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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Somewhere witty.
Gender: Male
Posts: 700
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Stormy Weather
This is a story i wrote for English class. I got a lot of positive comments from my classmates, i hope you like it.
Stormy Weather
By Ian Johnson
Storm Ashton was different. He had always been different. He never played with other kids when he was young. He didn’t want to. He’d never study for tests, but still got A’s on them. He drew pictures all day during class. No teacher could ever get him in trouble for not paying attention, because he’d always know what they had been saying word for word.
He was different in other ways too. His hair was jet black and it stuck up in ways that looked like he had just gotten out of bed. He was of average height, and a bit skinny. But his eyes. His eyes seemed to veil everything behind them. They seemed to hide anything you could know about him. They were gray, like rain clouds. And if you looked at them hard enough, you would swear that you could see them blowing across the sky of his mind. But to even stare at him that long he’d have to be tied down, or hypnotized. Even his parents were lucky to make eye contact with him. And his art. It wasn’t just doodles. It was meaningful. He used symbols, shapes, and abstract reasoning to show things that seemed wrong to him. You could not see his walls because drawings on top of drawings were pinned to them. When you ripped down one, there was always one behind it. He’d spend hours in his room, perfecting his drawings. If you had seen one, and someone asked you who had done it, you probably wouldn’t have expected to hear “a fourteen-year old kid”.
Today, Storm is 21. His midnight sky hair had just gotten unrulier, on account of him growing it out. It was not for fashion or anything; he just didn’t see the point of haircuts. And besides, he didn’t have the money for it. He had sold some of his paintings and drawings for money, but no one seemed to want them anymore. People were getting back to liking paintings of real people and real scenery. No one wanted to see pictures that had to be analyzed. Storm despised those paintings of real things. They showed no creativity. But then, people today had lost all love for new things, for creativity. People wouldn’t accept anything that made them think for more that fifteen seconds. Storm hated it. He tried to create beautiful things for the very people that caused him to live in a shabby studio apartment with no real furniture to speak of except the cot he slept on, his easel, and a rickety chair. He was hard at work on his latest painting, but suddenly stopped. He couldn’t take it. He threw his painting on the floor. He picked up the chair and smashed it to the ground with amazing force. The chair was twelve years old, and had seen many people. It couldn’t take the force. It splintered in Storm’s hand. Storm backed up against the wall and slid down onto the floor. His head dropped into his hands. ‘Why?’ he thought. ‘Why must I endure this? Why should I work twenty-four hours a day for a society that hates me?’ He looked up at the clock. It was 4:39. The mail would have come by now. He left his apartment, too absorbed in his thoughts to lock the door. He took the elevator down to the ground floor. He opened up his mailbox. There was only a small package in it. However, he noticed something strange about it. The package read:
The Artist
14 W. 74th Street, Apartment 606
NY, New York,
01654
‘The Artist?’ he thought. ‘Why didn’t they just call me by my name?’ But before he could open it he saw a guy come bursting through the door that led to the stairs. He had something tucked under his arm. Something long and slender, with some splotches of paint on it.
“Hey,” Storm shouted. “That’s my easel! Get back here!”
The man just kept running. Storm tucked the package in his pocket and shot off after the man. For twelve blocks Storm stayed hot on his trail. But then the thief ran through a crowd into an alley. Storm tried pushing his way through the crowd but tripped and fell on a man about thirty-five, spilling the man’s coffee all over his only jacket.
“Jesus Christ!” the guy shouted in a thick Boston accent. “Watch where you’re goin’, you punk!”
“Sorry,” Storm said. “It’s just-”
“Yeah, yeah, spare me the sob story.” The guy grumbled and walked away. Storm got up and looked for the thief, but he was long gone. He started to walk home. He looked up at the sky. It was a deep grey, and his eyes seemed to mirror it. You could see lightning flashing in the clouds. A raindrop fell on his face. More started to come down. Storm's face remained expressionless. People began to put up umbrellas and get 'into cabs. Funny how a little thing like rain can clear the streets. So Storm began walking. He didn’t really know where, he just let his feet carry him. He wound up outside of Central Park. He walked in, but not very deep. He had heard about people going in the park, and coming out mugged. He sat down on a bench. He sat there and let the rain fall on his head, and listened to the water hitting the leaves and ground. It was nature’s song. He then remembered the package.
