He sat beneath the tree, his trusty little sketchbook open on his knees, the slightly-battered box of pencils by his side. Chewing the end of his pencil absently, he flipped back through the pages, remembering the thoughts which had come to him each time he had put pencil to paper. There was the expression of his anger, the page black with scribblings and scrawlings, words of pain obscured by a frantic, swirling miasma of darkness. And there was the calming scene, the one where he had taken his time and had lapsed almost into a trance, staring at the greenery around him, every leaf its own miniscule effort that no-one would ever see. And there were others, each possessing a memory, some of which had gone through his mind immediately after one another. Calm, to anger, to meditative, to philosophical. Some days there was just one picture. Others there were four.
But today there was a blank page, and he wasn’t sure what to draw. He had put the point of the pencil against the page several times, but wasn’t sure what he should do. Should he be honest and express himself fully? No-one need ever know; it was his sketchbook after all, and people only ever saw the things he chose to share. But with honesty came responsibility; dealing with the truth; the possibility of shattered dreams.
He shrugged. His dreams had already been shattered several times already, and he was still here. He put his pencil to the paper and began to draw. He wasn’t a great artist, which was another reason he didn’t share many of his sketches. But the things he drew held personal meaning to him. Every picture a memory, an emotion, words left unsaid.
He closed his eyes and pictured his subject. He wasn’t sure he could do it justice, but he wanted to try. He decided to keep his eyes closed for the duration of the drawing, and just let his pencil move naturally. It glided across the paper with a gentle scratching sound – the only accompaniment to the soft breeze which blew across the garden and caressed the skin of his face – and traced around the contours of that which occupied his mind so completely right now.
It had been a curious feeling. Hoping against hope, so used to crushed desires and wretched despair, and then the sudden ray of light. His hope had been fulfilled, at least to some extent. He didn’t know what that tiny fulfilled wish would come to, or indeed if anything would come of it. But for now, the fact that for once in his life, a tiny, seemingly-insignificant little wish had been granted – that was enough for him. He needed nothing more, and he knew that while his trials were far from over, he was walking the path he had chosen. Whether it was the correct path or not remained to be seen. But he was walking it, wherever it might lead.
He began to pencil in the details where he thought they should be, eyes still closed, working using only his mind’s eye. He knew that the resultant picture would be nonsensical, but in allowing his mind to have free reign on what he produced, he felt free.
He stopped. That was enough. He had done all he could.
He opened his eyes. The tangled mess of scrawl on the paper bore little resemblance to that of which he was thinking. But it was enough. He knew what it meant, and what it was, was honest.
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