Butterscotch
Written by Suzy Park
Illustrated by Dong Nyung Lee
There once was a man who drew other people’s miseries.
No, this is incorrect.
There once was a man who expressed other people’s pain in his paintings. He wasn’t famous,
not at all, but his little shop in the corner of the street was always busy with customers coming and
going. No one stayed long inside; in fact, there were very few people who stayed over half an hour.
Most of them would go in, give a small smile or a little nod to the man, and come out. It was like a fast
food restaurant with the faint smell of oil paint lingering in the air instead of greasy fries and clamors
of frustrated men.
No one passing the shop understood why so many people visited it. There were curtains all
around the shop, purple velvet surrounding the place. The sign that hung in the air was totally wreckedit was hard to recognize the “Butterscotch” written in giant letters since they have faded almost completely. The wooden board was hanging loosely, and everyone thought that it would fall soon. Passing
strangers sometimes stopped by and asked the man why he hadn’t fixed it yet, but every time he replied
with the same words:
“People like it that way.”
So the mysterious shop in the corner was always booming, despite the dangling sign and the
odd-looking man unknown to most of the world.
* * *
The bells jangled, and the man turned around in his seat. He wasn’t that old, probably in his 50s,
and always wore purple glasses. His salt and pepper hair stuck out in every direction, and he always
wore a beige sweater. His shop was decorated with different paintings of people. There were a 5-yearold girl in a tutu, an old man sitting in a wheelchair, and a young man in his suits, looking sharp. There
were different genders, different ethnicities, and different ages. All kinds of people were portrayed in
the pictures.
The odd thing was, none of them were smiling. Some looked like they were crying for help,
some were weeping, and some were staring off into the distance. Some were smiling, but the smiles
were tight and forced, the kind that didn’t reach their eyes.
When the man turned around, he saw a young woman in her 20s, her golden hair neatly p [Y