Gleam

His charcoal breaks as he pulls it across the canvas. He has to stop and find his knife, cut away wood, and put away the knife. It all takes a few seconds.1

The break caused him to smudge her face. Her beautiful face.2

He takes a breath, puts the pencil to the page, and cuts the line of her jaw into the paper. He does it with short strokes to avoid more mistakes, because charcoal is unforgiving. Once a mark is made, it stays. You can only smudge it – only blur the lines between the white and the black to a shade of gray.3

But that mark will always be there.4

The phone rings. He doesn’t go and pick it up. It rings three more times. Then the person on the other side – the vendor for whatever is being sold – loses patience and hangs up.5

He glances at a picture he took of her. She looks like an angel in that picture. Between that man and that old woman – they are insects among God – she is radiant.6

His mouth curls into a smile. He reaches and scratches his chin. The charcoal dust gets on his lips, and he coughs upon the accidental inhaling.7

Hundreds of strokes later, he has placed her shoulders onto the page. Her face is so supple, so smooth. Free of wrinkles and free of marring. He begins on her hair: long strokes of the charcoal, and then rubbing to change the shade.8

The phone starts ringing again. He doesn’t want to lose his concentration.9

The charcoal breaks again. He doesn’t want to get out his knife.10

But he does. And he cuts away the edges of the pencil. And in doing so he accidentally cuts his finger. He picks up one of the cloths he keeps nearby, just in case, and wipes the red from his skin.11

The phone dies down again, and he can only hear the scratching of black on white, and the sound of his breathing – his throat still scratches from before. He will finish this picture.12

He is done with her hair. Now he just needs to put in the shadows. He pulls his fingers across her chin, smudging it as he goes. Her image takes on new dimension. Her eyes are soon the only thing to be not shaded at all. One must be careful with the eyes – they must be drawn sharp to imitate the gleam they possess in reality.13

His work has consumed him, but now he steps back from his art. She is so beautiful. He glances again at the photograph he took, held between his fingers. It is covered in charcoal; the entire image seems to have fallen into shadow.14

The artist places his pencil back into his case, and picks up his knife.15

She’ll surely love it when she sees it. He has, after all, made it for her.16

He can see his eyes in the knife blade, but the black dust dulls the reflection. He picks up the cloth and wipes the steel clean.17