The Problem with Perfection

The brow was close.

Very close.

Cheeks were exquisite as well.

But something was off.

I scurried like a mouse to the paint cabinet.

Tan.

No. Not dark enough.

A color of sand spritzed with rain peeked through.

No. Not quite...

Ah!

Tan. Not dark, not light. The perfect embodiment of balance. Balance felt good.

The brush cabinet was close, so I appeared in front of it as quick as a raccoon to the night’s trash and proceeded to scour through it with the same crazed claws that a raccoon might have as well.

Too short.

Too stiff.

Much too stiff!

Hmm...

Approximately 3 centimeters. A fray from left. Hmmm.

No.

Too long.

There.

A 2 centimeter dark hazel brush with a slight fray to the right.

The same way Aphrodite would be facing of course.

Good. Close.

The days had grown colder as the sun receded into his annual slumber.

While the moon shone with her same cold green light as always.

Seemed to taunt me with sleep as I worked late into the nights.

Running from the canvas, to the paints, to the brushes, back to the canvas. Such a repetitive cycle. But, it had to be done.

The painting.

Of which I only referred to as the painting.

Was my magnum opus.

My coup de grâce.

The painting was a portrait.

A portrait of a goddess.

Who’s name was Aphrodite.

It began with a dream when I was younger.

Obsession followed.

And with obsession came action.

And with action came addiction.

The perfect painting.

My memory was fleeting in my later years but there is one thing I can never forget.

Her face.

Her pristine feminine beauty gently usurped by her masculine jaw line and short hair.

Such beauty that of which only man can see in his waking hour.

Eyes still closed slowly rising out of a state of reality quite similar to ours.

The amber light tickling his conscious.

Cooing him to rise.

But there.

At the moment of waking.

He sees it too.

But he is a fool.

For he forgets what is real beauty.

Shown from Aphrodite herself.

I am no fool.

I remember.

Every curve, every strand of hair, every pore on her skin is engrained into my mind.

Oh, loathe me.

For I am of a realm of which my tools, those being of my mind, and my utensils, those being of the world, are very different. And to use the physical utensils day in and day out slowly inching towards the perfection given so easily by the tools I use to think.

To cry.

To smile.

Artists paint people. I paint emotion.

Not emotion in the abstract form.

But emotion in the real physical sense.

And that is where the difficulty comes.

Seeing what you felt long ago in a distant age.

Improbable.

But not impossible.

Never that.