A Christmas After-Tale: the Shoemaker's Curse

Sleep Painting

I did it again. I must have slept painted last night. That has been happening a lot lately, especially since we're nearing the Christmas season. The pressure of getting things done has entered my sleep world. I can't complain, at least I'm getting my orders completed in a timely fashion.

"I always surprise myself." I mumble around a yawn.

As I blink away the sleep from my worn out eyes, I stare at my finished masterpiece... Well, if you can call a forty inches-by-forty inches canvas of nothing but a red background and a giant elf holding a hammer and a toy truck a masterpiece. It sure is festive, I give it that. To me, I couldn't consider it art, just a simple decoration. Art would entail a hidden message behind it. This...well, it just looked like an-overstuffed-Santa's elf puked Christmas all over it.

No, I didn't decide the subject of the painting, it was requested by a paying customer, who wanted it the day before it was requested.

That's what I do. I paint canvases for a fee. Not a very large fee, since no one bought the rates I was charging at first, so I was forced to lower the costs lately. But hey, I have to earn money for Art School, right? Since mom and dad's finances haven't been stellar recently, I thought I'd earn my way to art school. It's the only thing a good daughter can do.

It's a cool morning in the loft, which is reasonable for a November morning. I wouldn't be surprised if there is snow outside. It gets really cold in my bedroom/art studio loft, since the insulation needed to be replaced since like...ten years ago. The good thing about the loft is that it isn't too big for a space heater, which I will fire up in a few.

The small loft is located in front part of my family's Victorian house. It fairly large two story building with robin eggshell blue window shutters. It was a lovely house, a bit of a constant fixer-upper, but it's home.

I love my house as much as I do my room. It's as if I have my own apartment up here. In the corner, I have a mini-fridge, microwave, and coffee maker, the essentials. In the other corner, I have a wardrobe full of my artsy, geeky looking clothes, which mainly consists of leggings, skirts, and geeked out shirts. I wasn't much for fashion, but I do love me a good shirt to express my love of fandoms. Although, like every Schumacher in my family, I did appreciate me a good pair of shoes; boots to be exact, some with heels and some without. My favorite pair is the lace-up light brown, riding boots that I got for my seventeenth birthday last month. On occasion, I fancied myself some fashionable heels. Let's just say, the real reason why I hardly had an extensive wardrobe, is basically because my closet was full of shoes.

Mom always said that I would first been seen going stark naked, than bare foot. That saying has become more true than funny as I grow older.

Perhaps I have a problem?

Then to the window that faces the front lawn, my bed is built into a bay window, complete with a bookshelf headboard. Which leaves the center of the room, which most of the time is a disaster area of paints, canvases, and the odd brush thrown about.

Yeah, this is my life.

Still snuggled in a blanket around my shoulders, in which I don't remember even grabbing. Must have been mom or dad came in sometime last night and did it.

Reaching out from under the blanket to grab up a pencil thin paintbrush, I dipped it in some black, and made my mark in the bottom right corner of the canvas:

I.L. Schumacher.

Which stand for...

"Isa Lauris!"

Well, that actually.

"Yeah, Mom?" I shout back. "What did I do this time, pray tell?"

"There's paint splatters all over the bathroom sink!" Mom screeches from the bottom of the stairs. "Get your butt down here and clean it up pronto! We have visitors coming in today!"