There once lived an artist who called himself “Rambo”. No one knew exactly what Rambo’s real name was, nor what he did for a living.
One day, he got a small pack of ketchup from the Home depot few blocks away and also borrowed a few white sheets from a neighbor. He sat at his little creaking table and started pouring the ketchup on the paper, then he gently rubbed it until it took the form of a mountain and then after a little more twitching at his whiskers, he made a little sun. He then mixed a few leftover sugar crystals with water and sprinkled on the sheet of paper. He looked eager.
Rambo sat watched his little creation as the sun sank into the distant buildings and woke up from the other side, the next morning. The brightness startled Rambo to his feet. He looked at his work, only to find a row of black ants picking at his creation. He smiled.
He squished them and smeared some glue over the paper and left it to dry.
Two days later, in a nearby street, a cheerful Rambo, his face gleaming with his cracked sunglass, and his face exploding in happiness, exposing his sheep-like teethy smile, a bad carpenter work. He held in his hands, a framed explosion of different shades of red and a crawling black mess. It was neatly laminated and framed, thanks to the last few pennies he saved the previous week.
He picked a nice street corner, and he held up his creation at every passer-by. People would be more startled by his appearance than his art. He wore a black coat, with visible stitches of fancy colors, a sunglass cracked at a corner. He looked like the shadow of his past glory. In his pocket, he kept a few biscuits that he would gobble up once in a while. This went on for a day and a half.
A gentleman in an over-sized grey t-shit and a dark blue scarf dangling around his neck took notice of his smile and his art, not sure which startled him more.
” Whoa, those ants look so real! How much?”
Rambo’s carpenter works gleamed in the morning sun.
“I’d say won hundrede” a new grin overtook the previous one, and his eyes shone behind the cracks in his glasses.
“Why, I can buy half-a-dozen chickens with that kinda money. Why a hundred?”
He flipped his little artwork around and stared at it for a few seconds.
” Took meh a couple-ah months, ye know? No easy”
” Alright, then” said the man in the blue scarf and handed Rambo a dark green currency note. Something that Rambo had not fancied in several months. It was crumpled but said 50 in clear letters with a smiling old man on it, with a longer beard and better carpenter works.
His artwork was at last sold! The gentleman walked away, but Rambo, still in shock with the dark green bill stood there. The note gleaming, shinier than his happy grin, in his outstretched hands. A whole minute passed by. And when the second minute was crawling by, Rambo heard two boys on cycles whiz past him, screaming ” Finders, Keepers, Old man.. ”
They almost crashed into him. He was startled and fell on the pavement. He was unhurt, but the green bill? It wasn’t shining anymore.
It was missing.
[PART 2: https://alonelyfish.wordpress.com/2020/10/03/story-of-an-artist-2/]
A Lonely Fish BLog 