Plx. I know it's gaygaygay^12, buuuuuuuuut I wrote it for English two years agooo. Comments? Criticism? Anything would be appreciated~
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Every morning, she'd wheel him into a bright room with long, wide windows, and she'd position him in front of an easel next to a table with primary-colored paints on a paper-plate pallete and three, different-sized soft brushes.
Every morning, he'd sit with his mouth open, drooling, and staring straight into the large piece of cheap, white butcher paper, like maybe it would show him something.
If it did, he never said anything.
He'd frequently lurch forward jerkily, as if he had suddenly had an idea, but he would heave backwards just as quickly and give a small, breathy sigh, like he had lost patience with all the world and every person living in it. She had been frightened about it at first, but had grown accustomed to it, the rocking, and the two empty hours they spent in the room every day.
He used to be an artist, she had been told.
He couldn't, or wouldn't, say anything to confirm or deny it. Long lack of practice probably led to the inability of speaking any form of the human language. Or maybe he didn't feel like moving his jaw, because he liked the way his saliva built up and dribbled slightly over the edge of his bottom lip and down his chin and onto his pant leg, where it disappeared into a slimy puddle that he would stare at for the two hours he sat in front of the easel. Who knows what can inspire these artistic-types? she thought. It was not her place to tell him what to do with his spit, anyway.
He was an object of ridicule to the other nurses, and even patients who were more sound of mind. She wondered if he knew what they said about him, or if he even cared. She never said anything about him, would even talk to him, just in case, she thought, just in case he does know, and just in case it makes him feel less alone.
His relatives never visited. They had only arranged that he have his two hours with an easel daily, and, she knew, they paid good money for it to happen.
He used to be an artist before he was just a number cataloged by an assortment of physicians and psychiatric doctors. That is all they know about him, and besides his medication, that is all they are paid to know about him, she thought.
Every once in a while, the nurse would walk near him and look into his glassy eyes and wonder why he had lost lucidity, or if he had really lost it at all. She would often ask him, but he would never answer.
Maybe he was so creative, there were no words to verbalize what he felt, and his hands would no longer serve as artistic tools. Maybe everything in his mind was too beautiful for the world, for people's comprehension. Too beautiful for his own comprehension. Maybe everything he saw was so magnificent, all he could do was gaze in wonderment at his own mind and wonder how any human alive could think anything so wonderful at all. Maybe colors would no longer serve their purpose. Especially the colors of the runny tempera paint provided him.
Maybe he was just an old man who had taken too many acid trips in the name of creation.
She didn't know.
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Finally, he died. In the night, his ninety-three-year-old heart had stopped.
So had his painting hours. So had his rocking. So had his spit puddles. She had never expected to miss them as much as she did. She put his belongings into cardboard boxes.
All of his earthly possessions- his shirts, his robe, his pants and chalks and pencils (which, she told herself, must be very old, as they were stubby, broken, and used). The artist was nothing but what was left in those boxes. She dropped four colors that rolled away under the bed, sighed, and got down on the floor to retrieve them.
One...two...three...fo- paper? She struggled to push her hand farther underneath.
More paper. Rough paper. Art paper. His own paper.
She gasped as she slid it into the light.
It was the most beautiful picture she had ever seen. And it was of her.
He used to be an artist.
Discord
Light Style