Painter's Tale
Basis: A piece of paper with one word on it.
---
9:00 AM 9:00 AM 9:00 AM The time flashes over and over and over on his eyelids as he sleeps, white blocky yet sleek font on a black void and getting brighter each time. "Okay," he groans, half-muffled through a pillow. The black void disappears when his eyelids open revealing, through his view, his sideways bedroom and the wall nearby, which is now where the time was seemingly being projected now black. As he sat up the time rotated to become level with his vision and text began to scroll underneath: 'Good morning, David. Reminder: It has been eighteen point six months since you have last painted, or five hundred and sixty-seven d-' "Clear," he grumbled, and the text disappeared as he got up and left the room. Entering the bathroom, he shuffles up to the toilet, and as he's about to go he stares at the wall in front of him. "Vitals, carcinoma." Various bits and streams of data begin to fill in the space on the wall, the only section of note to David being the unchanged status of his remission followed by '567 d.' "Close," he sighed a neutral sigh as the last drops fell. *** Sitting at his kitchen dining table he reads the digital paper projected in his sight on the table, with it's perfect rectangular shape and simple black text on white background. Nearby on the refrigerator plays a news program, the anchor speaking about some nonstory before the screen fills with graphics, but always showing his face in the top right corner. David ignores it while scrolling the paper and slurping milk from his spoon when he hears the quick metal creak of a mail slot. "The hell was that?" he asks to no one in particular as his head snaps towards the sound. He follows where it came from, coming upon his front door, and notices the mail slot. Right, I have one of those, he thinks before noticing the folded piece of paper on the floor in front of the slot. Picking it up, he feels the surface lightly with his fingers as if it was a touch lost to him. Upon opening it, he only finds one word printed in ink, in a language and symbols he had never before seen. His eyes scan across the word and as he gets to the last character, his vision blurs and fills with white. *** Opening his eyes his view is of the ceiling near his front door, so he lays for a moment unsure of what had happened. "Vitals?" he asks. At first nothing happens, but after a moment he sees a wisp or ribbon of glistening yellow energy pass before his eyes. He tries to follow it with them, but it quickly vanishes from his sight. He sits up, paper still in hand, and glances around as he rubs the back of his head where it meets his neck, stopping after a moment seemingly satisfied. He opens the piece of paper again and finds it to now be completely blank, frenetically flipping it over in his hands. In a rush he returns to the kitchen, paper still in hand, where he places it on the counter before pacing a moment. As he paces he picks up his now soggy cereal, dumping it and filling the bowl with water in the sink without thinking. He stops pacing, grabs the paper, and sits at the table. He slips his fingers into grooves on the tables surface on either side of him and pulls up, sliding up and out, an angled wooden panel. In the wells of the table underneath the panel are various unused painting supplies that David ignores as he lifts a thinner piece of wood from the panel to reveal a mirror. "Call Doctor Odeon." No screen appears to project on the surface of the wood panel as he waits, but in the corner of his eye he can see them. Black ribbons of light swirling in his vision, tendrils coming in through the walls and reaching toward him. They glistened like the yellow he saw before, and though they were black, they were also alluring. As he reaches out to touch them, they pass right around his hand like guided smoke toward the table. The first wisp touches the wooden panel and continues along its surface in a straight horizontal line following the mirror. As the other wisps meet the wood, they copy the first and follow the border of the mirror before all meeting and bleeding onto the mirror like watercolors slowly forming the detailed scene of a doctor and his office. "David?" he hears at first distant and garbled, but as the name is finished it is as clear as a normal call, as is the screen. He sits for a moment staring at the screen being projected upon the surface as Doctor Odeon looks at him curiously. "Um," he finally says. "That's a start, what's wrong David?" "I," he starts, lifting the paper to the screen, "This had a word, and then I woke up on the floor and-" "Wait, stop, start again. Is that a piece of paper?" Odeon asks. "Yea, it was uh, my house still has a mail slot. I think someone must have slipped it in? It had a word on it, I couldn't understand it, but when I read it I guess I passed out." "How long were you out?" the doctor asks as he moves his hands across his desk as if using a computer. "Well, what time is it?" "Twelve forty-three." "Jesus, three hours. Look, the paper had the word, but now it's just gone," he shows the doctor the paper, both sides. "I'm pulling of your live vitals right now," Odeon says with a concerned look while continuing to swipe and tap his hands on the surface of his desk, "Huh." "What? What is it?" "Any other problems/symptoms?" he asks while seemingly reading data. David hesitates before answering, "N-no, not yet." "It looks like-I've never seen