Green eyes flecked with gray and gold stared unrelenting at the blank white wall. The
plainness of the wall stared back. Thin legs bent, knees touching the plastic shielded carpet
on the floor. Long arms reached downwards. A moments pause. The eyes lingered in the
blank wall opposite them. Then they darted to the cans at her knees. Long fingers flexed
and the left hand wrapped around the screwdriver with the red and yellow handle. The tool
slid under the edge of the can's lid and pried upwards. The top came off with a damp
smacking sound like an egg dropping from its shell into a bowl. The eyes were dazzled by
orange. The nose breathed deep the fresh new smell of paint. Lips smiled. Her hands
began to work again, prying off the lids one by one. Releasing the colors from their prison
to her eyes. No more in shadow do they lie. She thought. Her eyes wondered at the blue,
the yellow, the red, the green. The screwdriver fell to the floor as her hand grasped the
brush. The handle is smooth wood about a quarter inch in diameter, worn by time and use.
It rolled between her fingers. Back and forth, around and around. Her green eyes returned
to the ghostly wall. Staring it down. Sudden motion. The brush briefly touching the green
paint before it attacked the wall with such vigor as was never seen in this place. Her laugh
shook the air as the color flew from her brush. It was directed, smudged, mixed, layered.
Each color in its turn. Paint began to run down her arm. It was spattered on her face and
dripped on her clothes. If she noticed she did not care. All she saw, all she knew was the
colors mixing, twisting, dancing themselves into a mural which covered up the tasteless
wall. She was red and violet, her brush was blue and orange, the wall was a rainbow. A
frantic mix of color and time and space and energy. Light was turned this way and that in
this labyrinth of confused and dancing colors. Music filled her head. It moved her brush
and her feet. She danced with the colors and with the light and with the music inside her.
The color and the light and the music all swirled around and around her becoming one
force which overpowered and filled her to the top. Then it stopped. Suddenly. Like a flash
of lightning. The music was silent. She heard only the cars on the street below. The paint
on her hands was sticky and her jeans were a rainbow of streaks and spots. Her brush
dripped a mixture of swirled blue and yellow. Empty hand flew to brush blonde hair from
the eyes which did not leave the wall. No longer white. No longer plain. No longer pallid
and empty. What it once had been was no longer. The wall had been granted a new
beginning. A rebirth. The wall was covered in dancing, churning colors in patterns and
forms and shapes that leaped across the emptiness that had been once upon a time. A sigh
escaped her lips. A sigh of satisfaction. Of making something beautiful. A rainbow puddle
pooled on the plastic covered floor. She grinned and stepped foreword, dipping her hand
into it. She stared at her palm then smacked it against the wall that was now art. It was her
own.