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A short story I wrote, just for fun. : D The Artisan The corners of his mouth lifted a radiant expression in an old, tired face. He ran his dark, callused hand over the smoothness of the bronze, his eyelids fluttered as he remembered every inch of his work, he was suddenly seized by a desire to rip off the cloth that wrapped his hands, exposing raw skin, but no matter, for as the cool intricacies of the gate touched his hands, he thought he would never feel anything more pleasant, and indeed he would not. Moving past the rushes he had toiled to grow, he sat in the sunshine of the courtyard, smiling, though his death was only hours away. Memories and sounds flooded in through the walls, over pouring around him, suffocating him, but he drank it all in, savoring his last sensations of emotions. All had been in this place, the feeling of dark charcoal on his fingers as he laid plans for the very embodiment of his soul, the clay bricks as he molded and shaped them with only his bare hands, seeds of every variety to furnish the king’s beautiful courtyard. Every momentary sensation came back to him, and he convulsed with pleasure and satisfaction at his work. The pain of his back that had troubled him as he spent so many days and nights bent over, shovels, hoes, bronze or rock in hand, and he threw his head back as his spine gave way. It would never support him again. The Artisan lay on the floor, panting, as his eyes sagged, the nights he had denied himself sleep weighing down upon him, but he would never fell the pleasure of sleep again, for he was near the eternal sleep. Veined, knotted, and tired hands caressed his face as in his nose the smell of dirt and of paint under his fingernails pervaded over him. He was suddenly surrounded by people, where he was carefully painting elaborate designs in his courtyard, each stroke of the brush imbued with so much passion, and each release of the pressure in his fingers the ultimate sensation. His hands ached from the strain, sweat running down from his brow, but he pursued on, his desperate heart thumping in the motion of the strain. The pain was exact and wonderful, passionate and enjoyable. When the sounds of the young men who came to watch died off, he remained as darkness fell, and with every burn in his arms he felt new stabbings of ecstasy as his dreams and nightmares unfolded on this canvas. Every moment of his life that had been so full of beauty, for art was the ultimate beauty, the need for man to reach the divine, he felt this now. His eyes had long since cried in wonder at his work, until he saw no more and the world, in his sanctuary was filled with light, the light of God. He felt his presence now, felt that heaven must illuminate him in a holy glow for the fluttering of joy that coursed through his soul were only that of heaven, of paradise, of this courtyard. Night grew eternal now, and as he faded into it, the passion of his limbs and heart faded, he waited for the peace that would become him, waited and did not receive it. For without pain he was stripped of his pleasure, and if his mouth was not convoluted he would have howled in the raw feeling of it. But he did not, he only found himself alone and naked, curled with his legs beneath him, with no eyes to give vessel to his tears. There was no emotion in him, for away from all that he had known, he had no other emotions to have memory of. Burning, writhing fire consumed his heart, the Artisan felt his lament, and his curiosity grew, oh what it would have been to feel love! True love, for a wife, for children of his own, he only knew the love which he had for his art, the cold stone, which would take from him what it could not return. An empty feeling pervaded in his stomach, for he had no notion of anger and could not feel it, could not feel for his life wasted, for his time lost, for the life that had been snatched from him. It dawned on him now, that he would have liked to run in the fields across the hills, to feel peaceful, and free, he would have liked to eat fruit off the tree and to talk and laugh with the men of his village. How many sensations there had been in life! So many that he would not understand, the piety of the Church, jealousy of the neighbor’s flower beds, could it be that the passion he had enjoyed for so many years could be taken on in many forms? Were they like leaves on a tree, varying and each with a pleasure all its own? But The Artisan would not know, would never know that his joy had been in such variety that all the world enjoyed it with leisure, but not him. For even now he doubted that leisure could induce such happiness of emotion. Frozen in the state in which he would remain, he only rocked back and forth, seeking some reminisce of his former glory, his eyes glazed to the Garden of Eden that lay at his feet, and the merry souls that roamed wit souls that roamed within it, to which he would be, forever blind.

Public Comments

1. Don't make such short paras. Makes it seem like verse.
2. You need a better way of finishing a para, you have too many run on sentences.
3. *Small applause from me* I quite enjoyed it. You are a good writer.