The Drawing Room

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His name was Drew. So, he drew. He drew on paper, drew with pens, and drew on strength that he pulled from his paint bucket of a soul. Her drew in the dirt and he drew in the sky, and the materials insides never seemed to slow.

So he continued to draw. An even when his mother broke down, crying for comfort against a foe only she could see and fear, he drew. And somehow, she drew her own strength from his drawing.

So he continued to draw. And when his sister came home later at night, staggering and often stoned, he would draw a new world for her. And somehow, she drew strength from that drawing, as well.

So he continued to draw. His walls needed no paint but instead were lined by orange trees in elegant tubs and the mysterious supernatural, which looked down and scowled or smiled or remained impassively benevolent from their perch.

And they added their paint to the bucket in his chest. What a cycle it was, Drew marveled, that he gave strength to the very work that supplied it to him, produced and consumed and recycled by the drawing that had come before.

And soon Drew's drawing was noticed, and he had to leave behind the drawings and the strength he drew, had to leave his mother and sister who could not draw on anything but him and his work. But he had no choice – they said he had a gift, and not to use that gift would be a sin.

So Drew left, but he left his art in his room and on the walls, and he went to school. His mother and sister often went into the room he had left, finding that they could still draw the same old strength from his old drawings.

But Drew was not content at school. The things they taught were not right and not real – to contrive and create from nothing at all. Drew created by drawing on everything. And unable to draw any sort of strength there, Drew left.

He came back home and found that his sister had joined AA and had been both clean and sober for three months. And his mother had found a therapist who cared, and her pillows were no longer wet every night. He found that they had found something on which to draw their own strength.

And on his door was a post-it note, the words "The Drawing Room" scrawled across it in the loopy handwriting of his sister. And inside, he found he could still draw the same old strength.

But there was a new strength there. His sister had tacked up a black and white photograph she had taken of a battered old barnyard rose, blooming determinedly against the wind, lined with browning creases and edges. And his mother had written something short and vivid, a poem, and taped above the pillow at the head of his bed.

So Drew stayed, and continued to draw. And his sister grew healthier, and his mother grew happier, and they had found something of their own to draw on.

May we all find something to draw on.