Re: Brain or mind, let them shine: a challenge of creativity
Okay, here's my submission.
Drawing became something very deep for him, and his last wish was to draw something out of his own memory.
It was cool and dry in the little cave he had found. There was that much, at least. He'd lost his pack in the fall, and he would never have been able to drag it behind him anyway, given the state of his legs, but that was all right. It had to be all right. There was nothing else to be done.
He lay there, cheek pressed against the unyielding rock, gritting his teeth against the constant screaming pain below his waist. Once that frantic, frightening tumble had stopped, he had mustered the courage to glance at the ruin of his lower body; one look was all he could stomach. Little slivers of bone peppered the ripped flesh below his knees, and he thought it a wonder that he hadn't yet bled to death. So he lay there, trying not to think about his coming death, and thinking about it anyway. Tears squeezed from beneath his eyelids.
His mind started to float away, bobbing from thought to thought like flotsam on a restless ocean. the pain was drifting further and further away with each passing moment. He could hear her voice now, soothing him, telling him that everything would be all right. He spoke her name, heard the cold echoes from the stone all around him, jerked in surprise, shrieked as the agony in his legs awakened once more. He knew that the end was close, then; she was not here, of course, and if his mind was already beginning to tease him with wishful delusion, it would not be long before he lost whatever was left to him.
So he began to draw. It was what had enticed her in the first place, caused her to take notice of him when she might not have before. His Charine had always had an eye for art, though she possessed no great talent for it. In her way, Charine had been the reason that his artistry had become so meaningful for him, for both of them. It was because of his art, in fact, that he was here, languishing in this cave. Wenberries grew only in these high mountain passes, and he had wished to infuse his paints with their vivid blue juice to create new and interesting shades. It was his art that had saved him, bringing him from a mindless, humdrum existence into the orbit of his Charine, his beloved. But it was his art, too, which would bring an early end to his life.
Calling up the image of her form from memory, he began to draw, using the only tools available to him. His love would be painted in red. Later, he knew, the blood would age, would seep into the rock and turn it a rusty brown. It would not be pretty then, but it was all he could do. It was all he had. It would have to be enough.
He worked quickly, touching fingertips to the wounds in his legs and then stretching forward to draw lines, curves and perspective on the barren cave floor. She came to life there, in the dim light and the cold. And as Charine's countenance and shape became recognizable, he fancied that she really was there with him. His body grew numb. His thoughts slowed. His hands first faltered, then fell away before Charine's feet were drawn. She floated there, red on the rock, and he subsided into his final sleep.
Outside, the wind hooted in the cave mouth. It cared nothing for art, for death, for tragedy. It only went on mindlessly moaning.
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