A/N: This was originally a different plotted story, but I changed it up a bit to fit a contest on Gaia Online. The prompt for that contest was to write a story about someone with an identity crisis. Not sure if this follows it too closely, but apparently it's alright.
Please R&R because I'm not sure how good this turned out. I think it's good but in a few days I'll start to notice the flaws.

The store was dimly lit, making it almost impossible to observe its tiny expanse. The walls were a dreary off-white and the wood of the floorboards old and rotting. They creaked as he stepped onto them, no longer feeling secure as he had outside on the hard, safe concrete. The top edge of the door hit a bell that indicated a new visitor. It was clear to him there hadn’t been a new visitor for a while when dust drifted down from it, barely visible in the dim light.

“Hello?” he called while his eyes squinted as they adjusted to the lighting. He walked further into the store, slowly and carefully. It was disturbingly silent and smelt strongly of incense. His eyes finally adapted and focused upon the counter that was to his right. A small old lady with a hot pink bandana, wearing lipstick of the same shade, stood behind it with a smile on her bright lips. He scarcely sensed her presence; she stood still as a statue.

“Welcome,” she greeted. Her voice was high and uneven in a way that made him infer she had not spoken for long. She wore large hoop earrings which stretched her lobes, emphasizing her wrinkled features. He took this all in with one sweeping glance. Her gypsy-like appearance didn’t help his already low opinion of the store.

“I’d like to buy that radio you’re selling in the window,” he said in one breath. The incense was going to his head and he wanted to leave as soon as possible. His hands were sweaty and he felt faint.

“Oh, I see,” she muttered, waddling over toward the window and picking up the old radio. Her small eyes scanned it before she began the small journey back. She placed the radio carefully on the counter and looked at him. Despite how short she was, the force of the glare made him feel a lot smaller than her.

“Are you sure you want to buy this?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. “How much is it?”

“Are you sure you want to buy this?” she asked again.

He licked his parched lips, edging toward desperate to leave the uncanny and strong-smelling store. “I’m positive. How much do you want for the thing?”

The old lady shook her head. “No, you can take it for free. I don’t want it here.”

He raised his eyebrows and put his wallet back into his pocket. He was one for good deals and this, he thought, may be one depending on the quality of the radio. But who would sell a radio that didn’t work?

His hands reached to curl around the rectangular radio but hers stopped him.

“May I see your palm?” she asked diffidently. He was slightly surprised at the strange request, but did as she wished. She took his hand in hers and examined it, her old eyes narrowing as she focused. Her nimble fingers traced the grooves of his hand and she pulled it closer to her face. With a gasp, she dropped it dead on the table.

“I don’t think you want that radio,” she warned.

“I think I do,” he said artlessly, picking it up without effort. “Mine’s broken and I like my music for work.” He turned toward the door, his steps a little heavier with the radio added onto his weight. Over the creaking of the floorboards, he barely heard when she spoke again.

“You’ll be sorry.”

&

“Would you just be serious for once, Neil?” Maggie, his wife of ten years, hissed at him. “You are never going to make it as an artist. How long has it been? Fifteen years about now, right? That’s longer than we’ve been married.”

“Maggie, I’m trying the best I god-damned can. I’ll sell something and soon, I promise,” he replied.

Maggie sighed and began massaging her temples as she leaned up against the mediocre kitchen counter. “You will only be able to sell something if you have something to sell. Ten fucking years, Neil, and you haven’t made one piece of art.”

“I just haven’t had any inspiration.”

“Well you’d better get some because I’m tired of living in this piece-of-shit apartment with four other people.”

“You’re the one who wanted a big family.”

A shiver visibly ran down Maggie’s spine. She stomped hard on the floor. “Fuck, Neil! Honestly, you are the most selfish jackass I have ever met. Get a fucking job!”

“Shush,” Neil ordered. The two stood in silence for a full minute, listening. It was broken by their refrigerator groaning in its age. He exhaled heavily before going on. “You’re going to wake the kids.”

“Whatever,” she said, blowing him off as she stormed out of the kitchen.

Neil sighed and walked out too, straight to his self-titled-workroom. Maggie didn’t agree with him keeping it as he never worked on his art and all three of the children were now sharing one room; which was hard as they were all young. If the youngest, Jillian, started crying it would start up four-year-old Michael and nine-year-old Rachel would start complaining, for the millionth time, how stupid it was for her to be sharing a room with her brother and sister and that she was developing and didn’t feel sanitary when she’d be changing and Michael would run into the room naked like it was his—which it was. Neil didn’t see how Rachel was “developing” so he, insensitive as he was, ignored her and kept his workroom.

