FIX AND GET BROKEN- PART 1

A MURDER AT A CEMETERY

Got a feeling inside (can't explain)

It's a certain kind (can't explain)

I feel hot and cold (can't explain)

Yeah, down in my soul, yeah (can't explain)

I said (can't explain)

I'm feeling good now, yeah but (can't explain).

Dizzy in the head and I'm feeling blue

The things you've said, well, maybe they're true

I'm gettin' funny dreams again and again

I know what it means, but

I twisted the key on the keyhole and opened my locker to see all my stuff blended in like a mess.

They looked like broccoli, kiwis, pineapples, oranges, peaches and bananas, all stuffed in the blender. Notebooks, pens, pencils, paints, paintbrushes and other stuff you use at school. Well, you know, you never get the time to sort them all. And feels like sorting them today, messing them up later in the day to sort them back tomorrow sounds really tiring.

So just leave them like that, messy at the start of the day, messy at the end of the day.

The only important thing is whether all the things in my locker are all mixed up. I just have to make sure I don't get my sketch pad crumpled, because that's the most important thing for me in school.

School? I wish I could kill the guy who invented the word school.

That person is probably dead and all bones now lying in his coffin with a smile on his skull feeling proud that he saved the entire human race by inventing the word school, because he has built the future for kids like me, but I don't feel the same way. And I wish the grave where he lies was somewhere around the area of my school and at a walking distance I could just go and at least strangle what was left of his remains, at least to cool down my anger at what he has given to us.

What's fun with school anyway?

Foods in the cafeteria that are either overcooked or taste awful.

And the saliva of every worker in the cafeteria standing in front of the food and you stare closely at how droplets from their mouth sprinkle the food as if it was some preservative or food enhancement. Never gets better.

Male Professors with chalk powders sticking on their beards.

Mostly eyeing blondes that are willing to make out with them because their love lives are as miserable as their fake hair to cover their bald heads.

Guys who are crazily good for nothing just messing around.

That is something that always exists, and that's just sad. Walking in the hallway like some prince with their loose pants, their boxers sticking out, and their n*****s, gross n*****s on top of that.

Girls with all their thick shining lipstick.

I mean, I don't have any hatred of girls who want to look good and fresh as part of hygiene. I even apply something to shine my lips. But you don't really have to apply it all the way thick that it was like some sort of nail polish that was applied wrongly on your lips and they were so shiny and thick that they're like dangerously dripping on your jaw. It's almost dripping and smoothly nail polish like and shining of glitter things. It makes people around you get tempted to peel them off of your lips, especially when you look exhausted carrying weights on your lips just because of the thick shining shimmering, never mind.

I took all my painting materials and stuff and slammed my locker back closed.

"Hey Harry", I literally rolled my eyes the moment I heard the soft word coming out from someone from a distance from where I was standing. There are thousands of Harries in this school but I did not need to turn around to see who it was.

That Harry, is Harry Allister Wilson, but he hates everyone that calls him Allister. And everyone calls him Harry, hoping that he'd give them the stare. If only they knew that dumbass is just collecting hot girls like trophies and getting them to bed only to be dumped after the sun rises, they'd stop their fantasy with him. The problem is that they surely know he's a real dumbass and a playboy, but they are still crazy about him.

I fixed all the painting materials in my bag and zipped the bag close at the same time the bell started ringing for the resume of classes, trying to ignore the lady who kept calling the dumbass as he walked to the hallway like he's the son of that deceased inventor of the word "school".

He looked like one of those guys with their loose pants and their visible boxers. The only difference is that he wears a hoodie when its all hot and summer, and tight pants to give everyone a clear sight of how small his tit is. Though I never get to focus on that thing in between, which I do not have plans my whole life to look at, cause it's probably a poison in the eye, but boys who flirt like they're the most handsome man ever, mostly have short t**s.

Why am I even talking about that?

"There are many elements considered in art, but on top of it all is the meaning of your piece. That is a basic fact, I'm sure you all know very well. Your message behind your drawn images, and the means of delivering this message to the audiences through your creativity is what makes it unique. Take some time to look inside you. What do you want to express as of today? What are the emotions you wanted to put in the drawing? Visualize it, feel it, and your hand and the paintbrush will do its thing", a female professor in her mid 30s was the new arts professor and was currently giving her lecture in the middle of an activity.

I exhaled before slowly closing my eyes and concentrating. What do I want to express? What do I visualize?

It's all black in here. I see nothing else. I mean, painting is an expression through art. What if I want to express nothing? How do I express that through painting?

With a smile slowly shaping my lips, I opened my eyes and started dipping the tip of the paintbrush into the first color.

I took a pause and stared at my canvas as I felt the professor's gaze landed on my painting, but I did not bother to give her a stare as she made her way to my chair.

"What have you got in their Ava? I see all black in your drawing. Got any special meaning to it?"

"Is the color black all that you can get out of it?", she looked at the canvas for the next couple of seconds and stared at my spare paint.

"I see you just took your paintbrush, and opened the black paint and covered your canvas with it."

"Can you not see any different shades in it?", this time she looked at it more intently and she screamed in amazement as she looked at the canvas like she'd seen a colorful image on the all-black painting.

She pointed her hands at the painting and ran her fingers to draw something.

"Did you paint a grave in here?", I just shrugged my shoulders while she continued to touch the painting and got another trail.

"A murder?", I smiled and stood straight before I dipped my paintbrush in the thinner.

"You finally got what I drew in there."

"What a brilliant message you have. A murder at a cemetery not seen as it happened during the night". I stopped smiling and touched the painting myself.

"That's not the message I wanted to give. It's deception."

"Deception?", she asked in confusion as she stared at the canvas and then at me, vice versa.

"You looked at it and told me that it was all black and nothing else and you were deceived by the color. And then I asked you if you could see any other shades and you pointed to areas and trails in the painting that seemed to be a different shade to you, but there was nothing. You just got deceived twice. We get deceived by color and by others even with a single word they speak. There were actually no other shades in the painting. You just looked into it and imagined there was another because I asked you if there were any. Deception. The color deceived you into looking at a plain painting the easy way you could see a thing in it. I say color does not matter in painting, people see the color in your painting the way they wanted it to see. Like how people see others the way they want to look at them and not how they truly are", I smiled and took my bag, giving the painting one last look as I began walking, but stopped just as I stepped foot on the door.

"Why don't you join the Annual Painting Competition? It's next week?"

"No one would damn care about my painting. Color still matters to people who don't understand the true nature of painting and art. We use it to disseminate messages, but people stare at it like a plain image and nothing else". I turned and continued to walk again.

The painting I did had a grave and a murder at the cemetery, though. The teacher found it, but she was too easy to fool when I told her that nothing was in the painting and she disregarded what she felt in the painting. That means she'll never rely on the painting to discover what I wanted to express through it, rather rely on what the painter says what wants to convey through it.

Then why would you need to paint?

Painting is not just a mere art. You can use painting in any way you want, any path possible if you think of way how to do it.

My name is Ava Eleanor Brown, 17 and this is my story.