The Artist

Winter set in, and with it came that steady feeling that the world was asleep. The trees were, the animals were, the only thing that didn’t have the good sense to lay still under the blanket of snow were the people, who ventured out of their cave like houses against everything that nature ever intended. Deep in the caverns of the city there was someone who did sleep, and at the moment he was just waking up. He had been asleep for several days now but he didn’t know it yet and even if he did know it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Brent led what could be considered a blessed existence, one which could live in comfort anywhere and knew where to find what he wanted without ever having to work for it. Even his home, the tiny room in the basement of an abandoned building no one had entered for a year, had just come to him when he had needed a home. There were only two things that he had bought in the entire room, one of them was a space heater, he could have gone to a shelter or charity for it but he knew that they would ask questions and try to keep track of him and he liked his freedom. The second was a painter’s easel that stood in the corner away from the wall, which poured water during rainy days. The easel now had a blank canvass on it. The painting that had stood on it before had been sold at a pawn shop for enough money for the space heater and the new canvas. It was a life of breaking even but Brent didn’t mind it at all. It was how he liked things.

Food was getting to be more of a problem now that the snow was covering the world, but at least it kept it fresh. He made tours of the local groceries dumpsters where they threw away things that were past expiration. He had gotten food poisoning a couple of times but not bad enough to deter him. In some ways the cold weather was a blessing because it meant that the food would stay fresher for longer, during the summer produce left out for a day would be well cooked and start to smell.

To be continued...