Possibilities: A short story

Rain slithered slowly down the pane of glass as the trees swayed and creaked under the duress of the storm. I spun my pen around my index finger as I lay on the soft down comforter that was splattered with the paint of latest creation. My stomach growled softly, reminding me that eight hours had passed. The soft ambient glow of the dim yellow lamp cast shadows against the beige carpet. They twisted and churned, mingling with the dull grey of the outside world.

The flowers painted haphazardly on broad canvases that cluttered the room lifted gently off the white, spinning and swaying like the real ones enduring the thunderous rage of the skies. I heaved a sigh of pain and giddy sorrow as the IV burned in my arm, wondering if the flowers would take me that day. My joints felt like pepper grinders being used every second of every day. My muscles felt like sandpaper against the inside of my skin. My veins were lit with the fire of the medicine whose constant dribbling punctuated the otherwise silent room.

Where was my place in this world? It wasn't a question I was asked or that I wondered about. The room in which I resided was my place. For me, there was no future, shining brightly ahead and awaiting my outstretched hand. Here was my beginning, my middle and my end. I would paint away my sorrows, and the drugs would keep my mind and body otherwise numb. It was my life.

I could've spent the hours cursing the sun as it shined beyond my reach. I could've wailed at the moon for being so beautiful in the face of my suffering. I could have resented those children who ran the streets, laughing and playing as though I weren't trapped in a body that allowed me no love from another. I could do a lot about the ache in my chest where the empty void resided, but none of it could change the way that my skin clung to my bony frame. Nothing could change my frail, pale face or the way that the outside world marched on without me. I was dying.

Instead, I painted. I poured my heart and soul into the mystical colors that spanned across generations. Beauty, in all its forms, be it the gruesome or the porcelain, was what I would be remembered for. I would cast my mark on these paintings, and the world would remember the girl who died with a smile on her face. I would be the girl whose name rung out when people bemoaned their state in life. They would see the beauty that I created with my weak and trembling fingers and believe, for once in their brief, flickering lives, that anything was possible.

I didn't have to believe it.

They did.