I feel the wood splinter in my hands before I hear the shattering of glass on the hardwood floor. 

Breathe in. Breathe out. 

The old mantra reminds me to keep going.

I keep my eyes forward. The white shine of the harsh, empty canvas matches my stare. It pains my eyes to look, but it demands my attention.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

An eternity passes. I turn my gaze down to where pieces of my shattered mirror rest on their hardwood deathbed. The myriad of reflections gazing back at me aren’t mine. I have never been as gray as this person in the mirror — as gray as rain clouds hanging heavy in the sky. The broken paintbrush in my hands begs for attention, but I can’t look at it, so I throw the halves at my canvas. They halfheartedly bounce off the taught fabric and onto the floor. 

Breathe in… 

I’m overcome with the need to escape. I can’t stay here, next to the evidence of my crimes — so I flee. I jump off my stool and wander to the window, where sunlight peeks through the curtains. Through cloudy glass, I see the sun and a bright azure sky setting the scene. Not a cloud in sight. There hasn’t been a thunderstorm in a very long time. Those only existed in my childhood, when I’d stay inside and draw entirely new universes on scraps of paper, accompanied only by the lulling sound of thunder catching the tail ends of lightning. Without the thunder, the deafening silence of the earth rings in my ears, and my windows remain cloudy, never washed by the rain. 

My empty canvas is reaching out to me telepathically, beckoning me, wanting to fill its duty as a vessel for my art. But I have no art for it. I’ve failed the canvas, I’ve failed the mirror, and I’ve failed the paintbrush — all innocent victims in the ruthless murder of creativity. 

I still find my way toward the canvas despite myself. I’m possessed by the glow of light hitting the white fabric, and I move towards it like a moth to a flame, like a junkie chasing their next high. 

The lonely stool stands empty and awaiting, but the floor is more welcoming. I lay on my back a few inches away from the mirror, its fragments threatening to mix with my loose hair. My spine relaxes, and my breathing slows. The weight in my chest settles deeper.

Breathe in…

I hear footsteps getting louder as they approach me.

“You can’t stay on the floor forever,” a figure says above me; her voice is familiar.

“I can certainly try,” I answer before thinking... I can’t match a face or name to that voice.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” So I know her. I lift my head off the floor to look, but her
face is out of focus. I don’t have the heart to ask for a name. 

“Why haven’t you started painting?”

Because I don’t want to, there’s too much stopping me. I’ve gone face blind, art illiterate, my hands are cold, the colors are too dull today, the paint isn’t thick enough. 

Because I just can’t.

But I don’t tell her this.

“I can do it later. I have time.” She sighs as she sees through my excuse, like she understands why I can’t start painting, even though I
don’t understand.

Breathe in…

I hold my breath forever. 

Meanwhile, thousands of universes have died and been reborn, countless alternate realities where things don’t go wrong. 

Breathe out.

Or I do know, somewhere hidden deep inside my chest. The weight settled there shifts uncomfortably, perhaps unsettling from its spot behind my ribcage.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she says. Not a suggestion, a command.

I don’t want to tell her anything; I refuse. But her presence coaxes the words out of me.

“I feel so uninspired, unmotivated, uncompelled, uninterested in doing anything right now, least of all painting,” the words leave my mouth in one breath, a verbal exposé of my pathetic incompetence. 

“Good.”

Good? What was so good about this? About these dismal blocks in my life, this unbearable quiet in my mind? “There’s nothing good about how I feel.” I drag my thoughts out of their cramped hiding place up to the surface of my mind. “What kind of self-proclaimed ‘artist’ can’t make their own art?” Something behind my face threatens to break. 

“Who said ‘self-proclaimed’? You’re an artist.”

“But—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she raises her voice, startling the dust around us, breaking into my ribcage, “what your teachers think or what anyone else’s art looks like. It is still your art, even if someone else takes a brush and adds one or ten strokes to your canvas. And if you don’t like it, start again, paint it over.” She makes it sound so easy. “Stop letting people take art from you. You are not weak.”

You are not weak.

I ruminate over her words for so long; I’m convinced the sun has already exploded and consumed us all. Her words are a slap in the face. They leave my cheeks warm and stinging. They sink through my skin and bones, settling in the centers.

Breathe in… breathe out.

A faint rumble in the distance breaks me from my trance. 

“Looks like rain.” She’s peering out the window now. How could she see anything through those windows? It’s funny. So funny, I start laughing. And I laugh for an eternity ...at myself, at how complicated I made things, and at the stupid cloudy windows. An eternity of laughter ends when I hear a louder rumble of thunder. The figure makes her way towards me again, this time stretching out a hand, expecting to reach one of mine. So I extend my arm and get lifted off the hardwood. When I’m pulled fully upright by the girl’s steady tug, the weight in my chest dissipates. I expect to finally see the face of the girl, but she’s gone. I look around, but it’s as though she was never here. 

The ringing from the earth is gone, replaced by the steady beating of rain.

Breathe in, breathe out.

I go to the window. Thick drops of rain wash away at the cloudiness caked on. Thunder and lightning chase each other in the sky. I go to my stool again and take a new brush. The canvas greets me again with a challenge. I look down at the reflections and see myself, an azure sky accompanied by a zephyr that pushes the clouds along. I might as well try creating some universes while I await the clean petrichor that signifies the end of the squall.