The Last Work of Pedro Torrez

Contributor: Mario Esquer
- -

“The eyes are always the hardest to capture. . .” He bent over his easel and studied his inspiration.

He had gone from the cerulean blue penthouse studio he lived in down to muted shadows of the city to rescue her.

Left the secure world of his colors and canvas then descended into the writhing darkness of a metropolis in its death throes. He fought his way through the polychromatic riot of the panicking masses. All the way, always just a scant block ahead of the crimson tide of horror and death.

He had found her then, found his lover amongst her family in the affluent neighborhood of rouged brick and gray stones. It was the place he had been told all his life he was not good enough for, that the affluent and pastel colored angels did not smile upon the lowly such as he. A bright silken angel had noticed him however. Golden haired with azure eyes, the creamy marble–like goddess had noticed his passion for creating master works, works which displayed the tragedy and futility of living in a dark world full of sorrows.

She told him his paintings rivaled the masters. Yes, she had seen his passion, promoted it tirelessly around the art circles and highborn of which she was a member, and then, when he was recognized as a success, she fell to his passion, came to him in an affair for which her own people had rejected her. She feared that they, the sullen navy blue and slate gray suits of her father and betrothed who lorded in their ivory tower of money and position would not approve. She was proved right; they did not approve and together her shadowy captors conspired to forever keep the lovers separate.

As he arrived at her brownstone flat they were greedily loading her and their other possessions into their German made car, its chrome and metallic black paint no doubt headed to a waiting pristine white private jet which would wing them away to safety beyond the horizon. They planned to escape to the emerald of the Bahamas, perhaps, or the sage of the Azores. They tried to push him away as he approached, but he had risked his hands, lithe and delicate, stark in their dark completion-- the tools of his trade, to strike her captors and lift her willingly out of their coach. Together they escaped her world, down the charcoal colored side streets littered with discarded lives and livelihoods. The rainbows cast by the trinkets of the world being swallowed by the dead. The dead that walk, casting darkness before them.

The mauve and indigo faced monsters set upon them a few scant blocks after, and though they escaped with their lives, one had tasted the flesh of a fallen angel. The two lovers made it back to his towering, glittering high-rise, and now finally, with the moans of their demon subjects below them, they lorded over all alone.

“The eyes, the eyes…” he whispers to himself. "I must get the eyes right."

After a lifetime of capturing the crimson emotions and blues of the human soul on canvas; why was it was so damn hard to express the creature’s lack of any resemblance to the strikingly beautiful woman his lover had been. The opaque void which filled her dead gaze and violet traced rotting face had captured his artist's interest. Her lifelessly writhing frame was tied to the trellis railing. It presented him the greatest challenge of his life. Pedro mixed a little more acrylic white into the mottle of colors on his palate.

She, his lost seraph, his love Sarah, would be his alone, always, and his final, greatest, unpresented masterpiece. . .

- - -
A Teacher, student, who lives with his family in the 'burbs. Mario Esquer has an appreciation for most fictional genres which speak to mankind's desire for more than what is. Occasionally, he even creates a work himself. (Generally speaking he also does not tend to speak of himself in the third person.)
Read more »
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Google
  • Furl
  • Reddit
  • Spurl
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati


Help keep Linguistic Erosion alive! Visit our sponsors! :)- - -


Archive