|3|

    The apartment was quiet. Apart from the constant tap of Mark's pencil, all else was silence. He stared at the paper before him with a look akin to boredom and hatred. The words glared back at him — Sophomore College Choices.

“Jesus, you're still doing that?”

“Ah — FUCK!” Mark screeched. He jumped up from his desk.

A low chuckle sounded from behind the black haired man. Mark spun around and was face to face with Bob —  six foot tall, chubby, four eyed dork.

“Bob, what the hell?”

The perpetrator grinned unabashedly at his roommate, crashing down onto their worn out sofa. Mark sighed, pushing his papers back into a manilla folder before slouching into his swivel chair, turning to face Bob. He had to tilt his chin upwards to look at his friend. God how he hated being fucking short. Both the college students were twenty two, Bob being a Junior in college, starting earlier than Mark.

It was well known and accepted that Bob was going far. He’d had a steady girlfriend for nearly three years, along with amazing grades and successful projects all the time. Mark . . . well, he was none of those things. His grades had suffered at the very end of his Freshman year. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do. His father was dead. His sleep was haunted.

He was going nowhere in an endless maze, no exit in sight.

Mark rubbed his eyes, leaning back in the chair. He sighed once more, before becoming one with the ripped, stained, and old chair. Bad thoughts, bad thoughts.

“How’s the choosing going?” Bob asked. “It doesn't look so good.”

He sighed. “No. It's not. I have no idea what I want to do. I'm ready to just circle something random and hope I'm good at it.”

Bob nodded in response, empathizing silently. He glanced at his watch. Mark gave him a questioning stare, to which bob replied quickly: “Look, I'm sorry. I can't stick around for long, but if you need help, text me,” Bob apologized. “I just came back to pick up the rest of my things.”

Mark hid his scowl behind his messy hands, trying to ignore the emptiness of the apartment.

Nearly a month had passed since Bob confessed to proposing to his girlfriend, Mandy. Since then he had been packing up his things and dragging them to her place. Damn it. Bob pat Mark on the shoulder and left, enveloping the room in a depressing quiet.

—

    There was no use taking a car to campus. Mark lived within a five minute walk, and he really didn't feel like wasting gas for a dumb paper he didn't care about.

So, he walked.

It was peaceful out — grass was growing, a light breeze blowing, and a tiny little dog was thrashing around in the grass. A figure in the distance bounced around and played with the fat little thing, making Mark laugh. He loved dogs. As a child he had one, but when he moved away from home his landlord wouldn't allow pets.

“Mark! Mark, hey! It's me!”

Mark squinted off into the distance, recognizing the figure playing with the animal. It was Felix!

Mark and Felix jogged over to one another, throwing arms around each other into a bro hug.

“Felix, what's up?”

The Swedish man laughed, picking up his infamous puppy Edgar and placing him in his backpack. Felix was a fellow Sophomore, and a wacky guy who brought his pug Edgar with him wherever he went. It was well known that Felix let people use his pup as a therapy dog, and so the school didn't make a fuss about having an animal on campus.

Besides, the motherfucker was cute.

“The sky,” he replied. “I’m just walking Edgar so he won’t get anxious at the showing.”

Mark nodded. “Sure. What showing? Is there a play or?”

Felix smiled dazzlingly. The duo were like day and night — Mark having dark black hair, and Felix having wavy dirty blonde locks. His eyes were a calm blue, sparkling water in the midst of a miserable campus. Once again, he was taller than Mark, like everyone else. Fuck.

“No,” the brunette laughed. “It’s the art department’s Art Festival. Don’t you remember? I told you I was being featured in it?”

Mark gasped. “Oh shit! I was invited by Mr. Klein to go. I totally forgot.”

The Swede laughed. He placed an arm over Mark’s shoulders, pulling his friend close. “Mr. Klein? That’s a surprise. Anyhow, I’m all ready to split. Wanna tag along?”

The dark haired man didn’t get a chance to answer as he was dragged forward breathlessly. Hallways blurred as they ran relentlessly - heart pumping blood quicker and faster and more and more. Edgar made few noises as he was jostled in the backpack. Felix let out a laugh, glancing back at his American friend. It almost seemed he was asking with his eyes “Are you feeling the air in your lungs circulate? Can you taste the blood pumping in your ears? Do you feel as alive as you’ve ever been?”

Truth be told, Mark hadn’t felt that way since his father had been diagnosed with cancer. After that cold, dreary day, it seemed life took on a dull undertone. No longer did he feel his heart bang against his ribcage in excitement. The simple joys, like listening to music and feeling cold rain on bare flesh, were mere memories. Mark became a mirror image of a person who once lived.

Felix was vibrant and radiating joy.

Mark was monotonous and oozing disparity.

The dark haired artist could remember when he first met Felix, a foreign exchange student from Sweden. They’d bonded over video games and their surprising excess amount of energy. It seemed Mark’s foreign friend was only a distant memory of who he had been. A saddening reminder. . .

Mark shook his head and blinked twice, pulling himself out from his thoughts. Within seconds the room he was in took on new shapes and colors and sounds. The old art studio was covered with displays and hors d'oeuvres to nibble on. It seemed nearly two hundred people lingered and chattered. It was quite . . . nice.

