The Artist
Sweat tip-toes off the curved corners of Johnathan's brow as he lathers another coat of lime green paint into the crevices of his wrist watch. The ping and pong of the watch's tick tock find themselves reflected in rhythmic twitches of his wrist, tremors structured to imitate the curvature of time. Each anxious rattle and flick sends a scattershot rainfall of lime splotches to costume his stark white desk and orange jumpsuit as relics of a striving artist's struggle to color a freeze-framed moment of the future.
A slow pan across a carpet of bristles, still coated in a crumbling green dust, gives way to a rainbow mountain of discarded jumpsuits that seem to swell in and out of each other in a surrealist vision of purple arms, sky blue legs, and chests of solid gold. Discarded paint brushes of all lengths and widths jut out from wrists, collars, and ankles, leaving a circling crusty blood stain of lime around the puncture.
What once were firm, sane eggshell walls, now seem as tangible as fog reflecting a green beacon across distant waters or generations of spray paint particles dancing imaginary tangos across a two-dimensional universe. A soft wash of static pulsates from a distant shoreline in every direction like the music of thousands of geriatic men brushing their teeth in four-four time shifted into a key of white noise while a two-year old plays with the volume knob.
Every fifteen seconds, a scream of frustration skips across the fog of static, leaving ripples in the air that to fade in the distance giving the illusion of depth to Johnathan whose sockets look as if they were robbed by a minirature ice-cream scoop. He screams to find himself, tossing out sound waves like boomerangs and waiting for the echo to glide back into his throat and sing a ballad of the curvature of his world, but the watch in his hands is the only wall that ever returns his call and the ballad of countless years of paint is the only story that Johanthan has ever known.
Sweat tip-toes off the curved corners of Johnathan's brow as he lathers another coat of lime green paint into the crevices of his wrist watch. The ping and pong of the watch's tick tock find themselves reflected in rhythmic twitches of his wrist, tremors structured to imitate the curvature of time. Each anxious rattle and flick sends a scattershot rainfall of lime splotches to costume his stark white desk and orange jumpsuit as relics of a striving artist's struggle to color a freeze-framed moment of the future.
A slow pan across a carpet of bristles, still coated in a crumbling green dust, gives way to a rainbow mountain of discarded jumpsuits that seem to swell in and out of each other in a surrealist vision of purple arms, sky blue legs, and chests of solid gold. Discarded paint brushes of all lengths and widths jut out from wrists, collars, and ankles, leaving a circling crusty blood stain of lime around the puncture.
What once were firm, sane eggshell walls, now seem as tangible as fog reflecting a green beacon across distant waters or generations of spray paint particles dancing imaginary tangos across a two-dimensional universe. A soft wash of static pulsates from a distant shoreline in every direction like the music of thousands of geriatic men brushing their teeth in four-four time shifted into a key of white noise while a two-year old plays with the volume knob.
Every fifteen seconds, a scream of frustration skips across the fog of static, leaving ripples in the air that to fade in the distance giving the illusion of depth to Johnathan whose sockets look as if they were robbed by a minirature ice-cream scoop. He screams to find himself, tossing out sound waves like boomerangs and waiting for the echo to glide back into his throat and sing a ballad of the curvature of his world, but the watch in his hands is the only wall that ever returns his call and the ballad of countless years of paint is the only story that Johanthan has ever known.
pokes:
I loved your second sentence of your third paragraph. This is very eloquent and I have to say that I'm impressed. I'm reminded that I used to be articulate and, though odd to be crediting you with the inspiration, am moved to arrest my habits of old. Cudos kiddo, very poetic, though I guess that's fitting. Anyways, I enjoyed it thoroughly and think you should submit something to SG. Perhaps they'd be inclined to publish poetry if they knew there was some talent on here. I like your fantasy too.
sfdeep:
lovely prose there, mate