The Painting

I felt like doing a blog just because I've never done one.
This is a story I wrote for a creative writing class. Best I've ever done. Got an A+. Thought I'd share it on Halloween, but I can't wait that long. So here you go. Sorry for the huge indentations.



The door opened and the nurse stepped inside. The room was quiet except for the ticking of the clock and struggling breaths of the man in the bed.
“Good news Arthur. You’re going to have some company. Another patient is being moved to this room” said the nurse as she poured his medication into the cup. Arthur’s eyes turned and asked the nurse who.
“Oh, the man from room 207. You know, the painter” the nurse replied. Arthur had seen the man before when he was able to walk. The painter had always drawn such beautiful paintings. Arthur would love to watch him paint one. The nurse handed him the cup and was off to another patient. She slipped out the door and again the room was quiet.
The next morning, Arthur awoke to the scratching of a paintbrush. He lethargically sat up. Arthur reached for his glasses and pulled them over his face. There, sitting at the window, was the painter.
“Hello! You must be my new room mate” said Arthur. The painter did not waver, he did not turn. Instead he continued to paint, his back turned to Arthur, in the beam of sunlight coming from the window. Arthur sat back in his bed and looked at the ceiling.
“I’d seen you before you know. You were painting the most spectacular picture of a sheep dog. You truly are a great artist” he remarked. Just then, the painter stood up and held the painting he was working on in the light. Arthur recognized it as a painting of the house on the hill outside the window. Arthur had spent days looking out the window before. He loved to gaze at the rolling hills in the distance and the people that filled the streets below. The painter hung the painting on the wall and stepped back to look at his work. He beamed at Arthur and smiling, stepped out the door.
A few minutes later, the nurse came to give Arthur his breakfast.
“So, how do think the new arrangement will work out” she asked.
“I’m not sure. He doesn’t seem to talk much.”
“Oh, don’t take it personal. He never really talks anymore except for when he needs to. Most of the way he communicates is from his paintings” said the nurse.
“I guess I was just hoping for something a little more from him. I’ve been really lonely these past few months” said Arthur.
“Maybe if you talk to him enough, he’ll open up to you.”
“Maybe” said Arthur as he took a bite of toast.
About a half hour later, when the nurse was gone, the painter returned, smelling strongly of coffee and eggs. He had brought a chair with him, and set it by the window, where a new canvas sat on his stand.
“You know, if you ever want to talk or anything”- Just then, Arthur was cut off by the screaming of a woman.
“No! Not Maxie! Please God don’t take her! She’s all I’ve got Lord! Oh please not now, not now!” A moment later a woman ran past the door and down the stairs, carrying a dog. Arthur recognized the sheep dog from the painting.
“Oh no, something’s wrong with that poor woman’s dog” Arthur said. The painter just turned and smiled, and went back to painting.
A week later was visitor’s day. The hospital was buzzing with conversations, and the halls were congested with dozens of people. Arthur listened closely to those who went by his door, as each and every person was telling of different news. It was like reading ten papers at once. An hour later, Arthur’s brother arrived to visit him. He leaned over the bed and asked him how he was feeling. Arthur thought for a moment, and remarked he was doing ok for someone who was dying.
“It seems like I’m blessed brother. Unlike many other people who never see it coming, and never really get to enjoy the last days, I do. Everything seems more pleasurable now.” Arthur took a deep breath and tried to sit up.
“Thank you for coming” he said. The two sat for awhile just talking. In the conversation, Arthur learned that the house outside the window had burned down.
“It just up and caught flame one day” his brother said. “Strangest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”
Arthur turned and looked at the painting of the house.
“Yes, strange” he replied…
Over the following week, Arthur learned that the woman’s dog had died. The dog was only four years old, and the vet had not been able to identify the cause of its death. He had remarked it may have just been “his time”.
The painter had also been busy putting up some of his other paintings. The room walls were almost filled with pictures of people, places, animals and more. Arthur actually felt a little uncomfortable at night because of the faces that seemed to be staring at him. One night, he could have sworn he had seen the picture of the happy, laughing clown start to frown and moan horrible sounds. He had pulled the covers over his head in an effort to shut out the sound and eventually fallen asleep.
Arthur had also started to notice peculiar, horrible incidents linked to the paintings. One of the paintings he had grown quite fond of was a picture of a little girl in a candy store. He had gazed at every detail of the painting, memorizing the placements of the candy, the elaborate decorations on the windows and walls, and feeling like a little kid again, wondering what this and that would taste like. Near the end of the week though, the nurse had brought in a portable TV for him watch. The first thing he saw when he flicked on the TV was the news, telling of a little girl who had just been murdered just down the road by a candy store owner. Arthur wiped a tear from his eye and shut the TV off. He gave it back to the nurse right then and there and insisted she give it to another patient.
From that point on, Arthur began to learn of terrible tragedies by visitors, doctors and nurses and people who always seemed to coincidently tell them just loud enough for him to hear outside his door more and more often. Arthur tried not to listen, but the paintings on the walls intrigued him at the least, and he could not stop himself from catching a word or two here and there about them. After hearing however, a little piece of him died, and knowing who had been shot, crashed, or committed suicide deeply depressed him.
After 3 months had passed, Arthur seemed to be fading away from life itself. He noticed he was sleeping more, eating less, and weeping the few hours he was alive during the day. Finally, when the night was nearing, and the first of the paintings began to make short grunts, he decided he could take it no longer.
"Stop! Stop it! Please, just make it go away god! I cannot live like this!" Arthur turned and looked toward the painter who was still painting, as if he hadn't noticed anything was even wrong.
"You! What are you painting? You've been working on that one all day. Is it a poor defenseless child? Is it one of the new animals at the zoo again? Or maybe the President of the United States?!" Arthur yelled. The painter continued to paint.
" Answer me you demon! Or so help me I will kill you in your sleep and destroy every last one of these satanic paintings!" This time the painter looked up, but still did not answer. Arthur became enraged. He took out one of the wine bottles from his gift basket and flung it at the painter. It missed him by an inch and crashed against the wall, shattering into a million pieces. Arthur picked up another bottle almost instantly and threw it. This one was a direct hit. The painter fell backwards in his chair to the ground holding his hands over his eyes and silently kicking at the air, knocking over his stand. The painting fell to the ground, and there, on the canvas, was a painting of Arthur. Arthur stared at the painting for a moment, and suddenly was overwhelmed by fear. His eyes grew wide and his heart pounded in his chest until the point where it started to send tremors of enormous pain throughout his body. He started to take deep breaths, and felt the taste of blood in his mouth. He clawed at his chest furtively and then, right when the nurse opened up the door to see what all the noise was, his body went limp, and he was dead.
A few days later the painter was moved to a new room. Brandon, the boy who was to be his new roommate, was watching his portable TV. The painter walked in with his chair and stand and sat down on the bed across from Brandon. Brandon looked up from his show to see who would be his new room mate.
" What happened to your eyes?" The boy asked at the sight of the painter's bandages that covered them. The painter turned, smiled, picked up his paint brush, and began to paint.

By Alex Cole

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