It was a mighty fine painting indeed. Dressed in a frame of mahogany. It was a simple painting of a little girl sitting on a chair, her cheeks rosy and her dark eyes staring straight ahead. It had been there for a very long time. It had seen many owners, and many owners had seen it.
He liked looking at it just fine, but sometimes it felt like it was looking right back at him. No matter what angle he looked at it, it always seemed like it was returning his gaze. The shading on the cheeks gave the painting dimensions that shouldn’t be possible, and the dark eyes made it easy to appear as if they were tracking anything in front of it.
To be honest, it was a little creepy. But his grandmother had given it to him right before she passed away, and it was one of the few things of hers he had left, so he reluctantly hung it up in the living room. And it stayed there, for a little while.
But one morning he woke up and it was at the foot of his bed. The first thing he saw when he sat up was that little girl, calmly smiling at him like she had been watching him sleep. He may have screamed a little bit, he doesn’t remember. He shrugged it off though; his friends had keys to my place, and have gone further out of their way to prank him before. But then it just kept getting… weirder.
The painting had seen many owners, and now it watched a new young man. It didn’t really enjoy being in the living room, what is there to see in the living room anyways. Nobody really lives in the living room. It wanted to be in the bedroom. It wanted to be near the young man. It wanted to be seen by him. That’s what paintings were for, being seen.
It moved into the bedroom, and in the morning it was seen. The young man screamed in joy at just the sight of the painting, and the painting was very touched, but the young man returned it back to the living room. Which was no good at all.
So the next night when the young man was asleep, the painting moved back into the bedroom, closer than the night before.
He woke up to the painting again, but this time it was on the side of the bed, leering down at him. The eyes were giving him an almost condescending look, as if it were upset that he had put it back the night before.
He hated to admit it, but this seriously scared him. He was a light sleeper, and hadn’t heard anyone enter the house. He called everyone he knew who would or could get into his place and they all swore they hadn’t done it. He put it back in the living room for the moment, and decided to give something a try.
After putting the picture back on the wall, he made a big show about yawning and heading to his bedroom. He lounged in his bed, feigning sleep, waiting. He listened as hard as he could for his door. After ten minutes, he took a deep breath for courage, and rolled over, facing the door.
The painting was halfway through the door, one eye trained on the bed.
Well, this was awkward, thought the painting. It didn’t know what to do. Should it go back into the living room, or continue on into the bedroom? The young man was staring, which was nice, but made the painting a little self conscious. The painting was a little bit shy when it came to people watching it move. So the painting just waited until the man closed his eyes for even a second, turned his head even a little. Then the painting moved further into the bedroom.
He had only blinked, but in that short time the painting was already in the room all the way. Shaking slightly in fear, he did his best to stay calm. He could almost sense a strange feeling of awkwardness coming from the painting that he couldn’t explain. Casually, slowly, he turned his head away… then snapped it back.
Two eyes. Looking directly into his. The painting was leaned up against the bed so that the face was inches away from his own.
He jumped back, and the painting clattered to the ground, face up. He wasn’t sure if he pushed it when he moved or if it did it on its own accord, but it hardly mattered anymore. He had to get rid of it.
He found an old suitcase that was big enough, and put the painting inside it. He zipped it up, and shut it with a lock. He thought about just destroying it, but it really was the last thing his grandmother had given him, and he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He threw the suitcase into his attic, and got ready for work. By the time he was showered and dressed, the painting hadn’t made any reappearances. He even climbed back up to check, and the suitcase was exactly where he left it. Satisfied, he left for his car.
What a rudy patootie! Didn’t the young man know how to treat his elders? The painting had been alive a long time and never had it been treated so unfairly. No one would be able to see it in the attic? The young man completely misunderstood what the painting wanted. This just wasn’t right. The painting thought about it, and decided that this just couldn’t happen like this. It had to make it’s feeling known to the young man.
It convinced the lock and the suitcase to let it out and then made it’s way out of the attic to find the man. Oh no, thought the Painting, he’s leaving! So the painting snuck into the trunk of the man’s car so it could finally have a conversation with the man.
The painting snuck out of the trunk when the car was stopped and took the stairs, nobody else took the stairs,and asked the potted plants which office belonged to the young man. The painting took a seat in the man’s swivel chair and waited for him to arrive.
When he opened his office, you could imagine his surprise when his office chair swiveled around and showed the painting sitting in it. The little girl in the painting was just the right height in the chair to really look like she was sitting in it too, which gave it a weird sense of realism.
“We need to talk” The painting said solemnly, these kinds of things were always so awkward.
To be honest, the man wasn’t even surprised that it could talk. He could feel some weird sentience coming from it ever since the first time he saw it. What really surprised him, though, was that it sounded a lot like his grandmother. Just a little bit younger, like… how she might have sounded as a little girl.
He saw no other way out.
“What do we need to talk about?” he asked, trying to sound like this is perfectly normal.
“I’m really sorry about your grandmother,” The painting began, feeling like it was important to start out with a little bit of sympathy, “But that’s no excuse for you to take your feelings out on me. The attic? Who puts a painting in the attic?”
“I had you in the living room just fine, but apparently that wasn’t good enough for you!” he argued. “You want to be in my bedroom for some reason? Why? Who puts paintings in bedrooms?”
“People with class!” The painting shouted, but then quickly lowered it’s tone, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to shout. You just don’t spend enough time in your living room, and god forbid… when was the last time you had people over.”
“You’re really going there?! My friends usually go out with me, staying at home is boring. I don’t have to justify myself to you!”
“You have me across from a stock photo of a dog!”
“NOBODY LOOKS AT PICTURES!” He shouted, still not quite understanding how they got here.
The man’s coworkers took turns looking in through the glass windows, watching while sharing worried looks with each other. The man was shouting at a painting he had put in his swivel chair.
The painting began to sob loudly, “That’s the problem”
He noticed his coworkers looking into his office and quickly fixed the blinds so they were shut. He wasn’t sure how, but apparently this painting was crying. It didn’t look distraught at all, but the sobs were clear as day. It was honestly the most creepiest thing it had done so far, and that was saying something.
“Look, I’m sorry. Obviously that’s not completely true, otherwise I wouldn’t have put you up in the first place,” he said. He couldn’t believe he was consoling a haunted painting, but the voice was just too familiar for him. But at the moment it was reminding him more of a needy ex than his beloved grandmother.
“You mean it?”
“Sure!” he said, not meaning it for a second. “You know, I have to work here almost every day. Why don’t you just stay here? Would that work for you? You can even entertain my clients.”
“Really?!” The painting shouted with glee, “That sounds wonderful”
(A friend and I took turns writing so the grammar may be inconsistent but this was a lot of fun! Thanks for the prompt!)