He took it out of his pocket, and examined it. Why it was addressed to ‘The Artist’ he still didn’t know. He opened it and emptied the contents into his hand. In it were five things. A small, thin, purple paintbrush, like the kind you find in the watercolor sets for kids. It seemed old. Then he recognized it. It was his first paintbrush. Who had sent him this? Second was a playing die. It seemed pretty ordinary. It was a see-through red color. Like the kind you find in the Sorry box. Sorry. That was his favorite game to play as a kid with his sister. A playing card. He didn’t really understand it though. He was never really a fan of card games. Except Solitaire. Instead of playing the computer version, he would spend hours, shuffling and resetting the cards, until he would win. The fourth object was a letter. He unfolded it. Here is what it read:
Dear Storm,
It seems so long since I’ve last heard your name. But I do want you to know that I am sorry for not contacting you sooner. I have missed you so. But I want you to know that I still love you, even though I haven’t seen or talked to you in four years.
I thought that after you were done with college, you might come back. But that was a foolish hope. I knew you were different, and that you had to get out in the world. Even though you didn’t show it, I knew you were filled with curiosity. But even that seemed to die in you after you sister’s dea-
Storm wasn’t sure if he was crying or not. Water was running down his face, but he couldn’t tell if it was rain or tears. He began reading again.
-th. But I knew you were still there. The old you was always hiding behind those eyes.
We never told you why we named you Storm. You always asked us, but we never told you. We said we’d tell you later. I guess now is later, huh? We were on the way to the hospital. We didn’t have a car then. We had to take a cab. A lightning storm started. I remember the cab driver shouting “Dios!!!” when the lightning bolt hit the traffic light. No one was sure when to go. We were at a stand still. My contractions were getting worse, and the hospital was still twenty-four blocks away. Your father was not the strongest man. But something changed that night. It was like when a mother picks up a car off of her child to save them. The adrenalin gave him the strength to pick me up. I don’t know how, but he carried me almost all the way there. Then about one block away he collapsed. His heart had given out. A man on the street saw and helped us get to the hospital. Your father and I were rushed to the ER. There were no problems with your birth, but your father had pneumonia and heart failure. He had to stay in the hospital for three weeks. He was never the same. He couldn't do a lto of the activities he used to enjoy. We never wanted to tell you because we thought you would blame yourself.
Anyway, you always wanted to know, so now you do. But I heard through the grapevine that you weren’t doing so well. I thought you could maybe use some inspiration for your paintings. I don’t if those little odds and ends will help. Maybe they will. You don’t have to pay me back. All I want for you is to be able to live happily.
Love,
Mom
Storm folded the letter back up. He looked at the fifth item. It was a little envelope. He opened it. In it was a wad of cash with a clip to hold it together. He stared at it. It had to be at least four thousand dollars. He could buy a new easel, maybe even a bed. He had not seen his mother since he left for college, which he dropped out of before he even finished his first year. But his mother had saved him still, even though he had broken off all contact with her. His mother had saved him with a package. He looked up again. Raindrops fell into his eyes. They danced on his face, sang in his ears. He couldn’t help it. He began to laugh. He smiled for one of the first times in four years. He smiled and danced and laughed while the rain washed away all his problems. He went back to his apartment. He picked up his painting off the floor. When he threw it on the ground it had smeared the paint across the canvas. He propped it up against the wall, and sat on his stool. The painting was beautiful. It needed a little touch up work, but it was still beautiful. He pulled the little purple paintbrush out of his pocket. He grabbed a glass of water and his watercolors. He began to paint.
__________________
The greatest irony in life is that no one lives through it. - Kurt Vonnegut
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