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| © 2007 zygoteinmycoffee Ink. |
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| by Timothy Gager |
| Morgan stirs a brush in a coffee can full of turpentine but it won’t come clean enough. The dirty liquid drips down the inside of the can as he scrubs the brush against the lip.
Becka hears it wondering if the dog needs to go out before realizing it’s only him again. It is 2 AM, Morgan is staring at the naked picture of a woman on the canvas. He reaches down and shuts off his newest compact disc: Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in E Flat. Morgan wearily presses the wrong button. The morning comes too quickly like it has all year. Becka plops a cup of coffee in from of him and she is out the door. Morgan drags a spoon around the lip of the cup. He wonders what she is wearing this morning but is annoyed that he didn’t notice. He tries to narrow it down between a business suit and a dress but he fails at that too. She had on her long red winter coat. That he remembers. It was the coat he bought her last Christmas. Has it been that long, since he had noticed much of anything about her? Morgan sits at his office and thinks about her. Not Becka. He thinks he could use more shadowing to add rich dimension to his painting. Some thick round brush strokes of black and purple around her breasts and behind would help, something to enhance her features. These images have filled his head for months. They would pass the time at work, yet they were only the image and not the real art. When he returns home he sees that there is more than enough shadowing, perhaps too much. The contrast seem alarming to him. The nipples are much too red. Morgan looks for his brushes. The cans, not found where he left them, forces him to walk the room corner to corner. The cans should be here somewhere. “Becka…,” he shouts. She is on the sofa watching CNN a fork in a cardboard rectangle tray of food. “Have you seen my brushes?” “The dog knocked the cans over. I had to clean everything up.” The fork suspends a foot over the tray and a noodle drops off, falling back down into the abyss. “So the brushes are?” “Morgan…” “The brushes are where?” he asks, stroking his scruffy stubble under his cheekbone down to his chin with one hand. “I saw the painting.” “It’s just a painting.” “I think I know her.” “No, it’s a painting. If you could tell me where my brushes are…” “I don’t know, Morgan. I just don’t know anymore.” “We’ll talk about it soon.” “They in the utility sink in the basement?” she says flatly. “Thanks.” Morgan leaves the room. Morgan looks at the painting. It is all wrong. The green, purple and black he used for shadow makes her look sinister. She is evil. He reaches for a clean canvas leaning against the wall. He squeezes a tube of green and swirls the color around in a circular motion. He adds some whites and browns tones for the background. It is Impressionist!, he thinks “ and I can do this.” He has never started a painting and finished it on the same night. “I can do this,” he says out loud. Morgan paints with an excitability he rarely experiences as his brushes work in a frenzy versus the canvas. He streaks the proper blend of green, white and brown to offset the red center which is in the shape of three humps on top, painted rich and round down to a point at the bottom. It is a painting of their common heart, whole and unbroken. When he tries to finish, he can’t. It is 6 AM, his brush still moving as quickly as a trumpet blowing sixteenth notes and Morgan begins to cry. |
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| June 2007 |
| 90 |