Walls upon walls were covered in art. Contemporary, abstract, everything and anything filled the room. The art studio had become a work of art itself, hundreds of people snacking and judging the pieces. For a minute, Mark was sucked into his childhood — he remembered going to the Vica Museum as a kid, riding on his dad's shoulders. His father would point out different artists and what he enjoyed about their work. Jason, his older brother, would jump around and get excited. Their stepmother kept a hold of Jason, always trying to keep everything smooth and calm.

As if on cue, Mark could clearly hear his father's words of advice: “Why appreciate paintings, when you could make them? Why make them, when you could admire them?”

“This is impressive,” he said. “You guys have quite the crowd.”

Felix let out a rough laugh again. “Nah, dude this is only the first hour rush. Wait ‘til four rolls around. Check it all. We worked hard. The seniors too.” The two boys laughed. The seniors really hated to work, so it came as a surprise that they even helped out. Much like high school, senioritis plagued all graduates.

“There’s a photography thing I tried,” Felix murmured as they trotted through the crowd. “It was kinda lame but I finished it because . . . ”

Mark tuned him out.

He didn't want to be here, but the exquisite colors and bold brush strokes piqued his interest. What his friend was saying became a far off background noise as his eyes wandered.

Mark wandered away from Felix, casually looking around, feigning interest. He no longer saw art in the same light as before. With his father gone, the colors and vibrancy of them faded, however, he could appreciate to some lesser degree.

He skimmed some weird sculptures of a naked woman, raising his eyebrows at the strange positions. He almost ran into a canvas the size of him, so realistic he thought it was an actual person. These people had talent. Still, he didn’t care much. As he walked around indifferently, he found a quiet spot. No one was around, except for a single portrait of what seemed to be a sad, bitter old woman.

“What’s your deal?” Mark muttered, and leaned against the wall to stare at her cold and uncaring eyes.

She didn't answer.

“Yeah, I know,” he replied. “Life sucks. At least you're a dumb painting hung on a wall. I'd need a ladder to do that.”

The woman was beautiful. Or, at least she had been in youth. Her wrinkled hand reached out to an known figure drenched in black, her downturned lips and furrowed brows an indicator of her internal struggles. Clothed in a red dress, the woman gave off a bitter and royale vibe. He could only imagine being this haggard, decrepit woman.

Mark grimaced as he pictured himself hung up on a wall, collecting dust and having a horrible expression like the old lady. He figured she was in this lonely corner because she was sad and unattractive and so plain compared to all the other art pieces. She was mundane and normal — nothing outstanding at all. And in that moment, he felt two feet tall. He was that old woman. A neglected painting that would never go down in history as anything but alive. Just as he turned to go, a voice sounded out.

“You’re the only one that's visited Matilda.”

The black haired man frowned and turned around, seeing a familiar face — the artist from the Vica Museum.

“Excuse me?” Mark approached the green haired man, smiling from ear to ear.

The green haired artist held out his hand. “I was just saying you're the only one to visit Matilda. The painting.”

Mark shook his hand. “I didn't know her name. I just came up to . . . see. What’s up with Matilda anyway?”

“You’re not the only one to ask that,” the man chuckled. “For some reason everyone is disturbed by this little old lady. She's absolutely adorable to me. So what if she's a little grumpy? That's why no one's up here. Someone put her here so no one would have to see her.”

The man stopped smiling for a second, and waved Mark in. He leaned in and then whispered, “They say if you look at her too long, her eyes will follow you.”

The raven froze, making eye contact with the green haired stranger. And then — “RAH!”

“WHAT THE FUCK!”

Mark held his chest as the artist held his chest, guffawing loudly. His face turned red in anger, and embarrassment. The other man grabbed his forearm, still laughing, and gasped out an apology. “I am — so sorry, man! You just — looked so — scared!”

“So you're gonna scare me shitless but you won't introduce yourself? Where the hell are your manners?”

The artist smiled. “Up me arse. Name's Sean McLoughlin. Call me Jack. And you?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever, fuck you. I'm Mark. Did you paint this creepy thing? Now I'm convinced it's looking at me.”

Jack nodded. “I did. This lil ole lady is based off of a myth from my hometown. They call her the Witch of Briarsdale.”

“Witch of Briarsdale? Why?”

The green haired man grasped Mark by the shoulder, waving theatrically at the painting. Matilda stared back, unfeeling. “Matilda Briars was the name of the queen of our Province way back hundreds of years ago. Supposedly she fell in love with a young man, who wanted to marry her daughter. So do you know what she did?”

Mark shook his head.

“She locked her away in a cell,” Jack whispered. “And then she cursed her to never see again. However, the princess prayed to a goddess and supposedly the goddess helped her leave the cell and find her fiance. Legend has it Matilda was banished to the darklands for eternity, never to see sunlight again because of her vindictive jealousy.”

“So that person she’s reaching towards is the prince?”

“Yep,” Jack said. “Dark, ye?”

Mark shook his head and took a look at his phone; he’d been there for almost two hours. “Christ,” he exclaimed. “I’ve got to go. Catch you around, Jack.”

Without another word he slipped away from the green haired man, never noticing the manila folder lying on the floor.

—

End of | 3 |

Thoughts?