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Write a story about an artist whose work has magical properties.

Posted in Fantasy on Feb 23, 2024

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✍️ 96 stories

The Book of Alternate Endings

Submitted to Contest #239

I only met her once before she died. Rachel, with her duffle bag slung like a shield and storm clouds in her gaze, somehow found her way to the threshold of the parsonage. I often had visitors, but no one knocked, let alone knocked hard five times. So, her entrance stood out. I was close to burnt out and felt I couldn’t handle one more thing. But there she was, like a dark, unbidden angel.It was a cloudless Friday afternoon, the day she arrived. The clock hands ticked pokily above a porcelain coffee cup that stayed warm for hours, wafting a ...

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Mystical Animals with Supernatural Gifts

Submitted to Contest #239

Tension turned to chuckles when I saw my Mystical Dog's eyes wink at me.The winter moon was rising over the river. I tried not to feel nervous about tonight's performance.Scents of the ocean and wet fir trees after the rain evoked dreams of the Mystic Beach. My ethereal creature wagged his tail and smiled at me.The notes for tonight's presentation sitting in my pocket begged me to take another look. "Was this going to be good enough? Or was it a mistake?"The wheels of my supernatural dog's mind were always turning. "What's he up to now?" He ...

44 likes 24 comments 24
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Beyond the Brushstrokes

Submitted to Contest #239

Leonard swirls the bristles around in the cerulean mixing it on the palette with the moss green. The hues could be peacock feathers, but today he’s using them to paint the lake. Thin veins of silver add pockets of depth. The water awakens beneath his brush, sending ripples to the shoreline. Nearby a little girl, holding pink cotton candy twisted around a paper cone, walks down the path and out of the painting.“Oh my,” says Leonard only half-surprised at the child with sticky hands now standing in the middle of his studio, the smell of burnt ...

40 likes 39 comments 39
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The Illustrator

Submitted to Contest #239

You have never heard of me. You have never been to my exhibition. But you have seen my Art. Too young to speak? Too old to walk? Too poor, too busy, or category-five blind? You have seen my work.Of course, you have. Everyone has.I am the Illustrator.*****Thirty years earlier.“DO NOT ENTER,” says the sign in obnoxiously red letters. I push past the door.“CONTAMINATED AREA. RESPIRATORY EQUIPMENT REQUIRED.”I take a deep breath, hold it, and walk further into the bowels of the old dilapidated warehouse. It’s dark and stuffy inside...

36 likes 32 comments 32
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An Army of Cats

Submitted to Contest #239

Mavis looked around her makeshift art studio – the place where she would isolate herself from the world for the next month. Stacks of clean canvases waited to be transformed. Brand new paints, pastels and brushes her parents gave her at college graduation last month were neatly arranged in clear plastic bins. Her easel was angled just right to catch the morning sun that streamed in through the large picture window.  In exchange for house sitting for her aunt and caring for her two cats, Mavis had been gifted this guest room as a pl...

29 likes 21 comments 21
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Kita in Color

Submitted to Contest #239

The sun was low in the sky, giving off a faint yellow light when they saw the Village. Kita and her ward had only taken a few steps past the gates, but already there was an ominous weight hanging in the air. The streets were nowhere near empty, but there was a curious stillness that went beyond the lack of population, like a blanket had been draped over the town and been tucked in so tight that it muffled all sound. "I need a bed. A real bed, one fit for an evil overlord." Glenda complained, stabbing the silence around them sharply with his ...

27 likes 3 comments 3
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Revenge of the Muse

Submitted to Contest #239

Sebastian stood naked in his art studio. The passion was still in him from Amy, who gave everything when they had sex. Something about the sensuality peaks my creativity, he thought. The blues and reds become vibrant, all the colors come alive. My neck, a heated intensity, unnerving. I need to put it on the canvass. And so he did. Wild Horses, by the Rolling Stones, pounded out through his EarPods the swaggering sound of Mick Jagger. ‘Well you bit my lip and drew first blood... don’t stop...’. He painted glorious yellows ...

