The first painting , The Wall, was of the room where it happened.
The broken coffee mug. The streaks on the wall.
I painted the sunlight in the hallway, the way it stretched across the tile in the morning. Bright. Golden. It illuminated everything. It changed nothing.
Then, there was The Kitchen. We danced many dances there. A song could come on, soft and low. He would pull me close, spinning me under the dim light that always needed replacing.
I painted us. Cheek to cheek. Holding each other like the world was ending tomorrow.
It felt real. Solid. Something you could hold in your hands and keep.
Then the song would stop.
And the moment would be gone.
I never knew when the closeness would return, only that I’d keep reaching for it. It would slip through my fingers, but I’d stay, waiting for the warmth to come back.
I spent more time waiting for it than living in it.
I stared at The Kitchen painting, then turned it around, pressing it against the wall. The others could be seen. Not this one. I wasn’t ready to let it go, to let them take that part of us. The good memories—I needed to keep them, untouched, un-examined. As if hiding them could make them real again.
I set the remaining paintings against the wall and stepped back. The feeling was still there. I thought it would evaporate, but it didn’t. It was supposed to leave.
I adjusted the frame. I glanced at the door.
They would be here soon. Would they see what I had hidden in the brushstrokes?
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The gallery was tiny. Not much bigger than the studio I had first lived in.
People walked in slow and quiet, as if sound might disturb the walls.
Their eyes lingered on each canvas, the way you pause when you hear the first notes of a song you tried to forget.
I stood in the corner, twisting my hair, crossing my arms. I was let them look inside. Bare. Exposed. Watching them take in all of it. Unfiltered. My joy. My pain. My love.
I only knew how to hold it.
It’s hard to say when it beings. The breaking. The loss of trust. It floods your brain, drowns you in something thick and colorless. Desperate. In denial. Like a sailor pouring over maps as the ship is already sinking.
You search for reasons. When you don’t find any, you make them up. Bargaining with God. Promising anything, everything.
He didn’t mean it. He won't do it again. I swear.
But it doesn’t work.
It’s not God sitting across the table.
It’s the devil.
No deal.
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A woman with red lipstick and a man in a green sweater stopped at the second painting. A Day in the Snow.
The footprints. My purse on the ground. He had knocked it down.
She tilted her head. The man beside her touched her elbow, whispered something. She nodded. They moved on.
A young man with round glasses stood in front of the third painting for too long. It was the one of me, sitting at a table near a giant Christmas tree. Alone.
The tree sparkled with lights, but I wasn’t looking at it. I was staring at the empty chair across from me, where words once landed— sharp and uninvited.
It’s hard to capture the feeling. Hard to capture what can’t be seen. There’s no shattered glass to sweep up, no bruise to trace with your fingers. But there are the quiet cracks in the air. The ones that leave no mark but shift everything.
The man with the round glasses stood motionless. His shoulders rose, then fell. His face turned pale.
My stomach knotted as I watched them. One by one, they left.
Not a single word.
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The first buyer came eventually. A woman in a blue coat, fiery red hair. She moved like she had already seen everything and let none of it touch her.
“I want this one,” she said, pointing to The Wall.
I nodded. Finally. Someone was ready to take it.
She looked around again. “Actually, this one.” She pointed to The Ocean.
“Not for sale,” I said.
She tilted her head, studying me. “Everything is for sale.”
I folded my arms. “Not this.”
The Cafe. A Summer Night in Florence. I had hidden them from the customers, tucked them away where no one could reach them. Some things I needed to keep. Some things I wasn’t ready to lose—even if they were already gone.
She didn’t argue. Just pursed her lips, like she’d seen this before. Like she knew the weight of things people refuse to let go of.
Nobody wanted the shattered things. The empty spaces. The silence. They looked, and then they walked away.
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By the third day, nothing had sold.
I stood in front of The Ocean. The cliffs. The salt. The warmth of his hand in mine.
The lie of it.
On Tuesday, I was a dream. Venus herself—divine and untouchable. Sculpted from Parian marble and longing. There was no one like me. Adored and worshiped.
But statues do not speak.
They only watch from the castle as the tide shifts. The first soldier steps onto the shore. Then another. Then another. The war builds—slow and inevitable.
But statues can only scream silently.
It’s too late. And the king knows it. So he lights a match to his own kingdom. A mad king. Nero.
By Thursday, the fire reaches my feet. Smoke coils around me, thick and cloying. I do not run. I cannot.
Saturday is the reckoning. The air is dense with ash. Debris is everywhere. Nothing is untouched.
Sunday is a day of rest. The ruins smolder.
If we pretend the war never came, if we bury the match, if we stack bricks in silence— maybe by Monday, I will sit on the throne again.
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They had lingered here, smiling at The Ocean. They had wanted this one.
I knew it was the only way.
Maybe I needed to stop pretending the good ones meant something more than they did.
I put the price tags on The Ocean. The Sunsets. The Vacation.
And they sold. Fast.
“Perfect for the guest room”, she said.
“Let’s get one your office”, he said.
They bought the laughter, the warmth, the gentle sea breeze. They bought the versions of him I had clung to. The parts that made the scars easier to ignore.
By the end of the night, the joy was gone.
Only the wreckage remained.
I stood alone in the empty gallery, surrounded by ghosts—memories I had buried beneath artificial sunshine, pretending they weren’t there. But now, I saw them for what they were.
For years, I clung to the good to soften the bad, convincing myself they balanced out. They never did.
And now, at last, I stood in the truth. No more illusions. No more pretending.
Then the bell above the door chimed.
A man stepped inside. He was older than me. Broad-shouldered, dressed in dark wool. He moved slowly, hands in his pockets, eyes scanning the room.
He didn’t stop at The Ocean. Or The Sunsets. Or The Vacation. Those were already gone.
He stopped in front of The Wall. The Cracks in the Glass. The Door Left Open.
The ones nobody else wanted.
The ones that still belonged to me.
“I’ll take them all,” he said.
The words rang in the empty space, settling into the silence like dust.
I swallowed hard. “All of them?”
He nodded. He didn’t ask about the stories, didn’t tilt his head or whisper to someone beside him. Just looked at them, steady, like he already knew.
I moved to the counter, ringing up the sale with trembling fingers. The numbers blurred. The receipt curled in my hands.
He reached for his wallet.
And then I felt it.
A sharp pull inside my chest, like a wire tightening, like something unraveling all at once.
I had wanted to be free. To let go. To burn it all down.
But if I sold these, if they left with him, then he would be gone.
Completely.
I hesitated. My breath caught.
The man looked up. He didn’t speak. Just waited.
My hands tightened at my sides. The truth pressed against my ribs, heavy and unrelenting.
I couldn’t do it.
I stepped back from the counter, shaking my head. “I—”
The words stuck in my throat.
His expression didn’t change. He only nodded, as if he had expected this. As if he understood.
Then he turned and walked out the door, leaving the paintings behind.
Leaving me behind.
The receipt sat on the counter, unsigned. The air still smelled of him—something clean, like rain.
I exhaled. The weight was still there. The ghosts, still watching. A sadness inside me, like a storm cloud that never cleared.
I told myself to let them go.
I didn’t.
And I closed the door behind him, trapping myself with the ghosts for another night.
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4 comments
Amazing work. Evocative. Like the artist, you hid a story in the brush strokes. Good luck in the competition.
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Thank you so much for reading! I appreciate your kind words <3
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Haunting. Thanks for liking 'Life in a Suitcase'
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Thank you for reading! <3
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