I am a good girl and have always been. It is a reputation that I have maintained since the moment of my birth. I have been the firstborn child of my parents who have been trying for far too long. Since my mother has borne me out of her womb, I have been nothing short of a blessing to all of them who have come to know me as a miracle. At their age I would have been impossible, but fate and luck have instead pulled through for them. Here I am now, their little miracle.
I have heard of miracles. I have read about them being some form of divine intervention from a higher power, often occurring during times of great distress when all hope seems to be lost. I have not completely understood the true nature of a miracle until I have learned to read, and by then I cannot help wondering if I have seriously been the work of God. Maybe I am not just the work of God; I could be Him turned into a little girl merely to deceive devout worshippers who would have otherwise made a riot out of me.
“Oh look, there’s our little girl,” I hear my father murmur from my bedroom door. “Looks like she’s got her hands busy.”
I am no more some little girl physically. I have grown up to be a preteen, but to my parents I am forever their little girl. I believe being the only child has since limited their range of care to me solely, not that I am complaining at all. I love all the attention, and it has never once smothered me regardless of the amount.
“Hey there, sweetheart,” my mother greets as both of my parents approach me from behind.
“Hey there, guys,” I smile as they take me in for a warm embrace. Their embrace warms my frigid hands, cold from the work at hand. “Be careful, my hands are wet.”
“Why, what are you working on right now?” my father asks as they pull away from the embrace, their gaze directed right at my hands.
“It’s just another art project,” I mention as I put my hands down, presenting to them my unfinished canvas.
Over the time that my parents have taken to raise me, I have turned to the visual arts as my creative outlet. My parents have only introduced the idea to me as a playfully imaginative toddler, but it seems that whatever I have worked on then have shower them that I have some sort of potential for the visual arts. Eventually they have gotten me my very own art studio that would house my own easel, set of paintbrushes, and even a cabinet that would store every single medium that I could use to paint with.
As the years have gone by, my projects have proven to outshine the other. Every year, I would be experimenting with any sort of medium I could find. I have started from the basic crayon boxes that every child would normally be gifted with, but I have since progressed from that. I have looked into using flowers and leaves and fruits, but I feel like I have exhausted every easy find possible. I know I would need to find something new eventually, and I think I may have just found it.
“Well, what’s this one that you’re working on then?” my mother inquires.
“I’m doing another religious painting, probably my interpretation of the Biblical Rapture,” I answer as they look on further in awe.
As a visual artist, I have always stuck to doing religious paintings out of my own presumably miraculous nature. I am a miracle after all; I have been created in His likeness, so in turn I must make images of that which will and should happen regardless. I have the creative skill to do so, and this is the best way that I can put it out at.
I have always admired the intricacy and full detail in many Renaissance-era paintings and so have made it a personal goal to recreate the style in spite of today’s rapidly changing modern art movement. What would make my works modern though is the variety of mediums that I have used over the years. From the standard watercolor and oils, I have created paints out of nearly every photosynthesizing organism I could find within the boundaries of our one-hectare property. To be honest, I have been running out of materials over the past few weeks until I have finally discovered a new medium.
“Why the Reaping?” my father quakes. “You’ve done a wonderfully calm version of that scene where Jesus walks on water, so why go for this morbidity?”
“Why not? You know I like to paint stuff like this,” I clear up for them. “What’s wrong with this one?”
“It’s just too dark, honey,” my mother mumbles. “Especially with that color you’re using, how awful.”
I have not yet begun painting since my parents have caught me still harvesting my newest medium. I have been initially skeptical about this new medium, but after sleepless nights spent researching about this one, I know that this is something that I would definitely have to try. I have been at risk before for harvesting poison ivy without gloves first, but this sort of risk has been something else. Finding this may have gotten me in a possibly risky situation, but no one has been around to spot me. Now that I have it in my possession, I simply could not wait to try this out.
“Oh you don’t like this color?” I whine.
“No, we didn’t mean it like that,” my father assures me as he stoops to hold me again. “I guess your mother and I are just surprised.”
“Then again, you have always surprised us,” my mother laughs. “You can turn anything into art, even this weird reddish-brown stuff on your hands.”
“What is this, honey?” my father asks as he holds my hand up by my dry wrist, examining the strange pigment all over my hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this color out of any fruit.”
I have been busy mixing my paint through that I have not noticed just how it could possibly put off my parents. I watch my father sniffing through it, but I have been successful in eliminating any weird odors that it may still release. I have managed to maintain its consistency, but it is still a weird texture even for me. I doubt I have ever made paint that has ever felt like this, but I am willing to take on anything for the sake of my art.
“It feels like slime,” my mother comments as she takes my other paint-soaked hand into her own, feeling the paint through. “Where’d you find this?”
“These are from some wild berries I found in the back. I thought of mixing them together to create a new paint, so this happened,” I lie. I cannot tell them the truth of the source, for that would get me in big trouble. I just hope that I have managed to hide my source well enough away from them to not find it.
“Well, this is definitely something new,” my father remarks.
“What berries did you find back there?” my mother asks as both of my parents let go of my hands, grabbing a towel nearby to wipe their hands clean of the weird paint.
“I don’t remember what you call them,” I fabricate.
“Well we’ll take your word for it,” my father chuckles nervously as they turn to leave my room. “I bet you’ll make something beautiful out of that.”
They walk out of my studio, ready to leave me alone once more to the infinite boundaries of my own imagination within the finite corners of this room. They may have not been able to see past my lies but until that time comes, I can safely practice my art using this strange new medium. I am just surprised that they have not once mentioned the strange smell, but my open windows may have taken much of the awful odor out of here. I must admit that I have had my guard up the whole time, but maybe I have been a little too well-guarded. Well, I can’t help it now that I am handling something like this in this studio.
“Hey honey, have you heard about that hiker?” my mother asks as they both swing around back to me.
“What hiker?” I return as they catch me propping my window up with another object.
“Well we heard about some missing hiker going through the woods behind our property when he got lost or something,” my father mentions. “I thought you might have an idea about that.”
“No, I didn’t even know about that until you told me,” I answer with a shrug.
“If you say so, we’ll leave you to your project,” my mother beams as they close the door on me with a smile, ignoring the bone that I have just propped my window up with.