Week Twenty- five (April 13-April 18)- Topic:Graffiti
Winner(s) tied: Clare and Sunny
Scribbles and Masterpieces
By Clare
Chris walked into the cafeteria during midday lunch break, and grimaced at the noise that an enormous body of teenagers can make at the crescendo of the day. He passed a giggly group of girl, and one called out, “Hey Chris, why don’t you come and sit with us!”
He rolled his eyes and kept walking. The girls burst out in indignant huffs and poorly hidden giggles. Chris couldn’t help but shake his head and roll his eyes again. He supposed he had just brought on the horrifying wrath of the insulted girls, who were probably at this moment saying how rude he was, etc. Oh dear, however would he survive? He shook his head again, sighed, and walked over to his out-of-the- way table. Sitting down, he slipped on his headphones, trying to tune out the endless wave of sounds. He hardly suppressed a groan. To think he had two more semesters in this hell hole.
He got out of the large cafeteria room as soon as he was done and made his way to art class as quickly as he could. Art class was the only thing that kept Chris from complete insanity. Last year he hadn’t even had that. This year his parents made him take the class in hopes of getting him educated in the ‘correct’ form of art. He’d dreaded it at first, but it turned out to be pretty cool thanks to Ms. Allen, the art teacher. She was open to all kinds of art, and encouraged it all.
He got there fifteen minutes early, as usual, and grabbed for the nearest stack of paper and pens. He sat down at his usual desk and started to draw. By the time the rest of the class got in, he had a half formed picture of a warrior whose sword was raised in defense. The sword seemed to emerge from the opened mouth of a dragon at the hilt of the sword.
Chris saw a shadow fall over his paper and glanced up. It was just another art class student. She was looking curiously over his shoulder at the drawing. He quickly shoved the scribble into his desk ignored the girl.
No one else here did his kind of art. His was a mixture of all kinds of art. People didn’t know how to classify it, because the people didn’t look real enough to be real people, but it was certainly more intricate than anime. He mixed painting with crayon and colored pencils. He mixed modern with medieval art. It was always something odd and usually completely random. His favorite thing to do was scribble little pictures on some loose leaf paper with his black pen. He had a black pen attached to a chain he always wore on his jeans. He never went anywhere without a pen or pencil. Usually during most classes he’d doodle endlessly. He also drew on his own arms and hands when paper wasn’t available. No one could tell if he actually had a tattoo or not.
Right now he was scratching a Celtic knot on his forearm while waiting for Ms. Allen to come in. By the time she got there he had finished an elaborate design that had a dagger seemingly stabbing through the entire thing. He heard someone sitting beside him say, “Whoa,” in a quiet voice, but he didn’t acknowledge it.
“Hello class!” Ms. Allen said. Everyone liked Ms. Allen, because she wasn’t the type of teacher who expected you to answer. She was totally relaxed, but she got you moving if she wanted to. It was always fun though, whatever she had in mind. Chris looked over and gave her a small nod and said, “Sup?”
“Hi Chris,” she said as she passed. Chris was a special favorite of hers, though he didn’t know it. She took interest in his wild and unpredictable imagination.
“Today,” she began, and everyone started to shut up, “And for the rest of the week in fact, we will be looking back on the Renaissance era.” She pulled the projector into place and turned the lights off. Chris settled down for the speech. With Ms. Allen, it was bound to be something interesting.
The film started to roll and Ms. Allen started to talk.
“The Renaissance was one of the greatest eras for painters, as you all know. Famous artists such as the well known Raphael, Michelangelo, and of course the ever famed Leonardo da Vinci, excelled in this age. The art was centered mainly upon paintings of holy men and woman, angels and devils, God and heaven. Religious art changes from era to era, and from each artist and the place they come from. Some artists envision Mary, said to be the mother of Jesus Christ, with blond hair if they happened to be from a place like Switzerland, Poland, or Germany. Italians painted their men and woman with darker skin and rounder features. Mary, said to be from Nazareth, the city in north Israel, would have been neither. She would probably have had darker hair, slightly darker skin, but in that age they would not have had extra food to become round on, so both of these versions were slightly wrong. The reason is that these artists all based their paintings on real men and woman living in the Renaissance time itself, therefore there are many paintings where these holy people are wearing a style of clothing that would have been unheard of during their own lives....”
The talk went on, and Chris was immersed in his favorite thing: Art.
He walked out of the class lost in thought. An idea was blooming in his mind.
That night he climbed out his window around 12:30. He made his way slowly to the neighborhood park. He was still lost in though. He toyed with his chain as he waited on the swing.
Finally a pair of headlights crawled into the parking lot.
