A/N: Considering submitting this to Scholastic: feedback is greatly appreciated. If it’s detailed, I’ll love you forever. If it’s a few words that you decided to leave instead of passing this by without reviewing, I’ll also love you forever. Cheers. (Also, taking title suggestions.)

On Madness and Art

The door flew open with a bang, the tall man with a mop of curly black hair making his dramatic entrance. He threw his arms wide, announcing his presence to the empty, dark, cramped studio apartment that had every spare bit of space occupied by a painting. Droplets of rainwater flew from his sodden coat. His two-dollar umbrella, which had remained unopened for his entire time outside, was thrown to one side, along with his coat, without any thought as to where they landed. The sky outside the window was deep indigo, rain streaking the glass and pinging off the black metal fire escape. And, edging his way around a pile of debris in the middle of the floor and pushing his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose with one finger, the man selected a brush and a tube of paint from the desk beside him and turned to his canvas.

The man began to paint, moving his brush in long, self-assured strokes. He hardly blinked at the droplets of paint flying from the canvas, simply wiped them away with the already paint-stained sleeve of his blue flannel shirt and continued to work. A night sky filled the top of the painting, one that remarkably resembled the steely-gray sky outside, except that the man didn’t so much as glance out the window. Tongue between his teeth, he painted, eyes fixed before him, pouring onto a canvas the scene that had become so firmly lodged in his head.

This was how he worked. Often, he would be out walking, or would just wake up one morning, and find an image in his head, a person or a thing or a scene, that simply would not leave. Throughout the rest of the day, and the day after, and the day after that, the picture in his mind would remain. And so, he exorcised the image from himself with paint. Soon, he realized that he reveled in the creation of these works, that the pleasure of producing a painting far outstripped that of simply clearing his head. It was no longer a matter of cleansing himself so he could go on with his life, it was creation, it was genesis. When he took something from his mind and channeled it down his brush, he was bringing a new life into the world.

Whatever he saw in his mind transferred itself to canvas exactly, detail for detail. His brush moved fluidly, painting in the outlines of clouds, darting back to the palate to pick up more paint before returning to add texture, depth. The paint ran in rivulets around the drops of rainwater that the man had splattered on the canvas. This would have appalled another painter, but the man only smiled; he knew what he wanted this painting to look like.

Rough concrete, a gray brick wall, a single glowing yellow streetlamp, casting grainy light on the scene. There would be time to go back and touch up the details, later, but now he simple painted, layering the paint on effortlessly. A new world to create shone vividly in his mind, the dark colors somehow luminous; the man knew that he needed to set it onto canvas.

A thunderclap resonated through the room, and the thrumming of the rain intensified. The man grinned in exhilaration and returned to his painting with a new vigor. Taking a smaller brush and a cup of water, he began peppering his canvas with tiny drops of water, making the paint run, as if the very world he was creating was raining. The man smiled to himself.

He glanced up for the briefest of seconds as lightening flashed outside, then returned to his painting. The next moment, though, his mind processed what he had seen, and he looked back up at the window, startled. There was a dark figure crouched on the fire escape.

The man’s mouth fell open. He stared blankly for a second before coming to his senses. A scene still burned brightly in his mind, not completely transferred to canvas—at the center of his painting, there was the outline of a person, painted over in black, blank and waiting—but he gently laid down his palate and brush before hastening to the window.

He shoved aside the papers and books that cluttered the desk to give himself a place to stand as he clambered on top of it and opened the window’s catch, pushing the pane outwards. The figure on the fire escape stood; it was wrapped in a black cloak, so that only frightened-looking eyes and a few wisps of hair were visible. Most people would have hesitated, but the man didn’t think twice before he stood aside and offered the figure his hand.

The newcomer accepted, with ice-cold fingers that made the man gasp, and, moving clumsily, ducked under the window-frame. The man helped himto shakily step down, his cloak shedding sheets of water onto the desk. The man laid a hand on the cloak and, when the stranger did not protest, gingerly removed the garment, letting it fall into the pile with his own umbrella and coat.

Before him stood a woman—something of a surprise, since her cloak had concealed her figure. She looked haggard and drawn, wisps of thin mousy hair coming off her forehead in every direction. The lines on her face were pronounced, her eyes underlined by large bags. Her pants were olive green, with a great many pockets and several sizes too large, secured about her waist with a rope belt, and her shirt was white, slightly stained, and extremely rumpled. She might have been good-looking earlier in her life, even beautiful, but that time had long since passed.

