The morning was quiet. So quiet that even the birds didn’t offer their song at this time, and the familiar sounds of cars and people were absent. Most would find it unsettling, to have the mind to put on music or just turn on the TV as background noise. But the silence here was also as familiar as anything else was. Or was that too sad to think? It was the truth at the end of the day.  

Light peeked through the slightly open curtains, shining right on the portrait that seemed to take up the entire studio. It was a large canvas that took up the width from the floor to the ceiling with little to no room between, slightly covered by a tarp at its corner as if to be hidden away; it wasn’t intended to be uncovered. Surely, it wasn’t made to stay here all suffocated and caged. Maybe a museum would appreciate such, or more preferably an art gallery. Do many people go to those anymore? Funnily, there was a ladder that was cast aside next to it, old and weary. There were dents chipped into its wood and old paint stuck to it, no doubt having been used to its fullest potential. It almost seemed out of place with how worn it was; it’d be thrown out soon enough. 

But it couldn’t distract from the painting. It was a piece you could tell every brush stroke took an ungodly amount of planning and effort. Simple in concept with a man sitting in what was a body of water with nothing surrounding him, he clutched what seemed like a thread of red yarn in his hands, tangled around his fingers messily. Oddly — messily? — the thread seemed to be broken in the middle. The man himself, the subject, was a vision. Easily, anyone would gape at the cold shock of his beauty  — he was as vital and bright as flame. Wet, dark curls framed his face and fell over his shoulders, his skin sun-kissed bronze. Yet, the main feature was his eyes. 

Speckles of yellow contrasted deliciously against the pale blue, yet they lacked a certain glow that the rest of the portrait seemed to have. The reflection in them was dim, while all else was bright. Those anguished eyes looked directly at the viewer, holding their gaze intimately. He was seeing right through you — or is it past you? It was hard to decide. However the question of why the subject looks so upset arises. There was no title yet to hint at the story behind this piece, if any. 

Who was this person? Was the artist perhaps in love with them? That simply couldn’t be, no one would draw someone they love so sorrowful unless out of grief. Ah, but I shouldn’t come up with hypotheticals when I am the artist who drew it, and also the subject who was the center of attention.