“Bout time,” Chris said to the approaching figures. It was a girl and boy who looked the same age as Chris. They were all dressed in your usual Goth-outcast attire. They looked like the kinda of druggie gangs that police would just love to lay hands on. Good thing they never got caught.
“Hi to you too, so what’s on the menu tonight?” asked the girl.
“Harkins Square,” Chris said, “That ugly new bookstore building sort of hidden in the corner is just begging to be turned into a piece of art. Lucky for us, the cops don’t seem to like Harkins Square.”
“Okay, let’s go then!”
Half an hour later they were spraying on the paint. Chris had looked into the window and thought for a moment. Maybe he’d actually be doing these people a favor. Everything was on sale. Looked like the book store was losing far more than it was making. Though not many people really thought much of it, building design really attracted people. Ugly building, less browsers. He shrugged. Either way, this horrible hunk of concrete just thirsted for something to bring it to life.
So two hours later, their work was finally done. Chris nodded, satisfied, and signed his name in small complicatedly made letters at the bottom. Christopher. He smiled for the first time since the previous day had begun.
The next morning Richard walked to work like he did every morning. He sipped his coffee and tried to get his mind of the pounding headache he had. He was going to be out of work pretty soon, the way things were going. He shook his head sadly and turned the corner.
His jaw and coffee cup dropped at the same time. The entire front of the book store had been covered in graffiti. It was amazing. It wasn’t your usual graffiti, but something different. The words “HARKINS SQUARE BOOKSTORE” were scrawled above the door in elegant gold letters, and the rest of the wall had been covered in different designs that showed all different genres of books. A huge fire breathing dragon seemed to come from out of nowhere, clutching the doorframe with its enormous black claws. In another corner of the wall, two lovers curled up together surrounded by vines of flowers which grew up and around an arch and began to sprout roses and thorns and is reached a woman clothed in a dark cape, with an evil glint in her eye. There were cowboys, fantasy creature, ancient Egyptian figures, Renaissance artwork, and everything else imaginable, all crowded on the front wall of the bookstore. Richard stared at the intricate design that all seemed to merge together perfectly and swore. It was like no graffiti he had ever seen. It was strange and beautiful at the same time. Real and unreal. Richard wasn’t sure if he should be happy or angry. He looked at the crowd that was starting to gather around the amazingly painted building and shrugged. However it turned out, it couldn’t be worse than before. He made his way through the gathering people and unlocked his doors. Questions and customers followed.
More by Clare: http://www.goodreads.com/story/list/9779...
* * *
Nameless
By Sunny
I sighed; the first day of school at Ledger High was always torture for me. What made it worse was that I still had all of this year plus another before I could leave school and the country. Plus my favorite teacher, Mrs. Peters, had left at the end of last year because she wanted to have a family. She had taught the only class I liked; art.
And for some unknown reason (perhaps God had a personal vendetta against me) I had made to school early. Meaning that I had no choice but to stand in the hallways alongside rest of my moronic classmates until Mr. Jackson came and opened the door to his classroom. Gritting my teeth I passed through a group of shouting jocks and continued walking.
Just like every morning, the crowd parted for me, making an alleyway large enough for two people to walk comfortable through. They never made eye contact, and rarely seemed to notice why they had moved; generally people at Ledger ignored me, when they weren’t ignoring me they made rude comments. I wasn’t really hardwired for school, I planned on being an artist once I left high school, then all I would have to do was draw.
Several lockers away from my own a passed a blond boy with freckles who, upon seeing me, crossed himself and muttered what sounded like some sort of prayer. I grinned in response and started a low muttering chant under my breath that inaudible except for the name ‘Satan’. I had known the boy since sixth grade and he been convinced that I was an agent of the devil ever since, I occasionally helped his theory along.
The boy’s conclusion was understandable; church was a big part of life in Ledger Texas, I didn’t attend and coupled with by all black attire everyone assumed I was the Antichrist.
As I approached my locker I saw that I had been assigned the one next to Tiffany Hewet. Joy.
I listened in on Tiffany and her posse of giggling, blonde friends as I spun my combination lock and stacked my books inside. “—And yesterday I went to Hollister too!” exclaimed Tiffany. “I got this totally adorable white mini skirt and this fantastic top that completely matches my eyes!”
“Hey Tiffany, look, I got this shirt yesterday also!” I said, turning towards her and raising my voice. “It totally matches my eyes and my hair! Plus black is a very slimming color.” I spun, displaying my dark, skull-covered T-shirt.
“That’s nice, Regina,” muttered Tiffany, turning and quickly walking down the hallway.
I rolled my eyes; no one in this thrice damned school understood sarcasm. It was an art that I had perfected years ago, but it was being wasted on these idiots. Seizing my English book I strode down the hall to Mr. Jackson’s class—I was going to be early for yet another part of school, this was not my day.
