It's the way Maya paints spontaneously from her soul. It is like she draws the color of her soul on paper with ink.
Maya seldom had many friends. She found fulfillment and companionship within the four walls of her studio. Like a typical creative, that space was a quantum that catapults her into different realms of imagination. Like a daydreamer, she would often drift away, then come back to create a masterpiece.
“I know art is your life but there is still some more to explore outside of your little box of reality” her mother, Miha would often say to her. “Go out! Get some air and have a little fun some time”.
Maya quickly rushed down to her supply store. She was in a state of hysteria. She needed new paints and brushes. Her burst of ideas wasn't going to sail with the wind this time. In her slender frame, overall pants, and black hair tied up in a bun, you couldn't help but mesmerize at the work of art she was herself. She looked exactly like the younger version of her mother - exotic and beautiful.
“I would pick these if I were you. They do the magic to your paintings by breathing life into them. Quite the spectacle”. A woman in a black dress and hat handed Maya a box of colors.
Maya stopped looking through the shelf in front of her. “Have you tried them?”
“Many times before” the strange woman replied.
Maya didn't like to try new things often but she took them anyway and dashed straight home to complete her painting.
She had painted a picture of ‘popeye’ that morning for her little cousin Dean coming over for the holidays. It was his favorite cartoon character. She found it very odd that someone had traced out her painting.
“Who could it be?”
Maya lived alone with her mother in a suburban two-bedroom flat. Yes, Mrs. Briggs was their nosy neighbor but she wouldn't do such.
Maya decided to let it slide for the moment and paint some more. She would speak to her mother about it over dinner. She painted a unicorn with aqua hair. Positioned so graciously, it had deep piercing eyes that could hypnotize.
Moments later, the anguish from her ruined painting erupted again. Maya decided to pour her rage into color. She painted a whole village of nasty elves while imagining all the mean things they would do to the culprit.
“Finally, a comic relief and a little something for the holidays”. She giggled.
“Dinner is served, Maya. Come out of that hole of yours”
It wasn't her mother's call but the thunderous knock threatening to bring down their door that made Maya run up from the basement.
“It appears someone has been eating up and making a mess of all the spinach in this neighborhood. The entire gardens are a mess”. Mrs. Briggs turned her nose up at Miha as she opened the door.
“How would we know about that. Someone ruined my painting and I didn't come knocking at your door”. Maya blurted in her mother's defense.
“This is the most beautiful horse I've ever seen in my life”. Miha was listening to neither of them. She appeared mesmerized with dreamy eyes. Like a robot, she moved past Mrs. Briggs pointing her hands towards the lawn outside.
There stood the spectacle Maya created earlier. Maya's thoughts began to spiral
from the wrecked gardens across the neighborhood, her ruined painting from earlier, the unicorn outside that seemed to have hypnotized her mother, back to the strange woman from the supply store.
“I would pick these if I were you. They do the magic to your paintings by breathing life into them. Quite the spectacle”.
“Oh no!” Maya quickly ran down to her studio in the basement to find all her paintings for the night including the village of nasty elves ripped out.
Maya barely dodged a mud of ink thrown at her. It hit the door behind her and soon enough she become a target mark. In no time her studio turned into a field display shooting colors.
Maya began seeing tiny creatures flying all around the room causing destruction.
“Let us go and see what this the neighborhood is made off”
“Come on let's go, this city is ours”
“Yippie! Let's wreak havoc”
The tiny creatures scattered across the room then ran out of the basement almost throwing Maya on the floor.
“Elves”. Maya yelled.