Michael
Life was never all that he had hoped for. It never is, he thought. Alive and surviving was good enough, he thought as well. Yet, deep down, in a lost forgotten corner in his heart, he knew that being “not miserable” would never suffice, and that if he left this world being ordinary, he might as well had never lived.
While taking in another long and frustrated breath, he stared at his art. Paint to paper, nothing more. He had seen the paintings of the greatest, he had been to museums, and comparing made him feel small. He painted landscapes, but the one he was looking at that day was of a café in the rain. So cliché, and not much to his liking, but the image was hunting him like a maddening song stuck at the back of his head on repeat.
Michael tucked the brush over his ear, paint accidently mudding his jet black strands. “I’m coming,” he said, before looking once again at his art and sighing.
He walked to the door, but the knocks were relentless and almost unnerving. “I said I’m coming!” He raised his voice, hissing as he shuffled around to find a towel to hold the knob with rather that just smearing paint all over it. He looked around himself a few times, almost as if he was chasing his tail before giving up. In his defense, the knob was already half smeared, and if his mother was going to complain about it yet again, he was going to confront her. Yes, yes! He was a 30 year old and he didn’t need his mom marching into his place and telling him how to run his life as if he was still in diapers!
He whipped the door open, just about leaving burn marks on the ground, but no one was there. The surprise was enough to pull him outside his mind, and the fits of angered courage that nearly never left its confines.
“Hello?” He walked out and looked down the corridor.
When no one answered, he shuffled back inside. He blamed it on the neighbor’s kids. That kind of thing was happening a lot lately, and he had made the decision to complain to the mother very sternly; or perhaps, just point it to her attention, if he happened to meet her, and if she looked like she was in a good mood… cop out.
He then lowered his eyes to the knob, and began wiping it with his sleeve. He might not be ready to confront his mother after all. Right at that moment, as if on a queue, the phone began ringing, and then her voice message played. He ignored it and began to brush the bristles back across paper, in small shy strokes.
“Michael, are you there, honey?”
“Pick up.”
“Pick up.”
“Pick up.”
“Your father is worried about you.”
“Is it too much for your poor mother, who gave all her life to you, to ask you to comfort her and pick up your phone?”
He frowned. She had him whipped, he grumbled. He reached to answer the phone, but only found static at the other end. He pressed the flash button a few times, yet the line never connected.
“Odd. It was just working fine.” He hung up, before huffing. “Great, now I’ve got paint on the phone too. Just great.”
He should call the phone company; he made a mental note, before deciding that it might be a good excuse to keep out of his mother’s reach for a few days. It wasn’t like he had anyone else to call or receive calls from. Time to get ready.
A few minutes later, he was standing in front of his door, and wrapping scarf around his neck. Black, red, and blue paints were still lodged beneath his nails, and on a few strands of hair, like acupuncture against his skin. His boss was going to complain again.
