My dream.

My dream.

His brush sails smoothly across his white canvas, the early morning glow of a midwinter’s morning casts a perfect golden glow upon his work and the birds chirp in the canopies of the Canadian pine trees.

In the painting, a girl sits on the edge of a pier – a single cigarette burning hopelessly betwixt her fingers. Beyond her, the sun rises, or sinks, he wasn’t sure, as the reflection in the sea mirrored the setting sun, whilst in the reality of the fictional world, the opposite occurs.

The sun lit up the tiny dust particles that floated aimlessly around the tiny attic room that Jonathan found himself in. The circular window that supported the triangular roof gave him a view of the woods that he could not utilise, or rather he found he would not. Ironically, the more colour and beauty he enveloped himself in, the less colour and wonder he would create in his own paintings. It didn’t matter too much, Jonathan would only be in Canada for another two days before the wonderful world dragged him to another locale, full of people to meet and worlds to find.

He flicked open his phone case, blue fabric with a small stain on the side. He had a rush to get to his flight, when he had dropped the phone in his breakfast with no time to clean it off. He kind of liked it. Gave the phone some history and character.

Jonathan added another stroke of blue to the ocean, and felt fulfilled. The pier had been left white, along with the sky and the girl’s jacket, but somehow it felt more complete that way. The sun was coloured yellow, or orange depending on how you looked at it; the sea was a deep blue and the end of the cigarette burned a bright red into the black ash that dripped into the sea with each tap of her finger. Though mostly monochromatic, it felt alive.

After an hour or two of simply sitting on the edge of the attic, staring out of the moon-shaped window, sandwich in hand and crisps just waiting to be devoured in his bag, Jonathan packed up his paints and canvas and made his way downstairs.

The very next day he made his way to the courier he had booked, a specialist in art delivery, and sent his work home, all properly packaged of course. Up next, was India. He had just enough money left over from his miraculous first sale to carry him to two more countries and back, plus the costs of sending his artwork home.

He just hoped he could find some weird and wonderful place that he would inevitably paint the complete opposite of.

The phone buzzed in his blue denim jeans, and when he read it he smiled, and quickly typed up an answer.

What did you name your painting today? – Mum.

I’m living my dream, but not in the way I expected.