Paint

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Aldwin Eliot might not have noticed the light if he hadn’t been feverishly painting the old log cabin onto his canvas. He peered through the glass window from where he sat in his parent’s hunting shack, canvas and acrylics dominating the flimsy card table in front of him. He downed the dregs of some cheap coffee and ran a hand over his unshaven face, squinting out the window into the trees. The cabin hunkered just across the edge of his parents’ property, locked and abandoned since he was a kid. He’d never thought much of it before, but now, in the moonlit evening, nestled in the crooked pines, it demanded to be painted. He had dabbled a dot of yellow in one of the windows because it felt right, and turned out, the dot of paint WAS right. A single candle flickered in the right window of the actual cabin. Strange. He spit out a few drops of murky paint into the trash bin nearby. He really needed to stop biting the end of his paintbrush.

He continued dabbing away, letting a fervor consume him; he didn’t care anymore that he was homeless. He had failed to pay his landlord for the last time, and so, with nowhere else to go, he had grabbed his few belongings and art supplies and driven to his parents’ little hunting shack in the middle of the woods. Only one room and one light bulb, but better than going to his actual parents’ home, and confirming what they already were afraid of: that their son was wasting his life on painting landscapes and couldn’t hold a job for more than a few weeks. He refused to face their concerned and disappointed faces again. “Painting will be the death of you,” he could hear his mother chiding.

Aldwin couldn’t help it. When he painted he felt… euphoric. Like something else controlled him. He’d look at the clock. 3:00 pm. Ten minutes later, it would be quarter till midnight. Work shift missed. He’d lost so many jobs due to picking up his paintbrush. Once, he painted the very place he was working at, Milford Bakery, from memory. That should remind me that my shift starts in a few hours, he remembered thinking.

His paintbrush had danced over the canvas, smoothing on the pastel pinks and blues of the little bakery. Then he was thwacking harsh reds and oranges in the windows. Black clouds around the shop. Sweating, while feverishly dabbing on the nightmare colors as if possessed. It wasn’t a choice, it was a compulsion. One he could not ignore. When he finally stopped, he had once again missed his shift. But it didn’t matter because when he arrived, the bakery had burnt down.

He stood in front of the charred remains and checked his phone. His boss was in the hospital. Outcome uncertain. Aldwin coughed up a spatter of dark paint onto the ground. With his toe he pushed some loose gravel over the dark splotch and slowly got back into his old Honda Civic to return home. When he walked up the stairs back into his apartment, he stared at his painting for a very long time, pondering the acrylic flames and smoke that engulfed the bakery on his canvas. The TV was quietly droning in the background. He must have subconsciously heard the news story as he was painting.

When he painted the corn field behind his apartment, he included a flock of crows. The crows weren’t something he thought about, the black wings just bled out of the paintbrush bristles. A few days later, he heard the farmers complaining to his landlord, Dave, about the crow problem they were starting to have this year.

When he sat in his kitchen and painted a depiction of his apartment, he felt compelled to color the white walls indigo blue. Dave showed up two days later to paint the kitchen indigo. Aldwin showed him his painting. The landlord wasn’t impressed, but Eliot thought the coincidence odd. He kept tasting indigo tinted paint underneath his tongue all day.

Now, Aldwin swished his paintbrush in a mug of water, staring into the trees, right at the light in the window of the log cabin. He considered venturing down to the cabin and knocking on the door, to see who was inside, but that euphoric rush crept over him, and something inside of him had to finish the painting on his canvas. He worked late into the moonlit night, the single lightbulb spluttering overhead. The dark, grayish black paint called to him and he immersed his brush in the shiny liquid. As he worked, a dark shape grew inside the cabin on his canvas, and then, under his swift brush, a long, thin hand came drifting out of the painted cabin’s window. Aldwin didn’t notice the dark gray drop of paint that had gathered at the corner of his lips. It slowly trickled onto the floor.

●●●

Two days later Mr. and Mrs. Eliot discovered Aldwin’s cold body sprawled on the plank floor of their hunting shack. Mrs. Eliot pressed a hand against her lips to stifle a scream as Mr. Eliot gently lifted Aldwin into a sitting position. A thick blackish gray river of paint flowed out of Aldwin’s mouth and onto the floor. Mr. Eliot raised his eyes to the painting propped above Aldwin’s head.

The painting depicted the trees and abandoned cabin across their property. A single candle lit the window. It was the foreground, however, that transfixed Mr. Eliot's gaze. A long, thin, shadowy creature crept, leering directly into Mr. Eliot’s eyes. A toothy grin eclipsed the creature’s entire face, and dark paint dripped off his teeth, paint the exact same shade as the river pouring out of Aldwin’s cold body.