Member-only story
A Painter’s Forest
And how the painter’s life changed
Ricky felt as though he was adrift at sea being bandied about by the waves. He felt like he was a boat with no motor and no sail completely at the mercy of the sea.
All his life he did the opposite of what everyone told him to do. He defied social convention and most rules. Consequently he had few friends and he had been disowned by his family. And girlfriends never stayed around him for long.
Loneliness was something Ricky never experienced. He could not even fathom what it was like. He did not need others to bring meaning to his life. He was mostly happy and content… except for the feeling of being adrift.
Ricky was a starving artist who painted the odd things he saw around him. His paintings were crude and not in keeping with everything he had learned in art school. Even when he was a child with crayons he purposely colored outside of the lines. And he always put the wrong color on things. The sky would be purple and the grass blue and the house would be orange.
Occasionally one of his paintings would sell but never for very much. Usually it was just enough to buy more art supplies. To pay the rent he drifted from job to job. He immediately grew bored with each one and quite often he ended up being fired.
