No More Pictures

So the assignment was to write about a world in which creativity in all forms had been banned/outlawed/been deemed illegal. So no dancing, singing, painting/drawing, music, creative writing, etc. This is a story of a little girl who loves all of these things, and kind of how she finds out she can't do them anymore and how she views the world. My big sister really likes this one, and I'm pretty happy with it, so have a go. :)


I know I’m not supposed to, but I just can’t help it. I was born with it. No really, I was. When the doctor first handed me to my mother, I was already wailing at a perfect C# my father says. Mother says for him to be quiet about that. When I first became successful at sitting up, I began to clap my hands and giggle. Father says the clapping was in ¾ time. Mother says he was hearing things. When I was eating baby food for the first time, I spilled it out onto my high-chair and drew squiggly lines in it. Father laughed at me. Mother frowned at Father. Father says my first word was “la”, and I sang it all day long. Mother says that my first word was “papa”, not “la”. When I finally mastered walking, Father saying I began dancing and bouncing all around the house. Mother says that was just walking. When I was learning to write my name on my notebooks before the first day of school, I drew hearts, stars, and smiling faces all around it. Father said they were beautiful. Mother got me new notebooks. When we were writing sentences about our pets in school, I was so excited about it that I also wrote a story about a dog with fairy wings that made it so he could fly. I showed my parents when I got home. Father said he wanted to frame it and hang it on his wall. Mother said no.
The tales of such things go on and on, every time Father praising my song, picture, dance, or story, and mother being unhappy. I didn’t know why for a long time, but I do now. Those types of things are simply not allowed. I am not supposed to sing. I am not supposed to draw pictures. I am not supposed to dance. I am not supposed to write stories. I was sad when Mother told me this, but Father relieved my sorrow later that evening.
“Alice,” he endeared lovingly. “Whenever you want to sing, draw, dance, or write, you come to me, ok?” he said rather firmly. I nodded my head, but he wasn’t done. “Don’t tell Mother.” I nodded again. “It will be our little secret,” he finished and winked at me. We did our secret handshake, and I went to bed. As he tucked me in, I asked him why I wasn’t supposed to draw, sing, dance, or write stories. He replied that a silly man made a silly rule that was just plain ridiculous. I said “Oh.”
And so, very often I would go down to my Father’s home office and draw pictures for him on paper. The first picture I drew down there was of Father and me standing in front of a sunset. That was my favorite picture I ever drew. He also let me paint the walls, and they were continually changing. I molded sculptures out of clay for him and placed them all over the room. Whenever I wanted to try a new dance move, I would go there to practice. If I had the urge to sing, I would do it in the comfort of that room. He also had a piano keyboard hidden away in his closet, and he taught me how to play, always making sure I had the headphones on when I did. And when I wanted to write songs or stories, he let me have all the notebooks I needed. That office was my retreat. And Mother never went there. And I was very, vary, happy.
Until the day Father went to work and never came home. Mother told me he was killed by a drunk driver. I didn’t know what a drunk driver is, but I pictured it as a big bear with blood dripping from his awful fangs, and a three inch long claws about to grab a large stone and throw it at my Father. Mother then told me it was a person who was under the influence of alcohol who shouldn’t have been driving in a car. That made me sad, because I didn’t know what alcohol was either, but I pictured it as a raincloud hanging over a person who was very, very, sad. Rain clouds follow people, you see. People who are very, very, sad. The drunk driver couldn’t see the road because of the cloud and he ran into my Father. The drunk driver should have met with someone to make him happy first so he wouldn’t run into my Father, but I guess he didn’t. I told Mother I hoped he could become happy.
“The drunk driver?” she asked, amazed. “Don’t feel sorry for him. I hope he rots in a jail cell for the rest of his miserable life,” she replied angrily, and broke down in a torrent of tears. I feared that Mother would soon be a drunk driver too, under the influence of alcohol, and not able to drive. But no rain cloud appeared over her head. I knew Mother was very, very, sad, so you must have to be very, very, very, sad to be under the influence of alcohol. I felt bad for the drunk driver that drove into my Father. What could have happened to make him so sad?
After Father’s funeral, Mother began to clean up his home office. She had a fit when she saw the wall covered in paintings of sunsets, rainbows, princesses, rain clouds, shining suns, and butterflies. She whimpered at the pictures tacked up all over. She clapped a hand to her mouth at the clay statues placed all around the room. She clapped the other hand to her mouth as she saw the piano keyboard in the closet, and she cried when she saw all of the stories I had written. I tried to cheer her up with a dance, but that made her collapse onto the floor. I missed my Father very, very, much.
The next day, I woke up to the sound of ripping paper. I went down to see what it was, and saw mother ripping up all of my pictures and stories. I yelled for her to stop, but she just told me to stay out of this room from now on because I was a “bad girl”. Father always told me I was a “daddy’s girl”. I quickly snuck into the home office that day and retrieved the picture I had drawn of my Father and me standing by a sunset. I liked that picture very much. I hid it in my room away from Mother. I didn’t want her to tear that up, too.
The next time I looked into my Father’s old home office, the walls were just boring white, no longer covered in my pretty paintings of sunsets, rainbows, princesses, rain clouds, shining suns, and butterflies. Just boring white. Father would have hated that. All of my statues were broken up and sitting in a heap at the bottom of the waste basket. I felt sad, because Father had liked the statues. As I left the room, I started to hum song (very quietly, so Mother couldn’t hear) about Father and sunsets and pretty pictures, but lost my voice when I looked out the downstairs window into the backyard. I saw my Father’s piano keyboard all smashed into itty bitty pieces and lying on the pavement. Seeing it all broken made me start to cry. I would never be able to play on that piano keyboard ever, ever, again.
I put the picture of me and Father inside my sock drawer at the very, very, bottom, where Mother would never find it. I was no longer able to sing, dance, write, or draw. I became very, very, sad. I began writing a story about a little girl in a world far from our own, who liked very much to dance, sing, draw, and write. Nobody told her she couldn’t. Everyone told her how she was so good at singing, dancing, writing, and drawing. She was happy. I wrote about her everyday. When I finished it, I hid it in m sock drawer with my picture of Father and me.
A few weeks later, I had a babysitter. She seemed very nice, and so I showed her my room when Mother left. Then I showed her my notebook with the story of the drawing, dancing, writing, and singing girl from a far away world. She frowned, and her face turned very, very, white. She took it away from me. I screamed and cried and hid under my bed the rest of the night as she yelled at me to come out. I didn’t even come out to eat my supper. I stayed under the bed until Mother came home. I snuck down the stairs to hear the babysitter tell Mother about my notebook. But she didn’t. Mother paid her some money, and she left. Then I snuck up to bed.
The next morning, I went to look at my picture of Father and me, but it wasn’t there. I looked everywhere for it, but it wasn’t to be found. I wanted to cry, but couldn’t tell Mother why when she asked. I knew the babysitter had taken it, along with my story. That was the last time I ever wrote a story. That is when I fully realized that I would never be able to draw, sing, write, or dance ever again. I wish I could. It is all still inside me. It screams to be let out whenever the teachers at school tell me how I need to try harder in math, history, grammar, physical education, and geography. But I can’t. I’m no good at those things. All I am good at, all I ever want to do, must be kept bottled up inside. I’m very sad, very often. I don’t feel happy anymore. I try to draw, but my picture of Father and me comes flooding into my brain and I am reminded that I’m not supposed to draw because a mean person will steal my drawing away. That happy picture is no more. And neither is anything I ever had, or ever will, love. Without art, love is nothing. Love isn’t really love. And life without love isn’t really life at all.