[Editor’s Choice: The Creator’s Demise – by Jayasmita Ray ]
The Creator’s Demise – Short Story
Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com
“You must leave this room!”
The violent knocking on the door didn’t stop him. This was going to be his masterpiece. Intoxication is supposed to be an exhilarating experience. He knew this feeling existed.
Weeks of endless toil in the small, dingy room where he existed would soon be a haven to a creation that would transcend all the pain. His calloused hands clamored over the clay in frenzy. Every quiver created beauty and despair. Yet he wouldn’t stop. He had seen the divine again one day. She was carrying a basket of apples. Her clothes were withered with use. Yet her auburn hair shone in the sun. Her green eyes looked gleeful. Her pale skin was covered in bruises. A small boy who was in tears bumped into her and fell down. She gave him an apple and walked away. He knew he had found perfection. Her footsteps were matched by his fervor. She lived in a shack and there was filth all around her. Yet she made it beautiful.
“This is what I am looking for. Man has created too much. The world is too ugly for me. She has nothing and yet she has everything. I must save her,” was his thought.
His eyes had darkened and his hands bled with the bruises of dried clay. Yet he couldn’t create her. Every time he tried, there was something missing. She was consuming him. He couldn’t stop. This was all that defined him. The knocks on the door had faded. Time ceased to matter and all that he knew was he was getting closer to creating the divine. He began to smash things around the room. He slit his skin to stay awake. As time passed, darkness continued to shine on him. Despair embraced his being. He had seen her once before when he was a child and was being drowned by his father. A part of him had nearly succumbed to the sensation of death but he was pulled out just in time. His mother had saved him. In that moment, he had found salvation. He knew he had to destroy her before everyone did.
“That room is on fire! We must hurry! I knew there was something wrong with that man,” people gushed as they rushed to him.
When they broke open the door, they forgot the flames that were licking away his body. There she stood at her majestic best and resembled the living. Her skin glowed and the auburn hair cascaded freely on her beautifully tattered clothes. A child screamed. There lay a dead woman on the floor. On another corner, the creator lay dead as the flames continued to devour him. The people broke from their reverie.
The cruel, lifeless statue in clay continued to smile knowingly.
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