“Are you okay?” asked the man, staring at the strange woman who had appeared on his fire escape. But he fully knew that the answer was ‘no’: there was obviously something very, very wrong.

The woman said nothing for a moment, staring around the room with frightened, haunted eyes. In her silence, the man quickly crossed the room and shut the window again. The torrential rain had soaked the desk and run onto the floor, and a great deal had blown onto the half-finished painting, producing the effect of a storm better than brushed-on water from a cup ever could.

The woman shivered violently, and the man hastily grabbed a sweater that he had thrown over the back of a chair some day in the past and draped it around her shoulders. “What is it?” he asked gently, cautiously.

“They’re coming for me.” Her voice was hardly more than a hoarse whisper, and the man had to lean close to hear it. “The… the things.”

The man opened his mouth to speak, but the woman whirled abruptly and grabbed him by the shoulders. “You have to help me,” she said desperately, her eyes were wide, fearful. “You… you have to…” She broke off and lurched to the wall. “They, they might hold them off for a little bit…” She jabbed her finger at a trio of glowing, angelic figures in a painting leaned against the wall. “And… and she—” She staggered to another painting and looked up at the tall, dark woman, clear against an indistinct background of a bustling street. “She stopped them already, a little, gave me the time to get here. I need…”

She spun on the spot, her eyes desperately scanning the paintings that lined the walls, and stumbled. The man caught her and righted her. “Calm down,” he said in a low voice, with a note of pleading in it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I can help you if you—”

“No!” She gave a strangled cry and jerked away from him. “They’re here. They… I… There’s no time! I…”

She caught sight of the half-finished painting, still on the easel, and all the breath went out of her. She dropped to her knees, reverently staring up at the painted gray night sky and the black outline of a figure. “He can stop them,” she breathed, her eyes shining. “I…” She struggled to her feet again and grabbed the man’s hands. Her grip was crushing, her fingers icy. “You need to finish it,” she said hoarsely, looking at the incomplete painting. “They’re coming. You need to finish it. He’s the only one who can stop them. Please!” She looked at him beseechingly.

It took the man only a moment to make up his mind. Guiding the woman to a chair, he moved to his easel and again took up his brush. He had no idea what was happening, what the woman was babbling about, but he would attempt to placate her. And, in addition to her begging, the image in his mind was glowing stronger than ever, stronger than any of them ever had.

He began to paint again, filling in the figure that he had left until last. He started at the feet, polished brown shoes, and moved up the legs, his brush moving with confidence and accuracy. He glanced over his shoulder once or twice, to see the woman sitting on the edge of her seat, watching him intently, but he soon became so engrossed in his work that he did not even look behind him. He worked carefully, meticulously. He could not rush.

He filled in impeccably cuffed khaki pants, a simple belt. Replenishing his paint automatically, he began to render a black satin shirt, a long neck… and finally the face. It was here he spent the most time, making sure every detail was exact. It was a long time before he drew back from the canvas to look at what he had painted.

A tall, commanding man leaned against a rough gray wall, oblivious/impervious to the rain falling around him that made the colors of all of the world run. He looked straight ahead, and his eyes, bright gold, seemed to meet those of whomever looked at the painting. Somehow, the man seemed to radiate an aura of power and of benevolence, even with no halo, no angels hovering in the background. He somehow illuminated the grungy street on which he stood more than the lamppost he leaned on.

The painter exhaled. It was exactly the image he had had in his mind, down to the last detail. As usual, the image no longer burned in his thoughts. But there was a new feeling, a strange emptiness. Something about it suggested that there would not be another such picture for a long time.

The man returned to himself slightly and turned—

The woman sat slumped back in her chair, eyes wide and glassy. Horrified, the man hurried to her side. He waved his hand before her eyes, shouted at her, shook her by the shoulders. There was no response. He fumbled for her arm and shakily laid two fingers on her wrist.

There was no pulse.

He knelt there, holding her chill, limp arm in his, for some immeasurable amount of time. Then, slowly, almost mechanically, he got to his feet and crossed the room. He put aside the newly-completed painting and set a fresh canvas on his easel. Slowly, mind still full of that strange emptiness, he wet his brush and set it to the canvas, for the first time painting something not formed by his own mind, but something in the real world. He glanced back often at the woman’s form, to make sure that he was rendering the scene correctly, although it made his stomach turn to do so. Only when he had finished and blindly laid down his brush and palate did he walk numbly to the other side of the room, pick up the phone, and dial the police.