this-you're implant has, well, grown into your neur- I think you should come in, as soon as you can. I'd like to run some scans. When you get here the desk will let you in right away, I gave you red priority." The call ends with the entire screen dissolving outwards in a mist in the blink of an eye. He replaces the thin wood panel and as he slides the larger one back into place in the table he notices the supplies underneath, just for a split second before he rushes to get dressed. *** Dressed, he approaches the front door but hesitates before leaving. "Maybe I should-," he says and backs up while looking at the surface of the door. Shrugging he says, "Time?" He can feel it this time, right away, as he sees the transparent glistening cloud envelope him. It swallows him whole, embracing him, and after a moment he can see everything. The particles of dust slowly float past his face in the sunlight, twinkling. The trail of his hand drifts passed his face as he reaches to touch the dust, lightly swirling it. He looks out the window and at the trees blurring slightly green as the wind moves the leaves back and forth. Overwhelming him, he closes his eyes and wishes things would return to normal. A feeling lifts from him and he opens his eyes. Normalcy has returned and he is both shaken and in awe as he leaves. Hands in pockets, he stares at the pavement while he walks the streets to Doctor Odeon's office. For a while the sidewalks are empty, until he comes upon a family of three. Still looking down he doesn't notice the mother and father holding their daughter by the arms letting her swing. The burst of light blue and green wisps from the girl as she swung forward in glee is what caught his attention. He saw it out of the corner of his eye at first and lifted his head to take in the fireworks show coming from the girl. As they pass each other, David nearly walks right into the famil, bumping into the wife. "Oh, I'm sorry-," he said with a stumble and the sudden rush of emotional warmth. "It's fine!" the wife replied as he looked up and saw the purples leaping out from her and reaching to her daughter and husband. They continued on their way not noticing David stare for a moment. He couldn't take his eyes off the bursts of color from the family. Finally remembering where he was headed, he continued on his way, ruminating on what had just happened. No longer keeping his head down, he was people watching during his walk to the doctor with a glimmer of hope that he would see something more. As he passed a small cafe he noticed a couple sitting at a table outside. He stopped for a moment at the street corner and tried to see what he could see before. So engrossed in each other, they didn't notice him from across the street and he didn't notice anything different from them. Disappointed he turns to and pushes the button to cross the street. As soon as his finger hits the button he sees the whitish purple flash of energy move from the button and through the pole. At the same moment he catches sight beyond the pole of the couple, and the almost magnetic waves of pink wisps flowing out from each of them, connecting them. In the corner of his eye he sees a wisp of green and turns his head to one of the trees set within the sidewalk, green wisps flowing down the sides and out, down into the ground like roots connected to the tree further down. He realizes that he's not just seeing these two as he follows the green glistening energy connecting all the trees along the street, and even some tendrils reaching into several buildings. He reaches out to one of the wisps leading to the upper level of a building, pushing his hand into its flow, feeling it. In breathes in a slight gasp of wonder as he moves his hand and fingers through the green, only stopping when he notices the other colors starting to emerge around him. Down the street a man yells at a delivery driver, the reds of the anger streaking out in harsh darting motions towards the driver's light orange, pushing its flow downward. He glances down towards another shop, the owner pointing approvingly to the new sign above while talking to the craftsmen. The aquas of the owner pulling at the man and reaching out towards the sign while the blues of the craftsmen inflate and fade over and over around him. He delights in every sight before him, finally noticing his own light was starting to flow itself., looking down at his hands to see the wisps of yellow flaring from his fingertips. *** A pulsing navy blue void is broken by the rising orange and yellow glow of an enormous and stunning sun. As the sun rises, the blue of the void brightens to a lighter tone, as the 'sky' around the sun glows an orange that fades into the blue. When the sun is fully revealed, the sight disappears with opening eyelids. *** "David, are you getting my messages? I never got to see you that day, and as much as it seems like there appears to be no physical damage, we have no idea what kind of effe-" The image of Doctor Odeon explodes into a disappearing mist as the flow of yellow wisps move across the table. The art supplies are opened and a canvas is placed on the angled wood panel, already covered in an image of a happy child emanating with light blue and green energies. David stands nearby with a mug in hand, smiling he looks to the wall as the yellow wisps flow toward it, forming letters like long exposure light: 'It has been two hours and thirty-three minutes since you last painted.'