By: Jay Hesser
David sat staring at the wall, a wall he’s stared at for many hours of his young life and watched as the paint dried. He wasn’t supposed to think of anything else but the paint drying on the wall, so he did. In one hand he clutched the brush he used, and with the other he picked off dry flecks of paint on his arms. Two coats. For the crime of drawing on his father’s new shoes he was punished with painting and watching two coats dry. He was bored out of his mind and the color was so nasty and gross that it brought a phantom scent of rotten eggs to his nostrils. He would grip his nose and squint his eyes as if a skunk had contaminated the room, but then he remembered that he let his mind wander and he would focus back on the wall.
Maybe he wouldn’t notice if I only did one coat, he thought. But he would. His dad noticed everything.
He sat on a blue tarp that crinkled every time he walked, which made him think of walking on a lake of ice, so he preferred to stay seated. There were no other objects in the room besides himself, his paint brush, and his paint can. On his left was a window, but it had been covered by another blue tarp.
On the ceiling a fan swung lazily in endless circles. Sagging beneath the bright bulb of the ceiling light were two pull chains that swung and clinked against one another whenever the fan made a complete rotation. He enjoyed watching them clash into one another because in his mind one was a knight in iron armor clad with red and blue jewels that glimmered whenever he ran into battle, while the other chain was a giant dragon-like creature of his creation called the Margon that had three lion heads, the body of a chameleon, and talons like an eagle. Like a dragon, it could breathe fire and fly, but it could also lift five times its body weight and turn completely invisible when in danger. The brave knight had slain many fearsome beasts before, but this Margon was the fiercest of them all. David watched this cutthroat battle play out in his head: the knight jumped off his horse and grabbed onto the Margon’s third neck, then the second head tried to chase the horse, while the first snapped its strong jaws at the knight, but he acted quickly and drove his sword right into the first head’s eye. The Margon’s heads shrilled and grew agitated with the small gnat of a warrior terrorizing them. Then, David realized he had been staring at the ceiling for too long and recentered his focus on the wall of paint.
The walls were barren besides the fifteen layers of paint that David had slathered on previously. Over the years of sitting and watching, his spot on the tarp became familiar to him and his behind. He still used the same paint brush his father gave him the first time he was punished. Despite being so young, the first time felt so long ago that he could barely remember all the details. He recalled splashes of watercolor paint blooming on his father’s white button-up, but then the rest came to him in flashing images: a hard grab of the wrist, a slamming of the door, and a hunger that felt like bubbling lava clawing at the sides of his belly.
Thirst had come upon him not too long ago. The only moment when he could leave the room was when he had to pee, so anything else he needed he had to ask for. But always first his father would ask, “Is the wall finished drying?” and David would say no with his eyes cast downward, and his father would scowl. If he asked for a glass of water, his father would allow him a few sips before taking the glass and closing the door. Not slamming the door per se, but a soft, gentle click of the metal mechanism working how it does. His father would sigh before he walked off to another part of the house to do something, which David had no clue.
Sometimes, by the time the paint finished drying, his father would be asleep on the couch with a take-out dinner resting on his stomach. David’s dinner would be ready on the table, cold. It had been sitting for an hour or so.
His stomach did not grumble, but his mind did. He hungered for some form of entertainment or even the ability to imagine something, but he had to restrict himself. Misbehaving meant more coats, meant more hunger and more boredom. It also meant seeing his father upset after a “long, hard day at his job” as he tended to spout. When his father got upset, he became a different person, a scary person.
So, David tried his best to not imagine any dragons, aliens, or superheroes; so instead, he stared at the wall of drying paint. With his brush, he dipped the bristles into the paint bucket and flicked an array of tiny, beige droplets at the top of the wall across from him.
He watched two droplets that landed above all the others. One tall and one fat. While most beads of paint raced down to the bottom, these two took their time, cascading to the right and to the left with not much care as to when they would be done. Together they created a third tiny droplet right in between them and they all traveled with one another for a few inches before the two big ones were torn apart. The tiny droplet never quite found its place with one or the other. At one time it would ride with the tall droplet and then next it would cascade to the fat one. And back and forth it went.
The tiny droplet often got in trouble for ignoring its teachers and drawing everywhere. On the work papers and desks, on its arms and legs. Then the tall droplet got angry, he would hand the tiny droplet a bucket of paint and a paint brush, then he said mean things to the tiny droplet, like:
“You want to be an artist so bad? Well here. Paint to your heart’s content. This is what it’s like to be an artist; you just sit around and watch paint dry all day!”
Then, the little droplet had to watch the walls dry and think only about the walls drying. The tall droplet told the little one that he would know if his mind wandered, so don’t let it do so. No playing or singing or dancing or anything or else he would have to paint the walls again. So, the little droplet watched the paint dry and tried its best to prevent any knights or dragons from emerging in the brushes and streaks. He tried his best to see the wall for what it was, and only for what it was and that was a wall with some paint on it.
David blinked and felt little droplets of his own falling down the sides of his face. He realized too late that he let his mind wander, and now he was afraid that his dad would know. Any moment he might bust in and…and… lock him in the attic and feed him scrapes for dinner. David would be forced to live among the rats and become their rat king. He would train them to scavenge the attic to find bits of dust and string for his own entertainment, and quickly teach them to scavenge the entire house. Soon enough, David would have control of his father’s home without him even knowing. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.
He stood, holding his breath, and approached the wall. He saw something in the paint, a picture that wasn’t actually there, yet so vivid that it had to be real. He wanted to make it real. With his paint brush, he found the shape formed by thousands of tiny droplets coming together, working with one another to make something great. Two strokes worked together to make the ear of a lion. Three more collectively created eyes and a nose. Before his eyes, he could see the lion’s head hidden in the paint.
Knock, Knock.
“Everything alright in there? I heard you walking on the tarp.”
“Uh,” David had to think quickly. “Yeah,” come on, come on, “I just have to pee.”
His father sighed and he heard the door open. David escaped to the bathroom exactly one room over. Very quickly, as to not draw his father’s concern, he used the bathroom and returned to the room to finish his sentence. One coat drying, the other one still lied in his future.
He sat back down on his spot on the tarp, the one that his butt had made a print into, and watched the paint dry. His father didn’t mention anything about the lion on the wall. In fact, he didn’t even seem upset anymore. David had a sapling of an idea grow in his mind, and this time he let it play out.
He dipped his pointer finger into the paint bucket and traced a stroke on the wall behind him with the flick of his hand.
Years later, David sat on a bench and watched the paint dry on the wall in front of him. He sat in the middle of a wide, open room. Every wall was eggshell white and hung upon them were one to two paintings hanging. Ten of the paintings in the room were a part of his own exhibit. He labored through nine paintings, conjuring up the spectacles of his childhood for inspiration. After each painting was complete to his satisfaction, he tore them directly down the middle. Like this, each painting was hung in two separate halves, each about an inch apart.
The final painting was a mural painted directly onto the wall of the museum. The title: Imagination. The mural consisted of 46 layers of beige-colored, oil-based paint. On the plaque next to the piece, he only wrote a simple sentence:
If you stare long enough, you’ll find the face of a lion.
He stared at the paint on the wall as it dried, and he was surrounded by dozens of observers staring with him.
Jay Hesser is a queer author based in Georgia. This is his first publication so he is excited to get his foot in the door of the world of publishing. He is currently studying English at Kennesaw State University. He loves writing and literature and wishes to pursue it as a career.