A collection of short stories in which the root of their love is simultaneously the harbinger of their demise. Because the risque of the heart's desires is often found embedded in the knife jutting through it.
"...you're writing style is top-notch...
It seemed as if the universe itself was at a standstill before Hannah Parker's eyes. Her stare held the type of wanderlust you only hear about in songs, imaginative and impossible when she was looked at her father's paintings decorating her cream coloured walls. They were countrysides, and oceans, animals and starry nights. So in a way, perhaps, she was looking into a standstill universe.
James Parker was less than a foot away, anxiously waiting, of course. He's planted those paintings over her bed since she was born, hoping that it would somehow plant an urge in her subconscious to make her pick up his long-gone dream.
"Daddy?" Hannah called.
James Parker put down his original reason for entering her room, Hannah's hamper, and stepped closer. "Yes?"
"How come you never taught me to paint? Or draw?"James Parker spent a few seconds in his head mentally letting out his biggest victory cry. Hannah had spent her entire childhood doing everything other than painting. In the first grade, she did drama, then moved to ballet. Writing by the sixth grade and singing by the eighth. All the while never even glancing at a tube of paint. "Well," he said, after clearing his throat calmly, "didn't think you could manage it," he lied.
She turned to him then, wide eyes and all. "Oh? Is that so?"
James made a point to shrug carelessly. Hannah scoffed and pointed to one of his paintings. "I could do that," she said, "It doesn't look that hard." It was an owl with big, wide eyes staring intently at all who dared to glance at it. Its feathers were buzzing with detail and precision. Hannah hoped her bluff wasn't as transparent as she thought it was.
She turned back to her father, steadying her gaze to level his. She had her mother's eyes, James knew, but she'd also inherited another of Ming's qualities. An aptitude to make him feel hope when there was none.
It was the exact feeling he got looking into a painting of Milan. He's never been to Milan, or a plane for that matter but somehow, just looking at the oil paints made his tongue heavy with French and his neck chilly from a non-existent night breeze. Hannah was a painting, one of a sunrise from the view of a big, puffy white cloud in a sky of endless possibilities.
"Wanna bet on that?" James challenged.
She got off her bed in one stride and glanced at the watchful owl a final time. "Bet."
James Parker grinned, "If I win, you do your own laundry for two weeks."
Hannah took her strides like a lioness. "And if I win, you have to clean my room for all of this week."
"Deal," he said, without doubt.
Then, James Parker led his daughter to the basement. A room piled with paints and blank canvases on stands. Unfinished paintings stared at bare walls in the exact spot James left them years ago. Brushes were spilt on the floor and paint splotches clung desperately to the walls. And as Hannah Parker's eyes soundlessly glazed over the room in wonder, James knew he'd lost the bet.
Author's Note I hate kids. Except for Hannah. I love Hannah.
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