Marvellous
A gift and a joy, to draw wonder from the depths of the soul.
I have the most marvellous brush, you see. Look here, look closely. The handle is made from densest wood, pitch black as the void yet light as the gleam of distant stars. It’s polished to a shine by my hands, careful guides and gentle cradles for all their calloused roughness, for my fingers love this brush and would do it no harm.
Yes, here, run your fingers through the bristles. See, aren’t they as soft to the touch as loving words whispered into hair, as the delicate breath of angels riding on the ocean foam? Fine and pale, plucked from the tail of a unicorn and placed so neatly on my marvellous brush, they obey the lightest touch, the merest thought. Strong, bold lines, light lines so fine as to be near invisible - this brush of mine can do anything.
But of course, what is most marvellous of all about my brush is what it can do. It takes my heart and soul, which I pour into my drawings, and from those everyday, humdrum materials my brush fashions wonders. Everything I draw springs to life, rising with astounding vitality from the paper which, mere moments before, was naught but wood pulp and potential.
I sketch a frolicking dog and before my eyes up springs the sweetest, dearest spaniel you ever did see. I have only black ink, yet his eyes are deepest chocolate brown, warm and open, and his auburn tail wags like a banner in a hurricane. You see him there, don’t you? He sees you too, and you can tell from the way he bounces and bounds that he is excited to meet you.
Not for myself do I keep this marvellous brush working - come Christmas and birthdays and any occasion, really, I can whip up the most delicious feast for my friends, family and any neighbours who choose to stop by - and most do. Plates piled high with treats, cakes and sweet things amongst the roast meats glistening with gravy and juices. Of course, the vegetables don’t get a miss - towers of sprouts and salads and roasted and spiced delicacies that once grew from the earth make the tables creak and groan beneath their weight. Nothing seems realer than what my brush creates, with its gifts of life and vigour, and the wide smiles are by far its best creation - no drawing of teeth required!
Gift giving occasions are a treat, to watch my family unwrap the most unique of treasures. A mechanical mermaid to swim in the bathtub and braid hair, or a delicately patterned silk negligee, or a heavy-set toy truck with rumbling engine and its fellow crane, set to build a castle up from scratch for toy soldiers to lay siege to. My marvellous brush makes sharing so easy, and anything at all that I can draw I can make. Why, of course I would be happy to make something for your birthday, if you only tell me what and when, I’ll set to it at once, or at least after I set up the underwater go-kart arena.
There are few things I can dream that I cannot draw, and those I write down in case I forget them, or perhaps am struck with later inspiration for how to depict them. For this brush of mine, marvellous as it is, doesn’t do well with words and cannot make them more than ink and paper. This is thankfully rarely a trouble to me, though some days I wonder how I might draw ‘world peace’ or ‘tolerance’ or ‘an end to hunger’, what they might look like in a picture. Look, I have hundreds of things written down - ah, my writing is terribly messy, isn’t it, I’m so sorry - see, here I pondered over ‘no more war’.
A question? Oh! Of course, these are not things I think about day-to-day, no. I’m often free to think about things that affect me and that I want or need or dream. But when I can, I do what I can, and like to think myself making a difference despite not being able to fix it all myself. After all, a slow fix is better than no fix, wouldn’t you agree? Even if I’m not perfect or doing it perfectly, I can only try my very best with what I have. And one day, perhaps, I’ll be able to pin those nebulous ideas to a page and make them real, for if any brush can do it, surely my most marvellous one could.
