Keep the Faith
The Tortured Bliss (of Being a Hero)
The hand stopped moving, and I could see the pencil in it shaking slightly, as the hand tries its hardest to hide the tremble.
Our blood band makes us more connected than we’d sometimes like, and I know he’s in such a position now, where he wishes I didn’t know him this well.
He knows I’m watching him, and I know he’s trying to act as if he doesn’t know I am and as if everything is just fine.
He puts the pencil to the paper again, but it stays still, as if the artist just changed his mind. His hand lets go of the pencil slowly, the wood softly hitting the carpet of the tour bus without an audible sound. He sighs. The same hands with which he had been creating art for the past half an hour, now grabs the paper and reduces it to a doodle meant for the garbage can, throwing it onto the floor.
He knows I will pick it up though, and I do.
I unfold the rumpled paper and try to get some of the wrinkles out of it. As I don’t succeed, I decide to watch the image intensely.
A stage. Our stage. The exact way it looked last night. Every single detail is the same, even the shadows are worked out perfectly.
A man. Only one man, looking like its drawer. But this man has cracks in his appearance, indicating how broken he is. The shading was extremely dark, telling the person watching the image how this man feels. Sad, not far from depression. Abandoned. Hollow eyes in a deathly pale face, shoulders bent strongly in sadness and the weight people have put on him.
A crowd, but everyone is facing the other way, away from the man on the stage. Angry, disappointed faces, venom dripping off them, obviously meant for the broken man upon the stage. He tried keeping them satisfied, but their needs became too much, their expectations too high, and the man failed to still give them what they want.
The drawing breathes desperation to give the crowd what they want, but failing miserably, as the man is not supernatural, but human, like every being in the crowd.
It breathes a shipwrecked person, once a successful captain, but now abandoned by his men, his followers, his believers. Left alone, no one to help him in the storm that had hit the man’s ship. The ship had sunk, and the man had had barely enough energy, power to reach the nearest shores. The land had seemed alright, but it had only been an illusion. The man, once a successful captain, stuck on an island, already severely wounded from the struggle in the storm, was now left to starve to death. No one cared enough about him anymore to come save him.
No one came to save the broken man.
I bend down again, and pick up the pencil he had dropped, and put the point of the graphite to the spot where the actual artist had stopped, thinking the drawing was done.
I draw a bassist, his arm wrapped around the man’s waist, lips pressed to his cheek.
I draw a microphone in the man’s hand, making him grip it tightly.
I draw two guitarists near the man as well, making it obvious they, too, care about the man, now a singer.
I draw a drummer, but not behind his drums, no, I draw him next to the singer as well.
I draw a couple of lines in the crowd, all looking up to the man with the microphone in adoration. They believe in this man, they believe in this broken man, who is not flawless, but they love him never-the-less. They would do anything for this man, as he meant so much to them, words not even beautiful enough to describe their love. This man saved them, and they realized it was now their turn to save him. They would do anything to save him from the angered crowd who had stopped believing. They would stay forever, because this man was their hero.
I put the picture in his hand. He looks at it, tears stinging, burning in his eyes. He gets up as I do, and we melt into a soft embrace.
”Thank you,” he whispers.
Our blood band makes us more connected than we’d sometimes like, and I know he’s in such a position now, where he wishes I didn’t know him this well.
He knows I’m watching him, and I know he’s trying to act as if he doesn’t know I am and as if everything is just fine.
He puts the pencil to the paper again, but it stays still, as if the artist just changed his mind. His hand lets go of the pencil slowly, the wood softly hitting the carpet of the tour bus without an audible sound. He sighs. The same hands with which he had been creating art for the past half an hour, now grabs the paper and reduces it to a doodle meant for the garbage can, throwing it onto the floor.
He knows I will pick it up though, and I do.
I unfold the rumpled paper and try to get some of the wrinkles out of it. As I don’t succeed, I decide to watch the image intensely.
A stage. Our stage. The exact way it looked last night. Every single detail is the same, even the shadows are worked out perfectly.
A man. Only one man, looking like its drawer. But this man has cracks in his appearance, indicating how broken he is. The shading was extremely dark, telling the person watching the image how this man feels. Sad, not far from depression. Abandoned. Hollow eyes in a deathly pale face, shoulders bent strongly in sadness and the weight people have put on him.
A crowd, but everyone is facing the other way, away from the man on the stage. Angry, disappointed faces, venom dripping off them, obviously meant for the broken man upon the stage. He tried keeping them satisfied, but their needs became too much, their expectations too high, and the man failed to still give them what they want.
The drawing breathes desperation to give the crowd what they want, but failing miserably, as the man is not supernatural, but human, like every being in the crowd.
It breathes a shipwrecked person, once a successful captain, but now abandoned by his men, his followers, his believers. Left alone, no one to help him in the storm that had hit the man’s ship. The ship had sunk, and the man had had barely enough energy, power to reach the nearest shores. The land had seemed alright, but it had only been an illusion. The man, once a successful captain, stuck on an island, already severely wounded from the struggle in the storm, was now left to starve to death. No one cared enough about him anymore to come save him.
No one came to save the broken man.
I bend down again, and pick up the pencil he had dropped, and put the point of the graphite to the spot where the actual artist had stopped, thinking the drawing was done.
I draw a bassist, his arm wrapped around the man’s waist, lips pressed to his cheek.
I draw a microphone in the man’s hand, making him grip it tightly.
I draw two guitarists near the man as well, making it obvious they, too, care about the man, now a singer.
I draw a drummer, but not behind his drums, no, I draw him next to the singer as well.
I draw a couple of lines in the crowd, all looking up to the man with the microphone in adoration. They believe in this man, they believe in this broken man, who is not flawless, but they love him never-the-less. They would do anything for this man, as he meant so much to them, words not even beautiful enough to describe their love. This man saved them, and they realized it was now their turn to save him. They would do anything to save him from the angered crowd who had stopped believing. They would stay forever, because this man was their hero.
I put the picture in his hand. He looks at it, tears stinging, burning in his eyes. He gets up as I do, and we melt into a soft embrace.
”Thank you,” he whispers.