Darkness Falls

Character: CONTEST ROUND: Protagonist Background Story

Miss Hopeful smiled warmly as she surveyed her hive (neatly disguised as a Kindergarten classroom) of busy little bees, who all bearly breathed because each sweet little tongue was sticking out of the corners of their mouths, intently creating works of art on 16" X 20" sheets of white craft paper.

The vast majority of the classroom sported hands of red, yellow, orange, blue, green, and most often brown from the mixture of opposing colors with finger paints adorning all canvases, chairs, tables, floors, shirts, pants, dresses, faces, arms, legs, hair,...fill in the blank. A few of the children used paint brushes for finesse, but still painted on everything in sight.

All were typical kindergarten children, creating a cacophony of sight and sound, except for little Rally, sitting all alone at a small table in the corner of the room with everything around him still pristine and untouched by anything, that looked like color. The 16" X 20" sheet of white paper was apparently still white. The glass paint jars had no smudges of paint on the outside. No smudges of paint were detected on Rally, his work station, his clothes, the floor or the wall.

Miss Hopeful sidled up to Rally, asking him gently, "Are you able to find some inspiration for your canvas, Rally? The class is nearly finished, and you've yet to start."

"Oh, I'm finished with my painting, Miss Hopeful. I was done about ten minutes ago." Rally smiled.

Miss Hopeful's eyes became saucers. "Rally, how can you say that? All I see is a white piece of paper, and unused colors in the jars."

"Miss Hopeful, this is a flock of geese, flying formation in a snowstorm," Rally assured her.

As she giggle-snorted through her nose, Miss Hopeful said, "That is quite some imagination you have there, Rally, but I don't see any evidence that you actually put paint to paper."

"I think the lighting must be fooling you here in my corner, Miss Hopeful," Rally respectfully intoned, "Let's take the paper to the windowsill to see how it looks in sunlight."

Rally laid the paper on the windowsill, while Miss Hopeful gasped, "I see them, now, Rally. Such nuances of colors. Light grays, light blues, light amber browns, and just a touch of light yellows to enhance the features. I have rarely seen this level of finesse in an adult artist. How did you learn to paint this way, Rally?"

"I'm not really sure," he said. "I've been painting like this since I was two. I haven't had a teacher for painting. I just sort of do what comes naturally. I want to be a painter when I grow up."

"Rally, you are a painter, right now. I'm speechless." She stood there for a long while, shaking her head.