by Christine Stoddard

Created on: October 25, 2009   Last Updated: October 26, 2009

"Dreaming in Acrylic"

The garage hummed with the sounds of dying light bulbs and stray crickets' songs. A fan spun crookedly in the center of the moldy ceiling, threatening to smash against the artist's workbench if not soon replaced. Selena, a short redhead, flicked her blue-tinged paintbrush in between her fingers. A fleck of paint splattered her baggy corduroy pants. She tried to scrape off the splotch with her thumbnail, only to bray in frustration a moment later.

"I can't believe I stained them already," Selena muttered. When she wiped her brow, the stench of rubber cement and old acrylic seared her nostrils.

Five long strips of film lied before Selena on the concrete floor. Two, blank. Three exploding with dots and ribbons of teal, aqua, forest green, beige, and gold. On the first strip, the word "Peacock" appeared in stylized scrawling. "Flapping through" graced the second, while "the sand" was on the third. Selena seized one strip and held it up to the light that struggled to imbue the room. Traces of glitter flickered in a faint line along the sprocket holes. When the fervent filmmaker noticed a mangled moth in the strip's last frame, her bottom lip curled down clownishly.

"Sorry, little martyr."

Selena shoved aside the boxes and cans cluttering her workbench. She placed the strip down on the musty wood and gently tried removing the moth. It writhed the moment she touched one of its torn wings. Then its legs kicked with the intensity of a young bamboo plant shooting up from the earth.

"Just..."

The girl's whole body tensed up as she prepared to touch the moth again. Using only the crescent moon on the edge of her pinkie, she nudged it. The moth flapped even more furiously than before.

"Please...be...still."

The moth did not heed Selena's words. The girl became even stiffer when she realized that she could not save the insect from its slow death. She sighed and relaxed her shoulders a second later. Leaving the strip on the workbench, Selena returned to her spot on the floor. She grabbed a toothpick, positioned it between her dirty fingers, and began scratching her initials into the third finished strip of film. The toothpick's squeaking added to the garage's ambient noise, noise that in any other neighborhood in Arlington on any other day of the week would have gone unnoticed.

The artist's evening stretched on for a few more hours. Paintbrushes flew, toothpicks snapped in half, and cicadas eventually serenaded the urban suburb.

"There,"

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