[August 8] [Johnny the Homicidal Maniac] What Has Been Lost

[rataplani.livejournal.com]

Title: What Has Been Lost
Day/Theme: August 9 - finding nothing, no bait and no new idea.
Series: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Characters: Johnny C.
Warnings: Second Person Perspective,  

Major character death and vague references to other parts of the chapter, including violence against an injured person

Rating: T
Summary: Your art was your life, but you die alone.

This is what you live for:

A pen/brush/finger is placed against paper/canvas/wall. The world inside your head filtered yet perfected as it flows through your hands. You surrender yourself willingly to the art, trusting in your innate skill as a conduit of images, thoughts, feelings. You don't know what bliss is, but the art comes close.

--

This is how you die:

You are still breathing, somehow.

Your mind is shot to pieces - both figuratively and literally. The world and the nameless things tore apart your defences, and the unwanted bullet took care of the rest. There is blood - of course there is. And what else have you painted with lately? The floor is barely stained in parts; presenting a canvas you never noticed or took advantage of before. You drag yourself over, try to summon your old spark - every artist needs a last masterpiece, right?

But there is nothing left in your head. The things and the blood-loss have left you with nothing. You scratch out a couple of things - that absurd stick figure, a game of tic-tac-toe. People arrive and distract you, as they always have. They speak, you reply, one of them kicks you in the head.

Then you are alone. Your fingers carve a last message - you cannot draw, but words still come as they always have, even though the world around you is disappearing fast.

You finish just as the world goes dark.