* * *
I was returning to my locker after English when I realized that I couldn’t remember the number. I was about to start digging through my backpack to find the scrap of paper it was scribbled on, when I glanced up at the row of faded orange lockers and saw that I didn’t need the number to find my new locker. It already stood out.
I rolled my eyes; they had graffitied my locker. The word WITCH was scrawled through the middle of my locker. Snorting, I pulled out several Sharpie markers from my hip pocket and started embellishing.
By the time the bell rang for my science class I had turned the WITCH into an enormous, squirreling design that took up most of my locker. Standing back, I smiled at my accomplishments, I quite liked it. The nasty orange had annoyed my for as long as I had gone to school here, this was a definite improvement. I suffered in silence through Mrs. Lamb’s Science and then was shuttled off to Mr. Mason’s history class. Apart from art, history was my favorite subject, not that it interested but because of Mr. Mason. He had the roundest head I had ever seen on an adult and it was made even more noticable by the fact that he had no hair. His glasses nearly cover his entire face and his pants could usually be found somewhere around armpits. His shirts (what little you could see) were usually some sort of checked mustard yellow flannel, in addition he had bad hearing so he didn’t really talk, he shouted. I guess he assumed that since he couldn’t hear himself when he wasn’t, neither could we.
After fifteen minutes and three cartoons of Mr. Mason I raised my hand.
“Yes, Miss Green?” bellowed Mr. Mason.
“Mr. Mason, I don’t feel well,” I said, widening my eyes and placing a hand over my stomach.
“Again, Miss Green?” asked Mr. Mason, exasperated.
“I’m afraid so,” I said in as sad a tone as I could muster. “You know about my condition.” I tried not to smile, had no condition worth mentioning except chronic boredom and pathological lying but Mr. Mason didn’t need to know that.
“Very well, Miss Green but you’re going to miss an extraordinarily good lesson about the commerce and trade of the 1820s.”
“What a shame Mr. Mason. I feel terrible about having to leave!” I said in a tragic voice.
I grinned as the door swung shut behind me and I heard Mr. Mason resume his lecturing. My grin widening I and jogged to my locker and took out my box of deluxe Sharpie markers. Fifty-nine colors. Happiness in a box.
Pausing only long enough to decide what part of the school I wanted to tag I started down one of the many winding hallways. I had been sneaking out of history class since the middle of ninth grade so I had already done the obvious places like the bathroom stalls and the gym walls. I briefly contemplated doing Ben Johnson’s locker as payback for his doing mine but decided that it didn’t deserve to be blessed with artwork such as mine.
I was determined that one day I would graffiti the principal’s office, but not today. Today I settled for the strip of wall between the cafeteria and Mrs. Peters old classroom. To start out I drew a fairy dancing on a mushroom, then I added an entire garden behind it. After that I drew a sleeping dragon curled around an enormous book and in the lower corner I did the Mona Lisa in anime (this version involved her wearing an outfit similar to my own and holding a Sharpie. The only thing I didn’t change was the mischievous smile).
“No offense da Vince, but mine’s better,” I said, a huge smile spreading across my face.
Glancing at my watch I realized that it was almost time for lunch. I had to get out of here before students and teacher alike flooded the halls. I shoved the markers into my backpack and dove into a bathroom just as the bell rang.
Once the stampede of yelling and gossiping students had dwindled I emerged from the bathroom and headed out onto the patio to eat my lunch and draw.
* * *
“Hi,” the voice was male and coming from over my shoulder.
I closed my sketchbook and turned, unsmiling. The man was looked like he was about twenty-one, dressed in worn blue jeans and a black t-shirt advertising some band I never had heard of. He was good looking and his voice was slightly accented.
“You like to draw?” he asked, smiling.
I nodded. Who was he? I had never seen him before, he looked to young to be staff and to old to be a student.
“You did some great work on the walls around this place,” he said, grinning widely.
I stiffened, how did he know it was me? “Who are you?” I asked, openly hostile.
“Jason Adams, I’m your new art teacher,” he said.
My mouth opened slightly, so he was a teacher.
“Expecting someone older?” he asked, reading my expression correctly.
“Yeah.”
“So was I. When I saw your artwork I thought it must have been a hired artist, until I saw you drawing outside my classroom. There’s a scholarship for young artist, it will allow you to graduate early and study abroad. Sound like something you’re interested in?”
“Sounds great, I’d love to get out of Ledger. Especially to draw,” I answered. I grinned, maybe Mrs. Peters wanting to have a family wasn’t such a bad deal after all.
More of Sunny's writing: http://www.goodreads.com/story/list/1814...
Read more from this contest: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1305...
