Melinda Duval (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
writer_mel) wrote2013-02-19 06:41 pm
writer_mel) wrote2013-02-19 06:41 pm
Entry tags:
Graffiti
Every place she'd ever been held some form of it. From the ornate and complex signatures of New York and other big cities to the carvings in rocks that were thousands of years old, they were the same thing. "Look at me! I was here! I mattered, if only for a moment." The ultimate human cry of being. Making and raising children was a form of it. Leaving behind architecture or art or music was a form of it.
Mel watched another layer of paint being added to the futuristic image. Three young men and one woman had worked on it over the course of the night and now that morning had come they could get the smallest details. The woman worked now while the men stood look out. The man, boy really, closest to Mel had kept up a steady stream of stories about tags gone right or wrong. He talked about the painters he'd learned from and ones he couldn't stand. He'd been shushed a couple times, but nothing could keep him quiet long.
Taking notes became pointless fairly quickly, but Mel still collected detail after detail about his life. She thought he had no real idea how much of his life he revealed in his ramblings. Without asking she knew he had a little sister, his mom left them when she was still an infant, and their dad worked hard but wasn't there much. He was good in school, except for his art class where the teacher had no respect for the stylized nature of graffiti.
She also knew which girl he had a crush on and how he was going to tell his feelings. She knew he wanted to make his living as an artist but would probably go to work as a custodian or some other manual labor, just like his father. She knew that the girl still working on the wall was his best friend.
Mostly, she knew she liked him and somehow, some day, she'd put him a story. And she'd let him live. Maybe he'd even be the hero.
347
Mel watched another layer of paint being added to the futuristic image. Three young men and one woman had worked on it over the course of the night and now that morning had come they could get the smallest details. The woman worked now while the men stood look out. The man, boy really, closest to Mel had kept up a steady stream of stories about tags gone right or wrong. He talked about the painters he'd learned from and ones he couldn't stand. He'd been shushed a couple times, but nothing could keep him quiet long.
Taking notes became pointless fairly quickly, but Mel still collected detail after detail about his life. She thought he had no real idea how much of his life he revealed in his ramblings. Without asking she knew he had a little sister, his mom left them when she was still an infant, and their dad worked hard but wasn't there much. He was good in school, except for his art class where the teacher had no respect for the stylized nature of graffiti.
She also knew which girl he had a crush on and how he was going to tell his feelings. She knew he wanted to make his living as an artist but would probably go to work as a custodian or some other manual labor, just like his father. She knew that the girl still working on the wall was his best friend.
Mostly, she knew she liked him and somehow, some day, she'd put him a story. And she'd let him live. Maybe he'd even be the hero.
347