her in the first place, just heard her voice? Even if he did see her, he probably wouldn't recognise her. Then again, maybe she would recognise him, and, against all odds, come to talk to him. For what reason, he couldn't imagine – after all, they'd hardly said five sentences to each other, and he hadn't even been particularly pleasant. He should have made her laugh, then she might want to speak to him, on the off-chance that he ever met her again. He wasn't even really sure why he wanted to see her so badly. Perhaps simply because she'd liked his painting, or because he wanted to know what kind of a face went with her chiming voice.
Night was falling. He picked up his brushes, paints, and work, and headed back to his place. What a strange afternoon it had been – the painting that had twisted itself into something nightmarish, the second painting that had, strangely, not twisted into something nightmarish, and her. Alice.
A/N: more chapters coming up very soon. This is just an appetizer, although I'm really not sure where I'm going with this just yet. I just know there's going to be more.