She Painted Words.
Ysabel was an artist, and she only painted words. In her small studio apartment, the walls were covered in her works, hanging at angles all askew. A small table covered in clutter was stuffed in to the corner. On it sat tubes of paint, brushes, tea cups stained and encrusted with the tea leavings from weeks ago. A small plate sat half covered by paper, covered in a black silt that had once been the left overs of a meal. Dishes sat mouldering in the sink, covered in cobwebs. A toilet sat in the corner, half hidden by a curtain. The curtain had been used to wipe paint brushes on. It was crusty and lumpy, and much of it had turned gray. There was a phone so covered in dust that it was obvious that it had not been used in a very long time. There was a fine patina of nicotine on the windows. By the lopsided sink, a bed lay under an avalanche of dirty clothes.
On the door, the only door, a painting had been hung all by it self. "Reality" the painting declared, in nauseous green letters. The letters were crude. A shaking hand had scribed those letters with a quivering brush. The words "nightmare", "monster", and "LIAR!" had been taped over the television screen, the words seemed to be slashed in to the canvas, carved in garish purple and blue letters, except for "LIAR!" which had red streaks carved in to it, and spatters of red paint droplets. On the small fridge the words "prolonged agony" had been painted directly on the door, done in black letters, in smooth calligraphy. A small framed painting sat by the phone on a milk crate. "Waste of time" it said, in neat matter of fact like print, done in a cheerful blue.
Even now, she painted, gnawing on her lip, her brow furrowed, her left hand dabbing at her canvas with a brush, her right hand held forward with a glob of black and a smear of green paint on the back of her hand. She stabbed so violently with her brush that her rickety easel nearly tipped over. She finished the painting with a furious flourish, sat down, and then lit a smoke. She stared at her work, her eyes flashing and intense. She searched her table for the least filthy tea cup, wiped it out with her thumb, and got up to fill it full of water.
The microwave rattled and whined. It would not serve in this world for much longer. On the side the words "warmth does not mean life" had been painted in orange letters. The microwave no longer beeped, and the light no longer worked. When it was done, it just shut down with a wheezing sound. Ysabel pried the microwave door open with her fingernails. She pulled out the teacup and placed it on the table. She tossed in a tea bag she found under a stack of papers. It had been used, and had been left to dry out in a shriveled little ball. She did not know what kind of tea it had once been, nor did she care. She dropped her half finished smoke in to the kitchen sink, where all of the other butts had gone when she grew tired of them.
She sat and drank her tea. Her hands trembled slightly. She waited for her painting to dry for a bit. Her gaze fell on a wilted brown aloe plant sitting on a cardboard box. She set down her tea cup, picked up a paper cup from off of the floor, and went to the sink to fill it full of water. She watered the aloe plant and patted it affectionately.
She collapsed back in to her chair to drink her tea. The clock had stopped working a long time ago. She looked at it now, it said 2:11, just like it always did. She had painted the word "illusion" and hung it next to the clock. The word had been started in brown, but she had run out. She had finished "ion" in green.
A lone cockroach crawled over the floor.
Finally, Ysabel felt that it was time. She hung her final painting next to the window, having cleared a spot on the wall where a dingy patch of sunlight meandered during the day.
She walked the length of the room, kicking aside piles of trash and debris, clearing a walkway. She took one last sip of tea from her cup, the tea bag still sitting in the bottom. She destroyed what was left of her pack of smokes, ripping them in to tiny pieces. She tossed her lighter in to the toilet.
Ysabel took off at a run. She bounded through the tiny space, barely taking six steps before running out of room. She flew through the window, a piece of shattered glass rending the flesh of her left arm from elbow to pinky. A thousand points of light formed around her as the sunlight shone through a thousand pieces of glass. She felt no pain, indeed, there was a smile on her face, her eyes closed.
In seconds it was over. She landed, impaled on a black wrought iron fence. Blood from her arm trickled down to form a pool in an indent in the sidewalk, and blood from her chest formed a long thin stream as it trickled in to the gutter. One could not help but to notice that the dripping blood had formed an exclamation point on the ground.
Above her, in her apartment, a freshly made painting with the words "one end out of the many possible" fluttered in the breeze of the now opened window.
Below, a crowd gathered. No one knew her name, but everybody remembered her as the woman who painted words.
Originally Posted by Alan H
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