Painter at Night/Displacement (flash fiction pieces)
Two unfinished but also finished stories
Note: These are a pair of largely finished fiction stories I did a few months ago. I just couldn’t find out what else to do with them beyond their premise.
As such, I felt like they were good enough on their own to be shared as they are and again, due to the lack of ideas and motivation I have to continue it.
Dean woke up on his bed from the sound of the storm outside. The flap of his curtains coming behind like galloping horses right against his ears. He grimaced. It was the third time he had been awoken this night and he wasn’t any less happier knowing that fact.
He rolled over on his bed, then back again. Hoping that just the sounds of his body would be enough for his mind to take a hint and just sleep already.
But it didn’t. Inside, both it and his eyes focused on the only thing he saw, standing unopposed in the large palace hall.
A painting on a stand. The darkness barely highlighted the accented deep blues of the canvas.
“One more time.” Dean said to himself standing up.
He walked across the hall, bear footed, with only the breeze outside to drape over his top half.
When he got close to it, he could see it all now. It was meant to be a sunken ship. Perhaps around pre pre-golden age of exploration, maybe later; he kept changing his mind every day.
He sat down by the painting, his right toe brushing up against the paint can. The cold felt dead to him in a sense. Not because of the wind but more so because he had spent the past half an hour reaching down to touch it, as he did in that moment, to pick the paint brush and continue his work.
When he looked back up, brush in hand he stared at it for a moment. The dark blue background was still there, but there was the nature of the boat itself. The project was due in the week after next, a pulp comic magazine requested for me, the first request he received since he dropped out of art school.
“Brave decision that, Dean.” he told himself as he began to sweep a small amount of brown to the right of the frame.
Then he stopped again, and looked at the painting closely. The request told him he had more than a week to get it in. But he felt like he had been working on it for much longer than that.
Always waking up in the middle of the night. To come over and finish a tenth of the full canvas. A break was needed.
“Get my legs moving,” he said, standing up.
He left the hallway and looked down the stairs. No other lights were on, and Dean didn’t feel the need to waste what little cash he had on power.
Money was very tight for at least… maybe half a year. His fridge became smaller and his stomach followed as well, to the point it resembled an apple core more than anything.
At the bottom of the grand stairs, he looked out to the faded ballroom. Someone once lived in this place, that’s what his parents told him. Whoever did clearly felt that having two massive hallways, one on top of the other was obviously the best decision for a homeowner to make.
Vinny was waiting just beside the glass door leading outside. His stubby little paws as a border collie made him adore the palace the two of them called their kennel. When Dean walked up to Vinny, the white headed mutt kicked his tail happily as Dean scratched his neck.
It wasn’t his actually. His sister had it first but he couldn’t remember why she gave it to him. Or even if she gave it to him.
Regardless, Dean sat down beside Vinny and watched the black outside the window. There were some street lights outside, but only a few which led to the mountains.
Many times in the past few days he had been following this habit. Mindlessly walking down to the emptiest ballroom he saw and meditating on his process and progress. Neither of which really helped in getting his thesis in on time.
The rain cleared his mind. It was probably the best tool that Dean could use to visualise the depths of the ocean in his painting. But he also felt that it was becoming a crutch.
A short week might not exactly be a few days, but it still required the utmost attention in order to finish. His shambling career was on the line with this contest.
Finally, he stood up and traced his way back up to the stairs, Vinny following close behind him. The old dog rested his snout beside Dean’s left foot as he got back to the canvas again.
There was much work to be done on this one, and Dean pondered if he could ever get those the right way he wanted to, or the imaginary judges who were looking over his piece.
All he knew though was that effort like this required a certain level of sacrifice. Commitment. To ensure that the whole project turned smoothly and to break the cycle of a man who only does things he likes at the moment.
And the right way to do that, either to evolve or devolve his career was to paint.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
You awake, standing up. Already on your feet you look around, paper cuts of grass at your hands.
It’s the first of many senses that return to you, as you cough lightly to yourself. Your eyes blink, comprehending the light in front of you. You’re in a field. The kind you would have seen near your hometown in Wicklow, except as long as the streets on Broadway. For literal miles it stretched before you, as the smell of the wind and grass waff against your nose.
You flex your fingers. Everything is still there, body and all. But then there was something off about your hand.
A ring was wrapped around your ring finger. The one where your five year old engagement tome should be. Silver coated with an amber jewel on the top. Nothing about it looked familiar.
“Hello?” You call out towards the horizon. Wherever you were, the voice echoed loudly across the grassy plain, enough that it made you chilly.
One hand covering your forehead you try to squinth towards the Bob Ross styled sky above. There were some clouds there, more white than dark, but enough that rain seemed probable.
Swallowing your pride, you start to move your feet, nearly rigid like they were weeds being pulled out.
Slowly however, you walk your way through the meadow, trying to wrap around just what happened. Nothing came to mind. Maybe a flash or something like it in your eyes, like someone turned a flashlight on directly in your face but that was about it.
Finally, after a considerable amount of time, you hear the wind swirl its way downwards, disappearing partly below. There had to be a drop or a cliff in order to do that.
You speed up your running, feeling your roots for legs falter every so often as you hobble over to the edge.
Once you do, you take pause. The cliff juts out to another field below. Larger in scope but detailed with all these mini pillars that made it look like they were placed messily by some stone age civilisation. Each of them was as sharp as a spear, and large enough that it would take at least ten men to try and pull them out.
Next to those, ancient basins, limestone maybe, were patted around the ground. No real pattern either. Whoever did all of this would be lucky to get any references for their CV.
But it still gave no real answers. Wherever this place was somewhere that seemed to defy any common understanding of the modern world. The type of untouched landscapes that colonists from Spain or England would have tried to take over centuries ago. Which made the exact reason why you were there, dirtied shirt and all, all the more confusing.
You feel a pulse. You look down at your hand again. The ring was pulsing. Amber colored it was fading in and out like a heart while resting. There was still much to learn about it.
You try to check your head again but nothing comes to it, and the chill provided by the breeze makes you worry about how you’d even get back.
Still, it couldn’t hurt to try.
