Of Paintings, Cards and Beads
“Is this what euphoria feels like?” I thought to myself and I couldn’t stop the flow of my emotions across the multicolored walls, which I had now filled with my paintings. I looked around and realized that I had already filled up most of the wall since the time the first rays of sunshine entered my eyes, and I could still do so much more. I decided to take some more inspiration from nature and placed my easel on a busy street. I don’t have a death wish, it wasn’t smack in the middle, it was in a corner where other artists like me, displayed their talents and got money for it. I decided to showcase my paintings too and put up a shabby board saying, “15 dollars for 1 painting.” It seemed like a petty price to pay for one of my masterpieces. A gentleman wearing a three piece suit, approached me saying, “Is there a tempest raging across your mind? Your paintings look very-” “Unorthodox?”, I cut in. He smirked and said, “Sure, that’s one way to put it. Good work on the color scheme, by the way.” “Here’s my visiting card, if you ever need any help. I find your work very interesting and would love to help you out, any way I can.”, he said with a wide smile. I accepted it gratefully, looked at the card and felt very proud of myself that even well known psychologists, or as I like to call them, doctors of the mind, liked my work. It was almost noon by then and I decided it was time to return to my beautiful wife.
I crafted a small bracelet for her, using beads that I had found, scattered across the road. She has always been a lover of such gestures, and I’m sure I had earned myself an extra beignet today. Walking back, I spotted a travel agency which had some charming photos of cities from around the world. We had planned to take a vacation soon anyway, but I didn’t know which one to choose. Feeling very impulsive, I entered and booked two tickets for the world tour instantly. This is going to be such a good day, maybe my wife should buy me an entire box of beignets now. The bench on the park suddenly looked very enticing and I decided to take rest for a while, after all the work I had done.
Someone knocked on the door suddenly making me jump. It must be my darling husband. He was profusely crying about how the world has turned all black and gray. This has happened so often that I’m used to it all now. I gave him water and sat beside him, asking him what had happened. “I was randomly walking around, wondering what’s the point of existence anyway, when I suddenly saw a series of paintings all in black, depicting nothing but tornadoes, not unlike the ones in my mind on an isolated canvas. I tore it all apart and then destroyed similar graffiti which someone had done on the walls too.”
“Oh, baby, I’m sure they didn’t mean it for you.”, I said patting him slowly. I didn’t know what would be the right time to give him the beignets that I had stored for this very reason. “But that’s not all that happened. Someone has stolen money from me too because when I went to buy something for you, my card got declined. The credit card company said someone brought world tour tickets using my money. Can you believe it? When do I have the time to go on a world tour?”, he asked sobbing some more. “Wait, what? There must be some misunderstanding. I’ll call them now and ask them to check.” “Oh, no. I do have a gift for you.” My sweet husband never forgets to get something for me. Before my brain could process anything, I felt a major gash across my hands, as he tried to tie a bracelet on my hands, with jagged pieces of glass, instead of beads. I cried out in pain, and he kept saying, “It’s going to be a good, good life. Why aren’t you accepting my gift?”, in a menacing voice till I finally felt it cut deep into my arteries and couldn’t feel anything else, anymore.
“Serial killer caught.” My eyes caught on this headline, as I was sipping my morning tea. The convict has admitted to murdering his five previous wives, over a span of a month, the latest one being yesterday and destroying the city’s walls. But, it was the photo that truly caught my eye. It was the same man whose monochrome paintings had caught my eye yesterday. I knew he should’ve used my contact number on that visiting card.
