The Guy Behind The Canvas

Written By: Richi

In the most sinful populated sleepless packed city of Las Vegas, Nevada where people escape to from their normal lives to gamble their money away until they’re broke like the homeless people on Fremont Street, party at the nightclubs on the strip like rockstars all night until the next morning when they have hangovers, and where the sound of slot machines from the casinos can be heard from far away; inside a private luxurious mansion on a street called Evening Star Drive lived a wealthy young man named Kalan Stackhouse. He had alot of hidden talents especially in the arts department which was his favorite thing to do besides writing fiction and playing piano. His walls were packed of his treasured painted canvas which he created himself throughout his years. He also collected valuable statues from around the globe when he went on adventures and quests. Besides being an artist, a bachelor, a writer, and a piano player he was also an archaeologist who would sometimes travel the world to discover lost cities and forbidden temples that stood completely alone in the middle of the jungle aging as the years passed.

Kalan was in this master bedroom laying on his bed barely waking up from his slumber as he yawned and looked out of this glass window to see the golden bright sun rising from behind the far away mountains that were surrounded by desert. He went to this bathroom where he groomed himself so he can go for his morning jog around the block. As he jogged on the sidewalk with his headphones that blasted the sweet sound of music he began to think about being inside his art created world that he imagined. His world was filled with exotic creatures, wonderful colors, plants that smelt like perfume, and of course himself as the king who lived inside the palace’s castle. He came back home tired from jogging, took off all his clothes until he was completely nude like the beautiful model that he had to sketch once in his figure drawing class in college, and jumped into his clear teal blue colored refreshing cold swimming pool where he relaxed for hours without any disturbance.

The next day which was a Thursday Kalan repeated his daily morning schedule as always, ran to the art store down the street very quickly, came home and stared at the newly fresh white colored untouched large blank canvas that he bought which stood still on his wall of his art studio as he began to slumber away back into his own world.

“There I was sitting on my throne of my amazing luxurious palace that was made completely out of solid gold which men would die for and take their own lives just to hold it in their bare hands. I walked into my garden which is filled of the finest blossoms from around the world where I met her. Standing in front of me in the garden was this beautiful goddess as she turned to look into my eyes I realized that she was completely nude and that’s when she told me that I was nude myself which was no lie at all. As we began to kiss eachother’s lips without even mentioning anything to one another suddenly we were interrupted by this disfigured creatures who smelt like ashes that took us away into the depths of the darkness.”

He woke up terrified from the nightmare that he just encountered covered in sweat that dripped from his body as he began to ask questions inside his own head. Who was the woman from his dream? And why did those demonic creatures take them away from eachother into the darkness? Nothing in his nightmare made any sense at all. Kalan knew deep down inside him that the nightmare meant something but what did it mean? That same exact day he went into the nearby Starbucks coffeehouse where he sat at his table which was in the corner, sipped his cup of delicious warm caramel macchiato and began to look out the window as people passed by him. As he came out of the coffeehouse with his leftover blueberry muffin that was inside a paper bag along with a slide of cheesecake that’s when he drove quickly back to his mansion where he ran straight to his studio. There it was the answer to his unexplained disturbing and terrifying nightmare in exact details on his canvas that was hanging on his wall of his art studio.

Five days have gone by fast as the time flew through them without being noticed there in the art studio sitting down on the chair looking at the canvas of artist talent two naked humans looking at eachother as the disfigured demons are taking them in the darkness. The nightmare that Kalan had that one night was based upon his canvas which would someday become a masterpiece. Suddenly all the lights went out bursting into sparks one by one, the shadows disappeared into the night, and the depths of darkness approached him and the sinful city of Las Vegas. The black shades of darkness covered the whole cityscape and the screams of millions of confused people began to echo throughout the packed up streets. In Kalan’s head he thought that the nightmare has finally came out of the canvas but he also thought it was finally the end of the world.

Kalan was locked in his room and he began to panic as his breathing became heavily because nobody knew exactly what was going on right now at this very moment in time. The darkness was finally here, the screams of millions suddenly got silent which made severe chills crawl up his back, and every television was on breaking news about how the apocalypse has finally occurred. Then Kalan stood up and looked out his glass window where he seen broken shattered windows of buildings that were collapsing, burning crashed vehicles, brown colored smog covering the whole city, and layers of human corpses as the red blood covered the streets. Tears of hurt and sadness began to run down his white pale face as he realized that not only this was indeed the end of the world but he was also the only survivor of this tragic event. He went to lay down on his bed where Kalan whispered slowly as his mansion began to collapse; “let this be just a dream.”

8:33 AM was the time on his clock of his Apple Watch which was on his dark cherry wooden desk that was near his bed where he was laying down. He stood up as his nude figure is exposed as the golden sun shined on it, rubbed his tired looking eyes, and looked out his window where everything was back to normal. “It was just another nightmare!” he said gently as he looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror when washing his face. Afterwards he put on back his clothes, went downstairs, and went into his art studio where Kalan realized that his canvas which had his terrible nightmare painted on it was blank with no paint what so ever. He picked up the blank canvas and began to destroy it by breaking the material into millions of pieces that shattered on his marble floors then Kalan walked out the front door of his mansion as the golden sun shined bright to start his new day thanking God from above that the nightmare wasn’t real and the end of the world never occured which meant he was only the guy behind the canvas.