The painter

The Painter

The rainbow lay splattered all over his face and hands as he once again painted into the late hours of the night. Everyone called him crazy, but to him there was no life without paint. He had started simple making specks of dirt into mountains then then smashing rocks with his brushstrokes into sand. He had long forgotten his black and greys bringing in with his bights a fair amount of light. But if ever more than painting was there one thing that he loved it was the smallest gift he had been given, his son.

"Papa you are so colorful!" A small tan boy laughed as he ran to give his father a hug.

"Is that just what you see or what you feel?" His father with a calm smile asked.

"Both papa so it must be real." The boy answered as his father beamed with pride delighted by his son.

The painter and his son were like all the others in this place. They had awoken into being one morning floating in a sea of galaxy until they found a shore of others as themselves. While others took more physical lives, some chose to create instead. The painter had a friend who used clay to sculpt spheres adding an array of rings and colors then hung them about. These beings were so powerful, and all had the desire to create but most of them as those with talent often do ran from it.

The painter had been part of the original camp where heads butted often and to his chagrin the morals were loose. There had been a time when the man awoke scared and focused grasping at the others for knowledge of what had happened. He was a simple man, a passionate painter. At first he would paint these spheres in all there fantastical colors to hone his skills as well as pass the time. One sphere mesmerized the painter. It was the most magnificent shade of blue he had ever seen. White pools of color caused it to appear as if waves were crashing on some distant shore beyond the spheres surface. However. there was nothing beyond the surface. Time passed and the others began to find their talents causing them to want to build houses where they could support their own fantasies and have families. The thought of the waves crashing caused the painter to follow suit making a home for himself where he would paint for hours.

He wanted to paint the beauty and wonder he saw beneath the spheres surface. He added clay and dirt to his pigments forming mountains, rivers and long expanses of land on his canvases. His nature scenes soon became commonplace to him and while the walls filled with them offered him offered him solace loneliness grew deep within his heart. He played with the idea of painting his own family. At first, he painted a son and his wife. He dressed them in nature. The painter did not just look at his paintings, he felt them deep inside his being. They called to him like a song carried by the wind. However, no matter how hard he listened they didn't speak back, not unless he painted them to. Days drifted on displaying the many Hughes of sadness the painter had become accustomed to. He loved his paintings as they were the only family he had, but a hole had begun to call to him from inside his heart. A small voice from the beach is what broke the painter's concentration on a day where the sun had beat the clouds.

"Father!" A smaller version of the painter called out as he ran to him.

Just as he had been alone, he now had a family. Every morning the boy would sit behind his father watching his every brush stroke. Early, before the sun started peeking out from the sky the boy would brazenly attempt to follow in his father's footsteps. One stroke here, two stroke there...

"Son, this is not something to play with." His father would say as he came up behind him and wiped a line of paint along his nose. This would begin every day. With scenes of king's queens and numerous animals in between being painted. Except for one day. The painter awoke to his son still in bed. Concerned he went to check on the boy,

"Has the son risen too soon son?"

The boy looked at his father sullenly. "Sunrise or sunset what does it matter father? The day will be the same as always."

Looking into his son's eyes there were shades of sadness the painter could never recreate. In following his passion, the painter was crushing his sons. "You know, Painting the sunrise is magical, but watching it is just as wonderful. I can and have painted millions of scenes, but nothing not even the brightest hue can compare to the time I spend with you. I think it's time we we learn more about this place we call home."

The son's eyes lost a little bit of their darkness. He was excited, yet skeptical. The only thing his father had ever done is paint, would he really be able to forego it to explore the wilds of this place they had been awoken to,

Days, no weeks passed with each day holding a new adventure for the father and son pair. There houses silence was filled with laughter. Paint brushes sat long dried with old paint. Before long the boy was no longer and, in his place, stood the image of a man. As most young men will find there is a time where some notions become childish. While he still had love for the adventures with his father, he needed to find his own way as his father had done before him.

For the first time in years the painter felt like he would be able to lose himself in painting. He made his way towards the room of corridors where he hung his paintings.

The sons blood ran cold as the most sorrowful scream pierced the air. Expecting to see his father dead by the sound of his despair. Yet, still alive he found him. His face twisted in terror as he stared at his paintings. They hardly looked like his paintings at all. They were there as they always had been, but they were twisted,

"Father, I should not have taken yo away from them." The sons head hung low.

"The choice was mine." Was all the Painter could bring himself to say.

The son helped his father to his bed. His heart was heavy with the thought that perhaps he was the reason for his father's suffering. It was as if all his father's color had vanished with the perversion, the fall from grace of his paintings.

"I will relight the spark for you father." The son whispered as he left his father's room. He covered himself in the pigment of the paints he had long been forbidden to touch. He reached out timidly at first to a painting that felt like it was calling to him. At first, he only placed his fingertips against the painting not quite sure what was going to happen or why he was doing it. A sense of peace came over him. This was one of the first paintings his father had done of a girl they called Mary. They both were quite fond of her. He placed his hand on her stomach and began to fall into the painting.

****

A pit of worry sat in the bottom of the painter's stomach as he awoke. Almost as if something awful had happened. Then slowly he remembered, his art. His son must have laid him down to sleep. "What a thoughtful boy." He thought. It was with this previous thought that he knew he would survive this tragedy. Painting might have been his first love, but it wasn't until his son came that he understood love was more than just brushes wet with the days paint, it was a small voice yelling out "papa" as they played hide and seek. Love was that and so much. Minutes rolled into hours as the painter searched for his son. Relief turned to panic. What had happened to his son? Had he gone to sleep much like they had awoken here?

Unsure of what to do the painter went to the only thing he knew. Fresh paint in hand he was heading towards his painting room when a bright light distracted him. The painting room was beyond dark, yet a bright light shown from inside where there should have been none. Following the light, he came to a painting that should have been twisted, but it wasn't. A bright star shown from the top of the painting. At the bottom was Mary. Oddly enough the painter felt his son was there too. This is how the man would be for years. He did not sleep nor eat nor move any muscle other than that which controlled his paintbrush. This is how he helped his son. He watched him born a miracle and grow into a beacon of hope. He watched him face many trials, but he was never alone. The painter was always there, brush in hand painting in order to aid his son.

Father, Father why have you forsaken me!?" Were the words that sliced through the painter's slumber.

The painter who had been vigilant so long by his son's side sat in terror and awe as his son hung dead upon the canvas in front of him. Paint began to fall off of every painting puddling in the floor. The room became full of blank canvases and a rainbow river covering the floor. The painter must have passed out because he awoke lying half soaked in drying paint. He thought about letting himself drown in it, the passion that robbed him of his other love.

"What sullen brushstrokes father." The son was covered head to toe in every color paint imaginable. He leaned down and picked his father up. "How..." The painter looked at his son is disbelief.

"You gave up your passion to teach me the wonder life held, So I used your passion to show you the same." He spoke as he took his father's hand. "I brought two men with me father. I think it's time we let those who make the choice into our home, into our haven. A reward for not becoming twisted so."

The father agreed and beamed on at the man his son had become. After much conversation and rejoicing over the reunion the painter sat down in front of a blank canvas. His son stood behind him ready to watch his father create.

"Here" His father spoke as he gave him a paintbrush and pulled a chair beside his own.

"Little boys paint their dreams, but you're no longer a little boy. You're the man that showed me that this creation needs more than this blind passion that consumes me it needs your unwavering compassion son."

The son sat down beside his father each began painting on canvases of their own. They would be this way for an eternity, painting and greeting those who chose to awake in this haven as they once had.

"