The Painted Darkness Read Free Page A

between a lumbering monster and a small child. She has put herself in the path of certain death and there’s a fierce determination in her eyes. She holds a sword in her right hand.
    The monster leans forward like some kind of insane hunchback, growling and snarling with slimy teeth. Hidden in the dark shadows are dozens of red glowing eyes. Henry cannot remember the actual act of painting the image—which isn’t unusual, he rarely recalls how the paint made its way onto the canvas once all is said and done—but when he finished, he wondered where this idea came from and why he didn’t choose a dark knight or some more traditional villain for the setting. Why does he always return to the monster?
    Henry never understands exactly why his paintings are what they are, no matter how many times he tries to decipher what’s happening inside his mind. He simply paints or draws what he sees in his head, and doing so keeps his dreams sane.
    Once, a few years ago, he stopped creating any kind of artwork for a week, just to see what would happen. The result was clear and instantly noticeable: his dreams became warped and disturbing. His future wife, who was then simply his girlfriend, claimed his mind needed to release its creativity, one way or another. The theory was good enough for Henry and now not a day goes by that he doesn’t draw something. The work is his own form of therapy.
    Henry’s eyes shift from the back of yesterday’s finished painting to today’s blank canvas. The canvas stares at him and the sensation is unsettling. The white space has never felt so huge—like the emptiness is trying to pull him into an inescapable void. The fear of having hit a permanent creative roadblock is stronger than ever.
    “Just start at the beginning,” Henry whispers as he closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath and adds, “I paint against the darkness.”
    Finally, after hours of self-imposed isolation, stars appear in the empty place behind Henry’s eyelids—and then there’s a burst of color in the distance. The stone wall in his mind starts to crumble—a few pieces near the edges at first and then larger sections in the middle—and finally Henry pushes through his accumulated worries to the place where the images are trapped, just waiting to be released.
    Without even opening his eyes, Henry begins to paint. One stroke at a time. One color at a time. One step at a time, like the journey of a thousand miles. His toes curl on the cold wooden floor and he rocks on the balls of his feet.
    Henry easily slips into the in-between world where he lives when he’s working, half-asleep and half-awake and not totally aware of anything beyond the canvas and the scenes unfurling in his head. He paints and he translates those visions the best he can, releasing the images through his nimble fingers.
    It won’t be until much later that he’ll realize he’s painting the princess in the dungeon again.
THE BIRTH OF THE ARTIST (3)
L

ess than ten minutes later, Henry and his
    father were in the front yard, throwing snowballs and shoveling the driveway as the sun rose above the distant mountains. The wind created drifts taller than Henry, but he carved a path through them the best he could. The sky was clearing and a beautiful blue morning grew from the horizon as the sun rose, sending bright rays through the ice hanging from the trees and the gutters.
    Soon the neighbors were awake and tending to their driveways and sidewalks, shovels clanking against the asphalt and concrete. Everyone waved to everyone else, or you at least nodded, even to the neighbors you didn’t really know or speak with often. Henry’s father finished their sidewalk and continued on until Ms. Winslow’s sidewalk was done, too. Then he returned to his own driveway where his son wasn’t having much luck clearing the snow with his little plastic shovel.
    A few minutes later, Henry’s mother opened the front door and called for Henry to come inside and have some