Masterpiece

I took my time.

He watched me set up. I don't think he believed me, that I would do it. But once the signs grew more apparent, he began to panic. A small waver in his smirk, at first. That tiny flash of knowing. And then that chuckle, nerves showing underneath his thin skin of superiority. He accused me of having no creative eye. He said I was selling out. He called me an idealist with one breath and a cynic with the next. He screamed at me, words and spit hurtling from his mouth and splattering across my face. But my grip on the paintbrush never slipped.

My hands stayed steady as I grew closer. My face remained impassive. My arms flowed. I took my time. Line by line, stroke by sweeping stroke, I painted over him until he was nothing but an angry pair of lips, spewing insults and black ink.

And then, suddenly, I paused. I paused for the first time in days, staring up at that Earth-shattering mouth. That mouth had known me. My world was once held in the shallow dip of that tongue. The willing brush strained against my hesitating hands.

The mouth noticed my indecision, and it smiled lazily. I watched, transfixed, as its lips parted, its tongue already sculpting its next enticing phrase. Did you...

It was not I who did it. It was the brush that shot up before the mouth could string together any more words for my noose, dragging my arm along with it. The brush knew better. In three swift strokes, there was no mouth, expunged from reality, leaving only canvas and thin air in its place. The thinnest.

Gently, carefully, I set the paintbrush down.

I stood up straight, staring at the screaming emptiness, and I realized that there was a certain ease in facing an oblivion of my own making.