The Painted World

Thousands of years ago, High above the clouds and below the stars, lived a man. He was as tall as a grandfather clock with a beard to his toes.

His name is Artie. He is in charge of the paintbrushes of the whole universe. There is paint and paintbrushes that cover his bookshelves, walls, and floors.

His favorite things to paint are sunrises and sunsets. He uses pinks, purples, yellow, oranges. What a sight it is to see.

When it's dark, Artie makes sure to paint the night sky. He doesn't want any light seeping through and waking up the children of earth.

One cool night, he grabs his smaller paint brush and strokes the darkness. He makes sure to not go over the stars. He likes their glow.

He sits in his favorite chair and reaches over to paint. His eyes start to close. He sits back, puts the brush on his easel, and falls asleep.

He turns and bumps the easel. It falls off the table and falls through the cracks. Black paint begins to rain through the clouds.

All kinds of animals, birds, crustaceans, insects scurry the earth. Some even slept that evening.

The black paint falls through the sky and drops on all of the critters on earth.

The sun dawned in the sky and Tigers woke up with stripes. Cheetahs woke up with spots, panda bears are covered in it, black bears must have been in one spot because they got most of it.

It was an absolute mess. Spots, stripes, and designed creatures were everywhere.

With a loud snore, Artie awoke. He heard something else fall off his table and that is where he found the empty black paint vial.

"Where did it go?" He looked down the side of his table and black paint was pouring down.

"Oh no."

With wide eyes, the large bearded painter peered over the clouds and looked upon the Earth.

"What have I done?"

He felt so bad and knew the man upstairs would be so mad at him. But he wasn't. He was actually pleased. He loved the designs on the animals. Their spots and their stripes made them unique. He made it permanent. This showed Artie and now shows you that even mistakes can be beautiful.