An Artist's Inspiration

(The idea was to imagine the events that might have led to what is portrayed in a well-known work of art. My choice here was one of the best-known of all, namely The Scream by Edvard Munch)

An Artist’s Inspiration

The day started off absolutely fine, but then I made a fundamental error – I woke up and got out of bed. Normally this is not too much of a problem; it is, after all, what I have done every day of my life for as long as I can remember. I knew from the outset that I would have one small difficulty to overcome, which was clearing up the mess that I knew the cat had deposited somewhere in the room when it was sick in the middle of the night. He’s getting on in years and his digestion is not as robust as it used to be, so this is not unusual.

All I have to do is grab a piece of kitchen paper, collect the mess, bin it, and then apply a wet-wipe to the affected piece of carpet. In order to do this I get out of bed, put on my slippers and go and fetch what I need. The difference today was that my beloved feline had decided to throw up not on the carpet but in my left slipper. As starts to the day go, I could have wished for better.

Another thing I have done with scarcely a thought for more years than I care to remember is wash, shave and get dressed. Today, for no apparent reason, my razor slipped sideways and I suffered one of those cuts that goes on bleeding for far longer than is either necessary or convenient. It seemed to take for ever to get things under control.

I had promised a friend that I would deliver a piece of work that I knew was urgent for him. His printer was on the blink so I said I would print it at home and take the sheets over to him as soon as I could. With time being a bit shorter than expected today, thanks to cat and razor, I needed to make short work of breakfast if I was going to catch the bus in time. One quick bowl of muesli plus a generous dollop of milk would fit the bill.

OK – I knew that there were two bottles of milk in the fridge and that one of them was somewhat past its use-by date. I had spotted that it was slightly “off” the night before, so why didn’t I chuck it out when I had the chance? You may well ask. Needless to say, I grabbed hold of the wrong bottle, splashed it all over the muesli and took a generous mouthful. It may well have been slightly off eight hours previously, but now it was completely off. It tasted so awful that in my disgust I spat out the mouthful and made a mess on the table that was similar in appearance to that produced in my slipper by the cat.

With breakfast abandoned I hurriedly threw feet into shoes and broke a shoelace. I couldn’t find a suitable replacement pair and so had to fasten my shoes with laces that were far too long. No matter. I still had time to grab the file of papers for my friend and rush outside to the bus stop.  I was just in time as the bus came round the corner.

I should have watched my feet more carefully, because I tripped over my too-long shoelaces and measured my length on the pavement. The file flew out of my hand and the sheets scattered in all directions, some of them landing in a nearby puddle. As I picked myself up and desperately tried to gather the papers, the bus tootled merrily on its way without stopping.

I had no choice but to rush back home and print off another set, with a view to catching the next bus twenty minutes later. Or at least I would have done if it had just been the papers that escaped from me as I fell. I hadn’t noticed that my front-door key had also gone missing, so I had no choice but to go back and search for it. Fortunately it had not disappeared down a storm drain, but it was at least five minutes before I found it.

Back home, I started to run off the second set of prints when the printer ran out of ink. I knew I had a replacement cartridge somewhere, but could I find it? The answer to that question was -Eventually, but not in time for me to catch the next bus.

It was therefore an hour after my intended arrival that I knocked on my friend’s door with papers in hand, ready to apologise profusely for the delay. The response I got was not exactly what I was expecting.

“Oh, that was so good of you to go to all that trouble”, he said, “but I managed to get the printer fixed last night and I’ve done everything I needed to do. I suppose I should have phoned you to tell you not to bother, but it completely slipped my mind.”

That was when I lost control. I ran down the road and across the bridge, where I saw an artist at work with his easel. I hope he didn’t mind when I let out a lengthy and ear-piercing SCREEEEAM!!!!!!

© John Welford