Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: GRATE (11/19/15)
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TITLE: Elephant in the Room | Previous Challenge Entry
By Hannah Gaudette
11/26/15 -
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I breath in contentedly and dip my paintbrush in the gray-blue paint while listening to classical music. In the art studio of my house, I spend almost all my time. There's nothing like creating some masterpiece of a faraway land that my mind can see while the world outside is in its own strange turmoils. I brush a streak of blue and my heart explodes in excitement. What is this canvas going to look like?
THUMP! A loud noise startles me and the paintbrush goes askew, creating a smudge. I scowl. There's no undoing that. I'll have to paint over it. My eyes dart to the ceiling. Who's upstairs? Josh is at work and Chloe, my niece who is staying here for the day, is sound asleep. I shrug and return to my little world of artwork.
The blue in the painting begins to take on the look of a stormy sky, or perhaps the sky just before night.
CRASH! My heart jumps, my gaze rising to the ceiling again. It sounds like an elephant up there. Maybe I should go and investigate . . . Or maybe it's just the cat. I return to painting. I just might be able to make this one into a mountain scene like that painting I did last month.
Only a couple minutes pass before two terrific noises clash upstairs. I let out a low growl. Who on earth is trying to interrupt me at a time like this? BANG! THUMP! I grip the paintbrush in a hold so tight my knuckles begin to turn white. The noises of the elephant continue and my nerves fray rapidly.
Finally I throw my brush to the floor and dash out of the studio, all thoughts of classical music and mountains forgotten as I bolt upstairs, ready to pounce. Sure enough, the clatter is coming from little Chloe's room. Oh, why did I ever agree to Molly dropping her off here for an entire day?
I throw myself into the room, bracing for the mess I might find – art strewn all over the floor, my secret stash of paintbrushes discovered and ruined, the mural on the wall covered with disgusting crayon marks. What I find is Chloe is bouncing up and down in an elephant costume with a grin on her face to rival the brightness of my wall mural.
“What are you doing?” I hiss, ready to snap.
The room is a disaster, the floor covered in more stuffed animals than I've ever seen in my life.
Chloe replies with gleaming success, “Playing! Daddy took me to the zoo yesterday. There was an eleant like this one.” She points to her disarrayed costume.
“You mean elephant,” I correct her.
She shrugs. “I don't know, but it was so cute.”
Wow. That's the first time I've ever heard anyone call an elephant “cute”. I always thought they were ugly, with their leathery skin and crazy noises.
My niece/elephant-in-training runs to me from across the room and grabs my hands. “Come and play with me,” she pleads. “You can be an elephant, too.”
Something inside of me – all the common sense I used to have that gave me some kind of reason in these times of trial – melts at the look on her precious face. We spend the next hour as elephants, stalking the jungles, roaring proudly, and laughing so hard we both end up in tears.
Chloe falls asleep contentedly after that to finish her nap, and I return to my art studio. Somehow the big room looks . . . empty. And far too quite without Chloe the Elephant upstairs. I return to my canvas and look at the sky I've painted. Now it's time to paint something real.
Several hours later, the door of the studio opens and Chloe, her eyes tired from just waking up, enters, clutching her stuffed elephant tightly in her arms. She snuggles up beside me and looks at the painting. Thought it's not finished, her eyes widen.
I've painted an elephant.
Fiction
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