I am the creator of discontent.
I work in the medium of pain and misery. I am the master artist, and you are the canvas. A whisper here, an oh so slight nudge there, and my creations jump from the medium and come to life. I have been perfecting and plying my craft for ages. Time immortal. When done, when my work is complete, and my endeavors comes to life, you pay me. You pay me in sorrow. My bill reconciled in regret. And when I have done my job with exceptional skill, I bask in your succulent guilt. I am the satisfied artisan!
You make my work so very easy, and I revel in what I create. Let the greater ones concern themselves with the fate of nations, balancing the scales between life and death. I desire no such grandeur. My role small – my creations will never achieve the status of murder, war, pestilence. As the lamprey with the shark, my relationship with the great ones is symbiotic. There is always misery enough to share.
How do I create? You provide the sail cloth of impatience, the oils of self-doubt, the clays of hate. These I manipulate with my masters touch and create a tapestry of suffering.
You are returning the defective item to the crowded store, irritated that you have to make the trip back and fight the masses. The line at the return counter is long and slow. I work my way behind you, remind you of how precious your time, your importance. I feel your rising tension. The underpaid and overworked clerk behind the counter becomes fatter, duller. Her slight overbite becomes more pronounced, her hair a little bit dingier, her attitude surlier. I whisper confusion in your ear, gently stoking the slow ember of anger you hold close to your heart.
With each step closer to the counter, I am warmed by your hate. My work almost complete, one final touch and the masterpiece will be ready for the unveiling.
“She is ignorant and lazy, you are smart and industrious!” I whisper. Finally your turn, and her innocuous prompt becomes sour and unfriendly in my skilled hands.
Your patience pushed, the limits of your goodwill unraveled, you unleash on the wallflower behind the counter with well-placed scoring strikes with your rapier sharp tongue. You watch her wither behind the barrage, and your anger rises like magma to the surface. Sensing blood in the water, you slam your article on the counter, you berate with a barrage of obscenities, and you are rewarded with a welling of tears.
Others turn to admire my work. You have made my job so very easy. How sweet the nectar of your guilt. How delectable the remorse. The further you sink, the richer and fuller my art. Your inner battle of regret for harsh words spoken rages – I am satiated.
But alas, my satisfaction does not last long, and I must be off to create again. You make it so easy.
You find yourself behind the slow driver, and I remind you how important you are! The geriatric, the teenager, the distracted mother, the foreigner. They all conspire to impede your progress. I remind you of your significance, your precious time. The clay of your selfishness feels perfect in my hands as I work it on the spinning wheel of emotion.
You honk your horn. You ride their bumper. You roar past, middle finger extended with all the hate and vengeance you can muster. I care not, just let me feed my creative desire. Actions taken, remorse felt, and colors jump from the canvas. Until bored with you. The desire to create urges me on, and I am off.
I am at home in the boardroom where an offhand comment can be quickly turned into insult and indignation. So easily can I turn the happenstance and innocent into snarling anger. I frequent the barroom. Alcohol fueled tempers flare from inflated ego, and my creation starts anew. Anger. Remorse. Ecstasy! The powerful ones wait in the wings, as my simple work may add to a greater, more devastating, more violent creation.
But I do my best work, my most tormented creations in pastels of swirling hate, brilliant flashes of anger, and luscious indigos and ebonies of remorse, when I work with the canvas created between love waning.
I sense such hurt now. A couple is in turmoil, anger and accusation rising. The two are alone, confused and frustrated.
How easy it is to work on the frayed emotions of those who know each other’s most intimate secrets. Couples who have bared all to each other, also have helped hone my chisel and hammer. The muttered comment, the sting of an indiscretion, accusations real or imagined, add vibrant pigments to my palette. I gorge on the remorse of the hateful remark of some former imprudence. I can tear asunder in moments what took years to create. Pain and mystery at its most intense. Love that has turned to vile rage and hate. I suckle at the mother’s milk of contrition, ruefulness, contriteness. My creation complete.
The couple is in deep turmoil – I can coax the rising anger and sharpen the barbs. I can feel the anger, pain, and misery rising in her. All she needs is some pushing from me, the words a torrent of pain and hate flooding out of her in revenge. She is in pain, she needs to share that pain, make him hurt. All she needs is a gentle push from my skilled hands.
I wrap around her from behind, becoming one. Grasped in my clutches I feel her smooth stomach and full breast. But it is not coitus I desire, nor climax she will receive. I am not here to give the gift of love, but paint tear asunder. Emotions in shambles, painfully tender, possibly never healing.
I whisper to her from my repertoire, gentle strokes of vengeance.
“Hurt him as he has hurt you,” I purr. “He has never cared for you or your feelings,” I empathize. He is selfish. He is inconsiderate. Point out all of his shortcomings. Stab the knife of anger and hatred repeatedly, until the emotions are a bleeding, ebbing flow.
Just as I am about to paint the final stroke, I sense that something is amiss. I coil tighter, grasping her in my clutches. I can feel her pain, I just need to caress it to the surface. But I feel something else. Something sinister, unpleasant, distasteful. Something repugnant is working its way to the surface, something in her resists and wishes to tear asunder my work. The bane of my creative existence. One who would destroy all I have worked so hard to create.
I have felt this presence before, and now know it is my mortal enemy. My combatant of the ages, we have battled over the unfinished canvas for eons. I fight harder. Snarling. Thrashing. I can feel the presence growing in strength, my own hold weakening. I begin to lose my control, the grip on her fragile emotions start to reject my grasp and I recoil as if from the searing flame. I scream and roil, this is my creation, my canvas, my pleasure!
I can feel the anger in her subside, my entire being weakening and in pain. She is succumbing to my nemesis, and I release my hold, exhausted.
My mortal enemy has prevailed and has destroyed all that I have worked to create, how vile the outcome.
How I despise the presence.
The presence of forgiveness.
Becoming Writer 2016 Anniversary Contest 