The Artist Challenge

Name: Lelan Gimnick
Location: USA
Title: “Hello? Is Someone Out There?”
Price of Original: $450 (Prints coming soon through the Impossible Fantasy Retail Site.) Contact the artists at his links below.
Size: 18″x 24″W
Medium: Acrylic and Calligraphy Ink
Artist web site:
http://impossible-fantasy-studio.artistwebsites.com/
http://www.impossible-fantasy-studio.fineartamerica.com/
http://www.impossiblefantasystudioandartspace.com/

From Lelan He couldn’t tell you why the hell he’s even awake: it’s 4 AM and he knows he should be sleeping. An Extremely Important Day is set to begin in a matter of hours and he needs to be rested. Not that there’s much rest in his sleep anymore. Hasn’t been for awhile now. The scream he seems to almost remember waking him could’ve just as easily come from within his fevered, tortured subconscious as from the street outside. Just to be sure, he goes to the window already knowing what he’ll see. Nothing. That’s how it goes when you turn an inside light on and look out a window at night. He’s known this his entire life, but he looks anyway just to be rid of the comfortless bed for a moment. He stands silhouetted against the pane already knowing that even if he could see anything, there’d be nothing to see. Sorta quiet around this part of Louisiana at night. Just as well – he could use a break from the noise in his head. He replays the tormented words over and again in his weary mind. Despite himself, he smiles the sad-sweet smile of mourning.

He’d never meant to hurt her. In fact, his very first words to her were, “Hello, sweetheart. You’re safe now, and always will be because I will spend the rest of my life letting you know that you are loved and not alone.” He had spent his time with her repeating that promise every day and the moment stands etched, sacred, in his memory forever. As does the one that woke him. The agonized passion in her eyes. The incredible pain in her voice. The way her legs failed her when he told her he had to leave her again. The scream did not come from outside, as he had hoped. It had been that sweet voice, mangled by grief, that will haunt him for eternity: “NO! You promised! You promised you’d never leave me alone!” Although he’s now fairly certain he was awake before the end of the statement, his seething memory forces him to complete the accusation aloud in a whisper. “And you don’t break your promises, ’cause that’s not what my Daddy does.”