Fiction, Part 2 of 2 — Laura Merchant
A story of an artist’s perseverance
T
he time was nearing 4:00 am
and the young woman was
once again fighting fatigue.
She knew she must continue so she
took another sip of coffee and kept
working. Deciding to play some
music, she turned on the radio. When
she sat back down she once again
evaluated her progress. Not yet satisfied, she picked up her brush. As the
music played, she let her mind wander. With every graceful move of her
arm, she painted the figures on her
canvas. Slowly, as though in a vision,
the figures seemed to move. The
figures transformed into her beloved
friends whom she missed. The late
34 Reflections • Mar/Apr 2014
nights working on her art had made
it seem as though she barely knew
them anymore.
The imagined ghost-like images of
her friends didn’t seem to know she
was there. Their laughter warmed her
heart and she called out to them, but
they did not hear. The images walked
away, laughing, never looking back.
They left the painter alone with her
work. After a moment, she looked
again at her painting. She knew she
had to press on. There was a driving
force in her that she could not
forget. A creative passion that
nothing on earth could extinguish.
So she painted.