LJ Idol Topic - Week 1
Jack took a step away from the canvas, scrutinizing his work. The fingers of his left hand twisted absently at his long and scraggly grey beard while the fingers of his right loosely lofted a wooden-handled paintbrush.
He dipped again at his color palette and lightly swathed a short, dry path across the coarse fabric. It was an early winter scene; one of the first snows of the winter season with the colors of autumn still onstage raging an encore. But not for long. Winter wasn’t just coming; it had already arrived with thick, chunky, snowflakes paratrooping right onto the scene.
Jack cleared his throat and squinted again at the copse of maples he’d just painted into the landscape. Had he seen something moving there? He looked away from the easel and then back again, intently.
Oh yes indeed. Jack had seen something moving and it appeared to be a girl.
He took a step closer to the canvas and confirmed the mousy blonde hair escaping a boxy blue parka; the flushed cheeks and misty breaths. Who was this girl? As his focus turned inward, his eyebrows knitted together and his blue eyes began to glaze, but what was most amazing was the way his gnarled hands went rapidly to work, dipping, swiping, accenting. As the moment stretched onward a much more vivid image of a stranded young woman began to take shape amongst the trees upon his canvas.
She was plain, yet pretty. And she had just wrecked her car. It hissed not far away, then shuddered and went quiet. Old Man Jack’s paintbrush fluttered furiously over the canvas as the blonde tossed her dead cellphone aside and stomped off into the large clearing heading away from the road. What was she angry about and why was she heading away from the road?! Even as the painting came more to life with every brush stroke, Jack didn’t exactly have a good feeling about it and his anxiety only grew stronger when next she stumbled in the thick blanket of leaves and mounting layers of snow and went down with a cry as her ankle gave way painfully beneath her. Oh noo.. Jack’s breath caught in his throat. Maybe.. ?
As disoriented as she had become with the new injury and the gathering snow storm, Jack resorted to desperate measures, painting himself into the scene just before he physically stepped into the canvas and disappeared inside the painted landscape, thinking maybe if he could lead her back in the direction of her car real help might arrive in time to save her, and if he couldn’t make that happen… Well..
“Oh little lovely one!” he called, an anxious note to his tone. Old Man Jack couldn’t help but feel responsible for her predicament. He had a bit of a penchant for painting winter scenes and sometimes.. Well, sometimes the scenes just got away from him. It had happened before.
The girl looked about her, bewildered. She seemed to focus on something in his direction, tried to bear weight on her injured foot and crashed down again into the snow. It was painful for Jack to witness, especially when she began pulling herself forward with a weakening crawl, fat snowflakes swirling all around them now, her body stretched out on the cold ground as she struggled.
He kept calling to her. It was all he could do. He could bring the snows, but he could not take them away. He could try to keep her awake, but he could not touch her. Such were the rules of his worlds; so many worlds he had painted. Sometimes an innocent simply got caught up inside them..
He smirked then, noticing how her breathing had slowed and her cheeks were no longer nearly as rosy. It wouldn’t be long now.. If she couldn’t be saved then she’d just have to be his. There were worse things!
Crouching closer he called to her to come dance with him. “Come little lovely! Come dance with this lonely old Jack Frost.” He could see the way her eyes were no longer focusing though she turned her cheek toward his voice.
He extended one hand, fingertips lingering above her cheek, a small flash of warmth bursting inside of him as her last breath left her lips.
“That’s it… my little lovely. That’s my girl.” And with the passing of her life she suddenly became more accessible to him and he gathered her frigid body up against his own and cradled it. Within moments a frosty specter of the girl materialized beside him and he smiled at her, laying the shell of the one that once was to the ground. The specter would only live for a few short hours, but until she faded into nothing, Jack Frost would have a temporary companion with whom he could share his world and inside his barreled ribcage the old man's heart burst with warmth.
“May I have this dance?”
This story is part of a writing 'intersection' for this season of therealljidol. My partner in crime this week was the awesome belleweather. You can read her half of the intersection HERE. We were given the task of intersecting the topics of "You gave everything you possibly could" and "Chillin' Like a Villain". Definitely a challenge!