This was written for the Two for Tuesday Challenge #23. Prompt: Blank Canvas.

Some days Victor would dip his paintbrush in oil as blue as the morning sky and attempt to replicate its glory on his mother’s canvas, but the paint would somehow disappear before leaving its mark. Other days a careful shade of grey covering the top half of the canvas would change colour erratically, from red to green and purple, only to vanish before his eyes.

Watercolors dripped off and left rainbows on the dusty wooden floor. Charcoal combusted into temporary scorch-marks and a tentative crayon melted into a useless discus. Victor tried something new every few years, struck by inspiration, but neither plaster nor laser lasted. Near the end of his life he tried more metaphorical art, but his tears of frustration and angrily extracted blood seemed to evaporate even faster.

Having had no children, a local charity inspected Victor’s house on his passing. The appraiser found a canvas covered with minute strokes, with not a centimetre wasted – a comic-strip snaking of small panels telling a story. Clear skies left way for dying grass under a warm breeze, hazy rainbows followed by cityscapes, all leading to the last panel, the only one without a thick black border. A raging sea, filled with the lifeblood of its victims, seemed to give off a glow that spread to the rest of the piece, illuminating it.

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Word Count: 223