The Artist

A girl stares death in the eyes and has a choice to make.

She was taking her last breath, eyes filled with broken dreams and tears that refused to flow.

Her body was as still as a painting as she waited on her soul to leave. Life.  This wasn’t what she thought it would be.   It wasn’t meant to be like this.  Where was her fairy tale end to her fairy tale start?

Once upon a time, there was light in her eyes.  Life with all the love and passion, energy-filled pupils dilating with euphoria.  There was him.   Her dashing prince to her forlorn princess, her confident knight to her despairing damsel. 

If she was the painting, then who was the artist?

 

As she lay there, her eyes started to fade.  All she could see was the mobile phone lying next to her, along with the pills.  Her prison and escape.

The tears didn’t flow, and no wonder.  Countless tears were shed in the past, and now she was determined that there would be no more in the future.  No more permanently.

Her temperature started to drop.

The coldness of the bathroom floor gripped her like the steel embrace of a morgue trolley.  That would be her new reality �" no more pain, no more upset.

If she was the painting, then who was the artist?

Her heart was slowing.

Her mind was filling with images of him.  Was he the artist?  Before him, she felt life was an endless scientific quadratic equation that she would happily spend eternity trying to solve.  Then left her feeling that life was 1 + 1 and nothing would ever be more.

Her mind was now wandering.

Was this the last stage of her life’s play?  Was she falling asleep? As she lay there waiting for her mind to disappear into the void, something else flickered on her mind. 

A child.  But she didn’t have one? A family Christmas where kids were running about with people laughing in the background.  But she was single and alone?  A mirror with her reflection, older, happy.  But she was young?

 

Her eyes slowly widened.  A growing strength like a young daisy taking with flower crept up within her.

 

She pushed every sinew and urged every morsel in her body to move to reach for the phone.  This wasn’t how her story was going to end.  Not here on this floor.

 

The realisation flowed through her mind like never before.  She knew who the artist was.  She knew who painted her canvas of life.

 

Picking up the phone, she dials a number that promptly answers.

In a weakened voice, she utters just a few words.

“I am the artist.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Part of the #BePositiveWriteNow : The First Sentence project. Each first sentence in each story is written by an Instagrammer.