Prose

The artist creased his already wrinkled forehead, focusing intently on the model, looking for the essence of her, for the element inside of her, the one thing that differentiates her from all his other work pieces. His old and tired grey eyebrows matched his whitening hair and unshaved stubble; the blood vessels in his eyes numerous and patterned, as if he did not sleep well for many a night. 

The teenage girl looked at him in fascination, with the exact same intensity as his; certainly it was not the first time he has seen an artist, but it certainly was a first to see him fit into the stereotypical artist description: messy and dirty hair, a chaotic workroom and wild, fiery eyes, unbefitting of his old age. The eyes that looked so raptly at the old artist spoke only tales of innocence and purity; it was an exceptional case for her to have eyes that held such beauty. 

The old man’s eyes widened; for the answer for his long-thought question had certainly been looking at him all the time; the eyes. Without wasting another moment, he picked up an unsharpened pencil in his right hand, and a charcoal stick in his left, and started on the one and only type of drawing he swore and did till this day: sketches. 

He old artist’s creaking bones and withering muscles would have complained madly by now, with the swift actions any other old man could only dream of taking. But adrenaline coursed through the old veins of his, and there he was, furiously sketching her out, as if possessed by some spirit or another. He took on, once again, the vibrancy of his youth with both of his only tools in his hands, taking slight glances from behind his sketch board, almost peeking, and continued on his quite crazed drawing.

At first, to the untrained eye, he was shading and drawing at the completely wrong places. There was a barely visible facial outline covering the entirety of the canvas, and shades of charcoal were not cohesive with his drawings. But, like a jigsaw puzzle, the shadings, one by one, were connected to his fluid pencil marks, and in record time, he finished the portrait of her. But there she was, with an increasingly curious look on her face, wondering how this old man, with his various exclamations and mutterings behind the canvas, had been one of the greatest recognised artists of his time, in an era where art is hardly recognised until the artist moves on. 

The gnarled old man, tired from his exertion at his art piece, waved for her to leave, walking off to his room with a pronounced limp on his left leg. As the young woman stole a peek from the cracked window at the canvas; the drawing was almost like looking into a mirror for her, a shocking look at his almost godly strokes of the pencil. The drawing’s eye danced out, sharply taking the main theme of the drawing, where she could figure out the reflection of her youth and virtue in those carefully shaded eyes. The god of sketching was not an easily conferred title, but he certainly made his forgotten title worthy.

The next day, at the same time, she walked into the room again, the third day she stepped inside. He was waiting for her, pacing in the room, seemingly impatient of his own arrangement of her coming. When she came in, the old man’s face lit up, as if he had found a long-lost relative or friend of his. “Come, sit down.” the second sentence he had told her, with his trembling yet still strong voice. She obediently obeyed, and realised there were items laid out in front of her; vegetables, not exactly fresh, but still edible, with an old wooden board and a recently-sharpened knife next to it.. “Help me chop those up, will you?” his eyes danced with the joy, rarely found at his age. She meekly obeyed; her long delicate fingers reached for the knife, and arranging the assortment of vegetables neatly in front of her, she picked up a potato, looked at it for a brief moment, before beginning to dice it with immaculate cuts. A peek from behind the canvas was all that he needed; he waned to bring out the concentration of those shiny brown eyes, and from the simple exercise, he captured a full-body drawing of her on a table, but his mind’s eye and imagination was powerful enough for him to convert the young lady chopping vegetables to a female scientist toiling late at night, but still having the same focus as she would have when she started the day. 

“Come, and take a look at my rough sketch, with a bit of a modification.” he finished this longer than usual, using only one hand for both shading and drawing. The very coincidental thing that happened was at the last slice of the last item he gave to her to cut, he had finished his drawing. She gasped at the wonder of the picture; for it was not only a sketch of her, there were predictions, made to change her from adolescence to adulthood; the long hair, tied to a loose ponytail, and her spectacles made her look more mature. Her frame was also slightly larger than hers now in terms of proportion; something no other living artist was able to accurately portray without study on the person’s parents, or a long period of interaction with the model. This was only their third meeting, and he had already dived into her life so much more than she could ever imagine. 

“Let me cook dinner for you.” the hazel light of the evening shone into the filthy room of the old artist; with his weary, wiry frame slumped on a shaky chair, he gave a barely perceptible nod to he eagerly-waiting her, who simply put on the brightest smile she had, making him regret badly that he could not even get a proper sketch of her face. He fell asleep on the old chair, having no reaction as he fell from the chair to the grimy floor; not having any sign of waking up as she laid a blanket over him, giving him a bare cover for the cold night. Only as dinner was ready, with the aroma of food drifting to his nose, where which he finally stirred from his slumber and staggered to another seat close to a makeshift dining table. A lone candle was lit at the centre of the table, the only light in the room save the dim moonlight coming in from the windows. 

The old man was both nervous and excited; he talked much about his wandering days, where he had seen many unusual people and things. He talked about the half-ruined great walls of China, the last remaining tower of the Taj Majal, the fallen tower of Pisa, bricks from the Roman Colosseum, underwater cities, and meeting the most beautiful woman in his life. 

“What happened to her? You married her, right?” she asked, enraptured by his love story. “That… she lost her life giving birth to my firstborn, Seth. Such an irony to lose the mother’s life at the age where they called medical treatment perfect.” tears streaked down his wizened face, old memories resurfacing. “I’m sorry… then what happened to the baby?” she was regretful of following up, but her curiosity always got the best of her. 

“Seth… the name of my child.. blamed me for losing her mum. One day, at sixteen, she packed up her stuff, burned all my portraits of my wife and her, and left. To try to find her, I used up almost all my resources, and even after twenty-five years, I still could not find a trace of her.” The tears dripped into his bowl of rice, now still very much full. “The only wish, the last wish I have before I go to meet my wife up there, is to at least, see how my own daughter is doing.” A very hollow cough from the old artist spewed blood from his mouth onto the dining table. Now she knew why there were some purple spots on his shirt. It was splotches of blood. Mortified, she rushed over to his side, worried of his waning health. 

“Don’t. I’m an old and dying man, with just a glorious past and a bleak present.” he waved her away, refusing her help. His breathing was ragged, rough, and his voice was raspy and weakening. 

“Go. You don’t need to see an old man breathe his last. Just pass on this message, for my dear daughter, that… I’m sorry.” the old man sucked in his last breath, and giving her a heartbreaking smile, he closed his eyes, never to look at another face again. His hands, the long and bony fingers, having done hundreds and hundreds of sketches, are now growing as cold as the papers he drew in. Tears plopped from her cheek down to his hands, his face, washing him from whatever sins he thought he bore. “My mother’s name was Seth, old man. Wake up. I am your granddaughter. My mum wants to see you. Alive. Please.” she choked on her tears, emotions overflowing from her heart. Only at this visit had she known that she was her granddaughter, and was intending to break the news to him. She finally broke into loud sobs, her cries filling he night air with sorrow, and for a split second, she almost thought she saw a ray of light, shining on the dead body of the old man, and she could just make out the words “Thank you.”