Theo
Grunting, Theo rubbed his face into the pillow, appreciating the soft texture as he told himself it was time to wake up. Sunlight poured through the windows of his apartment, telling him it was well past time to get his ass out of bed and get moving. The pounding of his head that had driven him to take a nap was now just a dull ache. It felt like the half a gallon of water he’d downed before sprawling was finally in his system.
With a soft noise, he tried to roll onto his stomach. Gravity took hold, reminding him he’d chosen to sleep on the couch. With a yelp, he hit the hardwood floor, managing to curl his arms under him to save his face. The impact ricocheted up and down his arms, vibrating through his now aching knees.
“Ow,” he managed, thumping his head against the floor.
Alright, not the best way to wake up from a nap, but at least he wouldn’t have to go zombie shuffling toward the kitchen for coffee immediately. Muttering curses, he picked himself up from the floor to sit on the edge of the couch. Putting his face in his hands, he gave a low groan.
With another grunt, he slapped his hands down on his knees and looked around the apartment. It was a disaster, and he pursed his lips at the thought of cleaning it. Clothes littered the space, left where he had tossed them. Glasses and beer bottles cluttered the coffee table in front of him, as well as the top of the entertainment system, windowsills, and floor. He really didn’t savor the idea of sorting through the mess, and that included several overflowing ashtrays scattered about.
“Coffee,” he grunted, pushing himself up off the couch.
At least the kitchen was somewhat salvageable. After refilling the coffeemaker and setting it to brew, Theo put himself to work. He started collecting the empty containers of takeout to throw in the trash, tossing the glass bottles into the recycling bin, and doing his best to rinse the dirty dishes. The dishes were just shoved into the dishwasher and left to sit until it was full enough to run. Never was he more glad that he’d been talked into buying the appliance than he was when he was forced to do housework.
The coffeemaker gurgled weakly as the last drips fell into the carafe. Theo pulled it free, finding a mug that was reasonably clean and pouring himself a cup. With a tentative sip, Theo gave a soft sigh of pleasure as the bitterness hit his taste buds. There’d been just enough grounds left for him to make it extra strong, and the taste was enough to shake off the last dregs of sleep.
“Google, play me something,” he called into the echoing apartment.
There was a pause before the device spoke up. “Okay. What would you like to hear?”
Now there was a good question. Theo still had a few hours before sunset when the night would beckon him from his apartment. He’d been so busy the past week, he hadn’t found the time to go out and let loose. The stress left him feeling itchy, like his skin was ready to peel away. Maybe something to set the mood for what would eventually turn out to be a successful night.
“Google, play me something spicy,” he told it.
Another pause. “Got it, playing something spicy.”
It took long enough for him to walk a few paces before the music blasted out from the speakers positioned around the apartment. His was the only inhabitable space in the entire building, so he wouldn’t have to worry about a complaint from any testy neighbors. The original brick walls also went a long way toward blocking any noise from getting in and out, which is exactly how he preferred it.
He stopped at one of the many windows that formed two walls of his apartment. Sipping gently on his coffee, he looked down at the street below. A light feeling rose in his chest as he watched the men, and a few women, walk the cracked sidewalk. The industrial areas of Port Dale might not be everyone’s cup of tea, particularly some unnamed members of his family, but he loved it.
Theo let the thump of the music thread through him as he watched the people in dirty work clothes make their way back home. Weeds poked through the concrete, trodden down by work boots, but still growing. Potholes littered the street, and the dividing line between lanes was faded. It was a place where people toiled their lives away, making ends meet. Doing jobs that wore down their bodies, but not always their spirits.
And he loved it.
Humming to himself absently, he turned from the window, crossing the space used as his living room, to the far side of the apartment. Both the front and the left walls of the studio apartment were made up of tall multi-paned windows. The front space was the living room, dining room, and kitchen. The back right was where his bathroom sat, behind the only door other than the entrance.
The back left, however, was his favorite spot. The floor was lined with tarp. Some of it was tacked to the brick wall up to where the window started. A stack of unused canvasses sat against the wall, along with a cluttered cabinet, it’s knobs and doors smeared with color. At the center sat the easel, a worn, chipped thing he’d bought from a rundown secondhand shop. Theo had used it for years, though he knew the time for him to retire it was coming.
Upon it stood the latest of his attempts to do something with himself. Theo walked around the easel to stare at the canvas he’d left there the night before. His mind clear of everything save caffeine, he stared, tilting his head one way, and then another.
“Not bad,” he murmured to himself softly.
The lines were bold enough, a little too bold in places. The colors were good, but they didn’t jump when they should, or bleed out where he’d like them to. What should have been a scrawny yet ultimately blooming flower emerging from the crack of a dirty, littered sidewalk only managed to look as diseased as the rest.
“An absolutely perfect portrait of the bleakness, struggle, and heartache of trying to thrive in a cold and unforgiving world,” he proclaimed, gesturing toward it with his coffee cup as if he had a pretend audience. “Life grows, but it doesn’t flourish. Tainted by the world around it, this precious piece of life does what it does best, and grows. But is it enough?”
In short, the entire piece was crap.
With an annoyed grunt, he pushed the canvas off the easel so it clattered to the floor noisily. It was a perfectly good piece by the standards he’d created with his previous work. It would have been what a potential buyer expected from him.
The piece was bleak, despairing, even as it feigned an offer of hope. Even the colors of the bloom, some mangy hybrid of several flowers he couldn’t recall the names of, were muted and washed out like the rest of the scene. Once, he might have found it a spectacular piece, fitting for one of his shows, ready to be put under a display light and hung on a pristine wall.
“It’s crap,” he muttered, setting his cup on the small table beside the easel.
Consistency was great when you were learning a new technique or a new medium, but it was a strangled cry when it came to creativity. Theo didn’t want to master the style, he’d done that years before. In the world of creativity, consistency was stagnation, and the only thing that could follow stagnation was an agonizing descent into entropy.
“Absolute shit,” he amended, glowering at the piece.
Ringing cut through the music, pulling a sigh from him. Leaving his coffee behind, he stomped over to the couch to dig his phone out from between the cushions. He hated the damn thing, it always wanted to ring at the worst possible moment. Most of the time, Theo just left it turned off, but apparently, he’d turned it on at some point in the past twenty-four hours.