Blank Canvas

Clarissa stared at the blank Canvas. It was the umpteenth time she had tried drawing that day and every time she had failed miserably. Heaps of scrunched white paper laid beneath her feet but even so, she wasn't done with the assignment yet.

Art class that afternoon had been immensely enlightening. "Art comes from you heart and not your head. It unfolds the mystery of your sub-conscious. You may pretend things to be otherwise, but always remember that a piece of art is the window to your soul. It never lies", he'd said. And She had nodded, to herself more than anyone else. At the end of the class he had told everyone to draw something that made them smile, without reason and in the most turbulent of times.

The pencil she'd been holding fell from her grasp and she bounced back from her reverie. She brainstormed again and again. She picked up the pencil and thought of various ways it could go. What was the thing she lived for ?

She thought of the place she had grown up in. A one-storey white house over looking a small lake. She remembered the countless times she had spent looking out of the window towards the lake. Especially on those sunny afternoons when the sun shone brightly and the lake glittered in all its glory. But no matter how much she loved that place, it wasn't what she was looking for.

It was already 2 in the morning . She put her head down on the desk in distress. And slowly at first and then all at once, she fell asleep.

In her dream, she saw herself waiting at a train station. She was standing with an yellow umbrella which was making feeble attempts to stand against the heavy downpour. She knew she had been waiting for a train but didn't know to where. The first train came along and she thought of hopping on it but it went away even before she could move. Another came along and then another one but it all left without her. She was getting tensed now. What if she was stuck there forever ? And just then another train had come by. She didn't know where she was supposed to go but knew that this was the train she had to get on. She ran towards the train and she knew at that instant that there was nothing that could stop her from getting on it. And the moment she stepped on it, she saw him.

She woke up suddenly and felt like someone had poured icy water all over her. She swiftly grabbed a pencil and touched the blank canvas with the tip of her pencil. She drew the edges of his jawline with long clean strokes and also drew the small curve of his chin. She drew his cheekbones, all sharp and bony against his other smoother features. She drew his long nose and below it drew the soft lips that she knew so well,curved to show his lopsided smile. She drew his hair, slightly ruffled but nonetheless striking. And finally, she started at the eyes. It took her sometime to think them but when she closed her eyes,he was there. She drew his big innocent eyes and the long lashes that she loved so much. In the end, she drew shadows along his jawline and across all the places she thought necessary. And it was complete.

She looked back at her piece and smiled, more for the subject she drew than for the drawing itself. Art was the window to the soul; Indeed.

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