Painting With The Sky

• Amara Lyndsay Cowell, Grade 5, Wycheproof P-12 College
• Short Story
• 2017

Excellence Award in the 'Write Here Write Now 2017' competition

I put the soft bristles on the canvas and lightly stroked the soon to be ocean. I was painting with sky. Whenever I painted with the mellow sky my paintings were full of colour but today I was painting something interesting, but it wasn't colourful it was grey. It was like the clouds silently whispered to me and gave me inspiration. I painted a girl with her cheeks wet from tears and her blond, almost like spun gold hair. But her white dress was torn like someone ripped it roughly. I didn't know why I painted her it was like the sky and the clouds told me to.
I packed my worn-out paints and went inside, I decided to leave my painting in the soft rays of sunlight and under the fluffy clouds. I followed the old broken stone path and went in my little cottage home. When I went inside I saw my cat, her eyes were staring unblinkingly at my painting that I made many years ago. Her green eyes kept on staring at the same spot on my painting, until she noticed me and disappeared into the shadows.
I stepped closer to the painting that was cloaked in the dark shadows. Then I saw something in my painting, I had painted that painting many years ago and knew it like the back of my own hand. It was the girl with the ripped dress and the tears slowly rolling down her face.
Her hand was reaching out to me, almost pulling me closer.
I stumbled backwards and almost tripped I regained my balance and closed my eyes. "I must be seeing things," I whispered. I stepped hesitantly closer to the painting and took a sigh of relief, the girl was gone. But to make sure, I ran up the old stone path to where the painting was drying in the mellow sunlight.
She wasn't there, all that was there was the sandy beach. Strangely the canvas was torn, it was torn like someone or something had reached out and clawed my painting. I couldn't figure it out, "How could something just walk out of a painting" I whispered to myself. "Like this" someone replied softly.
I turned around half wanting to run away as far as possible, the girl stared at me with her eyes full of sadness. She wasn't how I painted her, I painted her eyes as blue as the sky but now they were black almost like buttons and her white dress was covered in red stains. I don't know why but I threw the torn canvas at her. She ear piercingly screamed and vanished in thin air. I turned the canvas over and there she was. She was laying down her now black button eyes staring at the sad ocean, strangely the canvas was not torn anymore it looked almost new. I loved painting with the sky, but I never did it again.