The Artist

An imaginative story created by Brenalyn (Year 9, Mackillop Catholic College)

She felt as if she were floating; her smile so bright and strong it tugged her face, her body, and her feet off of the ground below her. Her arms - a paintbrush to the painter, music to the listener, the fork to a spoon - were complete with Kenji held tightly inside them, his arms the last missing puzzle piece slotting perfectly around her shoulders. His laugh swam across her skin, a current of warmth, any coldness seeping away to pester at her shadow, and her shadow alone. She was complete, her heart full.

Knock knock knock. “Angelina?” She blinked, and saw herself staring blandly back at her through rectangular glass. Her eardrums thrummed with white noise, harmonising with the buzz crawling over every surface of her dry skin. An ache grew angrily inside her head, leaving her brain beaten. Her long fingernails, dirt seated underneath each one, rose to meet every itchy area. She scratched and scraped at her neck, her hair, her scalp; until her skin was red and her mind felt as if it were bleeding. For a moment, she just stared at nothing. Then she took a deep breath, and another, and she was fine. She was fine.

Quietly, she spoke. “Come in.”——The metal of the spoon was cold, yet the soup it held was warm. An oxymoron of a sort, she noted in her mind. Or perhaps a juxtaposition? English was never really her strong suit. The meal was an oxymoron/juxtaposition of blandness. “Angelina?” She placed the soup in her mouth, lingering on the sensation of the metal gently scraping her teeth. She dragged her eyes up to meet two blue oceans, deep and confronting, and ones she had begrudgingly become familiar with; alongside his dirty black perm and pale skin. Lips forever coated in lip balm and smile yellow.

 “Angelina, does the soup suit your tastes? Or would you prefer the beef instead?” His breath smelt like lettuce.

“This is fine.”

“Wonderful!” 

No other words were shared between him and her, counsellor and patient, sane and insane, pitying and pitiful, as Angelina continued to eat. Metal in mouth, liquid down the throat. Repeat. She was staring at her food but not seeing it. Somewhere between the colour of the liquid and the steam floating upwards in the air, Angelina gazed at the beautiful brown soil of the two eyes in which she had planted her heart, unbroken and happy. She was back in his arms again and her shoulders weren’t weighing her down and there wasn’t that undefined indescribable pain which had made a home directly beneath her ribcage.She missed him more than anything.

“Angelina, I have something for you which I believe will help you to...release your inner thoughts and feelings.” The man said softly. He leaned forward, “An outlet, of sorts.” 

Angelina looked at the doctor and wondered what Kenji would’ve thought of him. 

“I’ve found that this helps my daughter when she’s stressed.” He continued. 

Kenji would have hated his breath, for sure. 

“Painting!” 

Angelina saw Kenji sitting in front of her, dead and beautiful. She could feel her heart rising up her throat and she pressed her hand against it to stop. He disappeared.

“Painting.” She whispered. She couldn’t breathe. She was choking on her heartbeat, hammering painfully and much too quickly. 

“Painting! I have a palette, a canvas, paintbrushes - all high quality materials which I think will be really helpful for your current situation.”

“Hmm.” Angelina’s vision was blurry. Brown eyes.——-

White walls stood too close, bumping her shoulders like old friends reuniting, greeting her once again. She held a paintbrush in her right hand, a canvas patiently awaiting her touch in front of her. She did not remember passing out, nor the rough hands of Doctor Paul lifting her up and laying her on her bed. She did not remember waking up and walking to the paint room, or picking up her brush. She had been dancing. Kenji and her loved to dance. Angelina felt her nightgown swish beside her hips as she stepped towards the canvas in front of her. She was dancing in silence with Kenji in her arms. Slowly, with his corpse. She closed her eyes.——

“Ten dollars you won’t make a strike!” Her 19th birthday was a day she had buried away, the paintbrush a key opening the lock to the memory of it.

“Make it 20 and I’ll consider it.” Kenji had laughed and Angelina remembered ascending into a happiness so strong it was painful, and she had kissed that laugh just to feel the loveliness of it on her undeserving lips. The bowling ball which left her hands soon after didn’t knock down a single pin, and Angelina could not have had a single care in the world about it. She had never been the type to care much about love. She was comfortable in her independence, and her mind was already fully occupied with the grades on her report card. Kenji was unexpected, a sudden rainfall during a sun-filled week, refreshing her heart with something new. He had even almost beaten her a few times in school tests. Almost. Their first date at an ice-skating rink had not even occurred in her mind as a date, not until Kenji held her hand and yelled, “It would suck if I broke a bone on our first date!” just moments before she watched him lose his balance and fall ungracefully onto his backside. She had felt the sudden urge to tattoo his embarrassed smile on every person’s face in that rink including her own, just to feel the warmth in it. Perhaps that was the exact moment she had fallen in love, but she could never know for sure. He had treated her with a date at the bowling alley for her birthday three years later, buying her gifts that she wasn’t allowed to own anymore. They were a danger to her, apparently. Triggering, Paul had said. What a joke. How could a necklace and a hand-written poem be a danger to her?

The paintbrush flashed before her eyes, moving wildly on her canvas before fading back into the gear-shift of Kenji’s car. He was driving her back home, rambling on about how close he had come to beating her on their recent math test: “If only I had gotten the y-intercept correct!”

Angelina had cackled, following with, “You should have worked on the formula I texted to you.”

“My formula was better.”

“And yet you didn’t get that mark.”

“My formula was still better.” She held his hand which was waving around stubbornly in the air beside him.

"Sure it was, Kenj.” He had calmed down then, relaxing into his seat, his fingers locked between hers. Angelina had watched him sigh in content, closely, mesmerised by the smile which formed on his lips soon after. Angelina was holding the paintbrush again, red splattering along the canvas.

“Your intelligence will never fail to make me both envy you, and want to marry you, Angelina.”

Before her mouth could formulate any response, a light had blinded her eyes, making her flinch away to her right. Kenji squeezed her hand tight, squinting away from the white brightness coming from his left. Understanding dawned on Angelina a second too late, the covers of its blanket not big enough to protect the both of them. A deafening honk echoed all around her, and she screamed as paint pooled down the canvas, as her cheeks dripped with water from her blurred eyes, as the second vehicle made impact with their car’s side. Kenji’s side. ——

She was lying on the floor, but she couldn’t feel its surface against her skin. She was staring at her finished art-piece, paint splattered madly everywhere, but all she could see was Kenji. Bleeding out beside her in his car, his hand no longer clenched inside hers. Glass piercing the side of his chest, his arms, his neck; his eyes not seeing her. She sobbed in silence. ——

Doctor Paul watched her through the one-way glass, a kind of disconnected and uncomfortable ache pinging around inside his gut. His co-workers would be here soon, carrying the artist to the medical room, seeing to her state. She was a hopeless case, Angelina Moen. Unfortunate in her heartbreak. He walked away.