Accidental Painter
The Accidental Painter
Stacey always wanted to be a painter. She had been drawing and painting since she could remember. From that first box of crayons, she had a passion for art that could not be equaled. And, that one birthday when she turned nine and received her first set of real paints, she was so excited. The tubes lined up in color order like an elaborate rainbow. The brushes, thin, thick, even one in the shape of a fan, sent a tingle through her like a jolt of electricity through a power cable. She stopped painting after the accident, but a year later she knew she needed to put the passion back in her life. She went out and bought some paints and canvas. But this paint set was different than others she’d had.
She noticed it the first time she squeezed the colors on her palette. They had a certain glow, a certain vibrancy that Stacey hadn’t noticed with other paints. When she mixed the colors, it was almost as if little sparks of life were emitted from the round, flat metal knife. When she spread the paints on her canvas, it was almost as though the painting came to life. Her landscapes were filled with color and light and shadow that she had never achieved before. Juicy pears, sweet apples, plump grapes filled her still life paintings. The liquid in the glass of wine in one painting gave the impression of being swirled just before tasting the crimson drink. She was glad she’d started painting again to take her mind off of what happened.
Stacey was painting a new still life. A bowl of apples next to a vase filled with ruby red roses. She wanted the apples to mimic the red, red petals of the roses and had to embellish a little since the apples weren’t as red in real life as she wanted in her painting. As she painted the bowl of apples, something happened to the apples sitting on the small table. The yellow-green near the stem of the apples started getting blood red. A quick flash in her mind, glass and blood and then it went white and then darkness.
“That’s not possible,” she said aloud to the empty room.
She started to paint the roses,but then thought about the apples. She mixed some cobalt blue into her ruby red creating a deep purple color. She started painting the roses purple. Sure enough, the roses in the vase started to change purple, too.
“What?” She saw it with her own eyes, but disbelief still prevailed and she thought she was imagining things.
The next day, Stacey retrieved her paint box from the closet and set up a new canvas on her easel. She decided to paint something new and settled on a parrot. She squeezed a variety of colors into her palette and started painting. She looked at her finished creation with its red breast and head, yellow and blue wings, surrounded by large, tropical green leaves, and was satisfied. While she was cleaning her brushes, she thought she heard something in the other room. She dropped the brushes and went to look. Sure enough, a macaw was sitting on the back of the recliner in her living room.
If the apples became more alive and the parrot was created from the paint, Stacey wondered what else she could do. She went to her closet and dug through her old paintings. Finding the one she was looking for, she went to the living room and put the already painted canvas on her easel. She took out her paints and started going over the painting.
When she finished the last stroke, he appeared. Her brother, who had died in the car accident a year ago was now sitting at her dining room table. She went to hug him.
“No. You can’t touch me, Stacey.” the voice said, sounding like her brother, but not like her brother at the same time.
“What? Why not?”
“That’s not the way this works,” the brother-thing said. “You shouldn’t have done this, Stacey.” He was starting to scare her.
Another flash. Where was his seatbelt?
“Things aren’t the same when you’re brought back. I’m not really James,” he looked at her with haunting, empty eyes as though he wanted to kill her. He rose from the table and started toward her.
“You can’t touch me, but I can touch you. Then, I’ll be real and you’ll be in my place. A soul for a soul.”
“But you weren’t wearing it,” she confronted the shade of her brother.
Stacey barely thought about it. She took the linseed oil and poured it onto the canvas. With her paint rag, she started wiping away the fresh paint. Little by little the brother-thing disappeared until it was no longer there. She destroyed the other two paintings as well. The parrot disappeared. The roses wilted and the petals fell to the table. The apples turned into a rotted, soggy mess. She threw the fruit and flowers away using a plastic bag so as not to touch them. She put away the paint and never painted again. Stacey cried fresh tears of grief for the brother and the guilt she had lost