The new radio was perched up on an end table he kept in the corner of the room by the window. A large, blank canvas stood propped up against the wall on the left. Plastic covered the hard-wood floors and on top of it were buckets and buckets of unused paint he’d been buying over the years, thinking the colour would be perfect for a flower petal or a park bench or the eyes of that old man playing chess in the background. Of course, by the time he returned home he’d lost that inspiration and had wasted the precious money his wife made yet again. Not even the disappointment in that made him freak out and paint. In fact, all it did was send him into his workroom with the buckets surrounding him and his back against the plain off-white wall with a cigarette in his mouth as he read every single detail on every single page of the Movie Network guide—which he, by the way, didn’t even have on his crappy seven-channelled television.

Neil strode toward the radio and pressed the POWER button. The room remained silent. He fiddled with the tuner but all the noise coming from the speakers was static. Muttering curses under his breath, he gave up and walked to the giant canvas. He reached behind it, retrieving his pack of cigarettes which he technically wasn’t supposed to be smoking in the house. Not that it mattered. He did it all the time and Maggie caught him all the time. She could smell a skunk from a mile away.

He lit the cigarette as he sat down, picking up the Movie Network guide from the month before. How long had it been since he read an actual novel? The last he could remember was the baby book Maggie forced him to read before Rachel was born nine years ago. But that wasn’t a real novel. It was more like a rule book with instructions added. It wasn’t in any way entertaining. In fact, he didn’t even remember finishing it.

Oh well, he thought, I don’t mind reading about movies I doubt I’ll see and actors I don’t even care about. Who needs fiction when we’re living in reality?

“Fif…shhhhhh…years…shhhhhh…”

Neil sat up. The radio, it seemed, wasn’t useless after all. If he just tried really hard to have patience maybe, just maybe, he’d get some music—even if it was butchered by static. So long as he could hear it, he’d be okay. It’s not as if he expected it to be great or anything; the woman at the store had given it to him for free.

He placed the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and put down the movie guide before heading to the radio. The static didn’t stop until the moment his fingers rounded the tuning dial. The radio became crisp and clear.

“Fifteen years and no art? Neil, you have got to be kidding me!” a voice boomed from the speakers, scaring Neil so much he fell backward onto several buckets of paint.

“Ouch, damn it,” he cursed quietly, not wanting to wake the kids or cause Maggie to run in and catch him smoking. Not that there was any evidence but the smell; he had just swallowed the cigarette.

He rolled over off the paint buckets and onto the hard plastic-covered wood floor. What just happened? Surely he had imagined it. But—

“Get up,” the radio ordered.

Was he going crazy? The radio was talking to him! Neil sat up and stared at it. He hadn’t had any hallucinations in his life—well, except for that one time in college when he tried LSD.

“Hello?” he asked timidly, standing up slowly. God, his back hurt.

“Aren’t you angry at your wife?” the radio asked.

“Um…” Would it make him crazy to respond? “No, I don’t think so.”

“She just insulted you. Aren’t you angry?”

“She’s right,” Neil replied. “I haven’t made anything in ten years.”

“Get angry, Neil!”

“I don’t—”

“You’re useless. You can’t do anything. No matter how much you want to be an artist, you never will be.”

“That’s not true!” Neil boomed, sure that Maggie would run in any moment to ask him who he was talking to and if he could shut up.

“Then show her.”

“What?”

“Paint.”

It didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Neil picked up the bucket of paint at his feet and opened it with a screw driver he had on the same table as the radio. He breathed in the toxic smell that immediately filled the room and grabbed a paint brush, dipping it into the paint. He threw the paint onto the canvas and smiled in pleasure at the blood-red splat.

“Good,” the radio said. “Good.”

&

It had been six years since he had seen her, but Neil never forgot the elderly gypsy woman who gave him the radio. Mostly because, thanks to the radio, he was finally able to make art. After his first piece was sold for a generous price, his family packed up and moved to an old Victorian house with five bedrooms. The children had their own room; the remaining two were for him and Maggie and the other was his workroom. His marriage was getting better, mostly because he saw less of his wife due to his sudden obsession with work, which caused there to be less to fight about. They slept in separate beds but who really cared? They were all happy for the most part.

But her, well, he never expected to see her again. She stood on his doorstep wearing the same bandana and the same shade of lipstick. She glared at him with her beady eyes before taking his hand in hers and examining it.

“Excuse me—” Neil started to protest until she gasped and leaned in closer to his hand. He tried to look at what she was examining.

“Do you still have it?” she asked.

