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Sarah had spent the last few nights in the art studio, relentlessly painting rolling hills and smooth waters. She delicately placed each stroke to make the scene perfect. Ever since the image had come to her in a dream, she could do nothing but paint the coastline over and over again, a trait of her personality which recently had cost her hours of sleep.
As she painted the final details, she sat back to admire her work, closing her eyes and imagining the picture in her head. After several minutes of critiquing had passed, she carefully lifted the canvass from the easel and leaned it against the wall with six other paintings on various sized canvasses of the same scenery. She stepped back and took in all of the pictures, criticizing and determining which she admired most. She was about to begin putting away the paints when she heard a door open and close. Sarah paused and looked around the room.
The art studio wasn’t very large, but Sarah had been painting in the back room, away from the large glass front of the building so she wouldn’t have to turn on all the lights and so no one would see her. She glanced down at her watch and saw that it was after midnight. Since she had worked at the art studio for three years, the owner, who was also a close neighbor, had given her a set of keys so she could come and paint whenever she liked. But the owner was sixty-seven and was fast asleep at this hour, so Sarah didn’t know who it could be.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she took slow and deliberate steps to the front room. She felt like she was losing her mind and began to wonder if she had heard anything. It could have been next door. It could have been… She stood in the doorway of the backroom and gazed upon the studio. The glass front seeped light in from the street but she could only see object close to the large windows. The normally inspiring studio filled with easels and colors had shifted into a room of shadows.
She peered across the entire space, seeing straight lines, wooden frames, canisters, and something on the wall. She strained her eyes, but nothing she could do helped her recognize the shape as an inanimate object. The shape was motionless but Sarah continued to stare, until she finally recognized the shape as human.
She discreetly slipped her hand inside her pocket and began dialing 911 on her cell phone. Once she hit the first number her phone had lit up, illuminating the space around her. She took in a gasp of breath as the shape began striding towards her. She jumped back into the back room and slammed the door before the shape had reached her. Sarah locked the door with one hand and continued dialing 911 with the other. She looked around desperately for a weapon in the room, but only art supplies lined the space. Calm down. Calm down. All she could relay to the police on the other line was the address of the studio before the call went dead. She looked down at her phone and saw the service bars were gone. There was a knocking at the door which separated her from the shape. Her mind completely stopped. He’s not going away. She stopped panicking and her eyes went from terror to territorial.
The intruder put his hand against the wooden door that separated Sarah from him. From this side, he could hear her calling for help and cursed at himself. He needed to get to her soon. His hand slid across the grain and gently knocked on the door, noticing it was hollow. It wouldn’t take much to break it. The police station was only a few blocks away, so he decided a direct approach would be best.
He stepped away from the door and then ran towards it, slamming his shoulder against the impediment. He stepped back, releasing the shoulder from an indent. He stepped back again, and this time kicked at the door. The sound of cracking wood filled the air as the door released from its hinges and swung down awkwardly to the floor. He rushed into the room, enraged from the pain in his shoulder and leg, and searched his pocket for the switch blade.
He strode into the room, and as he took that fist step across the threshold, Sarah appeared from the side with a raised easel and brought it crashing down on his head.
Sarah had heard the crunch of the hollow door and knew she didn’t have long. She searched desperately around the room, but the only blunt object was the table easel she had painted on. She took it and inverted the fashioned weapon, getting used to its weight, and stood to the side of the door, turning down the lights. When the second hit came, she saw the door fall and raised the easel above her head.
The cloaked intruder came rushing in through the door and didn’t even have time to think as the easel came down with breaking force. The wood splintered and small pieces of the object flew about the room, but the satisfying sound of fracturing timber made Sarah smile as the easel split into pieces. The force of the blow had caused the intruder to black out and he fell unconscious to the floor.
On the remaining wood piece Sarah held in her hand, the normally light wood had been stained with some of the intruder’s blood. Sarah breathed in short, heavy breaths as she stood victoriously as if standing over prey. Sirens filtered in from the street and a few moments later she saw flashing blue and red lights.
Sarah tiptoed over the body, resisting the urge to whack the man with another easel, and made her way to the front of the room, still brandishing the bloody weapon.
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I just felt like writing this. It sounded better in my head.
I originally wanted this to be apart of another story, but the characters didn’t fit, so I just wrote a short story. Don’t ask me how the intruder got it. I’m going for he had a key, because Sarah wasn’t stupid enough to leave the studio unlocked. I just really wanted the bad guy to get whacked with an easel. That’s basically the premise.
 Qua Quidam · Sat Apr 05, 2008 @ 12:31am · 4 Comments |
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