27 likes 23 comments 23
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Depiction Predictions

Submitted to Contest #239

Depiction PredictionsOver the months of interrogation, I… more accurately my butt, became a true connoisseur of fine wood. They must have replaced the soft pine with straight-back oak or hickory chairs in the hope the added discomfort would have me confess sooner rather than later. But I could never confess as I didn’t understand it myself.The drawings were spread out all over the table- again. Sure I recognized them. I drew them.“Just the facts, Jesse! Just the facts.”“It’s going to be a whole lot better for you if you just tell us the trut...

27 likes 11 comments 11
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Death and The Fellow: A Professor Deshpande Mystery

Submitted to Contest #239

The first thing Saanvi caught as the front door swung open was a sharp odor of bleach. Given the general dissonance of Thea McCord’s second floor office and textile arts workroom and the professor’s bone-deep Summer of Love and Teargas vibe, Prof. Deshpande had half-expected incense or even the earthy perfume of patchouli.The Arts Department chair pondered as Earl McCord ushered her inside with timid conviviality. Anand had begged off, enthralled by the prospect of an evening’s discourse on monopsony and neoclassical synthesis at Messer...

27 likes 6 comments 6
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Shadows of the Viscount's Art

Submitted to Contest #239

Lady Harcourt, like everybody else from Essex, knew nothing about Viscount Arundhel except for the fact that he was one of the richest men in all of Great Britain, as a consequence of his sculptures holding an unparalleled light which made them so very dear. For some unknown cause, all of his buyers detested the sculptor just as much as they adored his art, and over the years, he had been almost ostracised from society. Even so, the idea of him intrigued her to a fault, so greatly that she found herself sitting in his drawing room with her l...

26 likes 13 comments 13
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Remnants

Submitted to Contest #239

Bright. The boy shielded his eyes from the sun. Insects buzzed, and a stench of fresh-mown hay and cow manure lingered. Silhouettes of long cattle shelters and silos wavered on the horizon. Dairy farm. A half mile from home. 2,640 feet; a mile is 5,280 feet. In the distance, a yellow school bus rounded a corner to accelerate up the country road. He checked his analog wristwatch, his fingers forming a sharp right angle. Late. Four minutes. There are sixty minutes in an hour. His right hand gripped the edge of a curled poster board protected w...

26 likes 28 comments 28
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The Art of Painting with Magic

Submitted to Contest #239

“Thanks for meeting me for brunch. It’s been too long since we’ve been able to carve out some time for girl talk without life interrupting. I have really missed you.” “Oh, I have missed you too. How is it that we can be in the same room at least once a week and not have the chance to catch up?”“One word; husbands.” Shelly and Ellen shared a giggle over mimosa’s, eggs benedict, French toast and a myriad of other delectable indulgences they rarely afforded to themselves. Leaving their inhibitions and willpower at home was liberating....

25 likes 15 comments 15
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An Emerald Deal

Submitted to Contest #239

      “This is unbelievable!” Francis exclaimed as he held my self-portrait in his hands, “It looks just like you!” Francis “Franky” Cullins is my best friend, and he holds in his hands what I hoped to be the beginning of my illustrious career as an artist. I smile at him – a humble, gentle smile – as I contain the bubbling anxiety within the pit of my stomach. “Do you really think so?” I asked in what I hoped to be a tone that indicated only mild curiosity, and not that of a child seeking validation.  ...

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3rd Period Band

Submitted to Contest #239

On the end of a plain, unremarkable street in Queens sits JHS 212, a typical public school by NYC standards. Only at some point the very active PTA of this typical public school had decided to put a whole lot of fundraising money toward its music program, multiple classes, real instruments, the real deal. So if your kids went to school here, they would have the option to be in band, and not just any band, one of the most impressive middle school bands in the city, run by one of the best teachers your pre-teen could ever hope to have.********...

23 likes 7 comments 7
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Just A Pinch

Submitted to Contest #239

“OK people, you know the drill. Bigger the risk, bigger the reward.” Big Paul pushed his thin, greasy hair back off one side of his sweaty forehead. The air shimmered as he waved a pudgy hand towards the huge whiteboard on the back wall of the kitchen. Names, dates and the promised payment filled in. Sheila watched in awe, as every column and row appeared with text. Since starting as a sous chef three years ago, she had never seen a single week where the pledge board at Light Fantastic, the hottest restaurant on the north shore, wasn’t ...

21 likes 14 comments 14
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