He didn’t even need to wonder what she was talking about to respond, “Yes.”

“Get rid of it.”

“Listen lady, I—”

“Get it out of your house!” she exclaimed, desperate.

Neil ripped his hand away from her. “I’m not getting rid of it! It’s mine! You want it, don’t you? Don’t you? Well you can’t have it! It’s mine!” he yelled.

“You don’t understand!” the gypsy yelled back. “Your life line is shorter than the last time!”

“Get the fuck off my porch. Don’t think I won’t call the police.” With that, Neil slammed the door in her face. Who was she to tell him that crap? Did she want to scare him? But he knew her kind. He’d heard stories about gypsies. She was scamming him. Of course she was.

Furious, he spun on his heel and stomped toward the stairs. Maggie ran out of the kitchen just before he put his foot on the first step.

“Hey, hun, aren’t you having dinner with us?”

Neil grimaced at her. “I’m not hungry.” He started off up the steps.

“Where are you going?” she asked, irritating him further.

“My workroom,” he snapped. “Is there a problem?”

“No.”

“Good.” He had reached the top of the steps. “I’m working. Don’t bother me.”

The familiar, toxic smell of paint filled his nose and throat as he walked into his workroom. It looked very similar to the one he had in his apartment five years earlier, only there were finished paintings on one wall and the room was larger.

He stalked toward the radio, touching it lightly and bringing it to life.

“Hello, Neil,” it said.

Neil had pulled out his pack of cigarettes and was lighting one as he said, “Hello.” When the cigarette was lit, he picked the radio up and held it in his arms as he sat down on the ground.

“I’m not here to harm you,” it said.

“I know,” Neil assured. “Damn gypsy.”

“Damn gypsy, indeed. She knows my value and wants me back.”

Neil hugged the radio closer. “Well, she can’t have you.”

There was a knock on the door. He decided not to answer—maybe they’d go away? But, despite his hopes, the door opened anyway.

“Who’re you talking to?” Maggie asked, looking around the room for someone, even the portable phone.

“I told you not to bother me,” Neil said, ignoring her question.

She looked surprised. “Who are you?”

Neil chuckled darkly. “What are you talking about? I’m Neil. I’m your husband!”

Maggie walked further into the room. She never understood why he stayed in there so often. She knew that he had to work but sometimes she would hear him talking to himself and he would walk out without anything done. It smelt horrible too. The paint was strong.

“I know who you are,” she stated, sitting on the ground across from him. She noticed the cigarette in his hand but, ever since moving into the new house, she didn’t bother telling him off for smoking indoors. Her nose wrinkled in displeasure of the scent. “But…Neil, you’ve changed.”

“Changed?” he repeated. “You mean I’m no longer a low-life loser? I’m successful?”

“No, that’s not—”

“But I am successful, Maggie. Or are you jealous? Is that it?” Neil stood up, cigarette in the corner of his mouth and the radio still secure in his arms.

Maggie sighed. “Don’t be silly, Neil. It’s just…all of this—” She motioned around the room, “—it all happened so quickly. Not that I’m not thankful but you’re just so different. With your art and everything…”

“What’s wrong with my art?”

“Neil, everything you paint is blood-red. In the newspapers they call you Neil ‘Blood-Red’ Roberts. Isn’t that…well, don’t you want to be known for your art and not its colour?”

“The colour is part of my art, Maggie.”

She put her head in her hands. When she spoke, her voice was muffled. “Ever since you got that radio…”

Neil’s eyebrows furrowed. “What was that?”

Maggie looked up at him with a pained expression. “The radio…could you please put it down? You’re holding it like…like you held Rachel for the first time. It’s weird.”

“Weird?” Neil spat. “You think it’s weird, do you Maggie?”

“Yes…” she mumbled. He was scaring her. She stood up and took a few steps back. “Can we just get rid of it, please? We can buy you a new radio—an even better one. I promise—”

It had all happened so fast. With his free hand, Neil grabbed the screwdriver on the ground and flung it at Maggie in his rage. She gasped as it plunged into her chest and with one fleeting glance at him his wife fell to the ground. Neil’s vision was blurred by his fury.

“You think it’s weird, do you? Well, I’m not replacing it! You can just forget about that plan! You’re jealous! You’re not as successful and—” He killed his wife. “Shit,” he cursed, letting his cigarette drop from his mouth.“What…what did I do?” he exclaimed in horror.

He could hear the children running up the stairs; how they knew their mother had died, he couldn’t tell. When they entered the room and their eyes found their mother on the ground, Neil felt truly guilty. What had he done? What would happen to him?

“Good,” the radio told him. “You did good.”