The Gray Paintbrush

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited whereas imagination embraces the entire world. -Albert Einstein

“Creative Director: Malachi Borismortier”. My hands shake in excitement at the title. The wet, and blue acceptance letter reeks of my tears and sweat. How much money did I spend on art materials? How much time did I sacrifice with my loved ones? How many hand cramps did I end up having?

The rising yellow sun shines behind me as I walk proudly down the neutral gray sidewalk. A pink flowery taste fills my mouth while my button up and tie contrast black and white. I look at all of the white smiles of the red dressed women, or the blue robot on the back of a shirt. What a lovely country we live in. No matter who, where, or even what we are; all of us have the privilege of chasing our dreams and achieving them with hard work.

Matchbox. That's the name of the brilliant company that hired me. The videogames, comics, and character figurines all are worldwide sensations. They are considered the peak of human creativity. Every ambitious artist, or aspiring author dreams of sitting and working their brains to its creative limits at the legendary Matchbox.

My aching feet cry as I look up at the massive red, white, and blue striped office building. I walk in, the air conditioning cools down my sweating body. A brown, empty desk surprises me. “Please enter your identification.” a card scanner lights up bright red as the robotic voice jumps me fully awake. That's weird. Last week when I came to apply for the job there was a pregnant woman with a big smile and a bunch of presents surrounding her.

It's probably just maternity leave, I hope she takes her time resting. Until then though, I wonder what my office looks like? Hopefully something big

I find myself in a gray elevator, after that I smell the pink perfume or black cologne off my colleagues as I walk by them. I look down from the top floor through all of the clear windows. All of the people’s heads walk slowly with them moping about like someone just told them they’ve lost their job.

After a couple minutes of walking I eventually end up in front of the bright door of “The Creative Department.” Where is everyone’s energy? Maybe it is just my first day, but I've never brought this many supplies to a project before.

A dark shadow looms over my body. My senses dull being cut off from the windows. My hands shake just off from turning the silver doorknob.What is this anxiousness? What is this fear?

An authoritative, deep voice highlights the looming shadow. “Mister Borismortier” I turn around to see nobody.

“Look down” My eyes slowly move down to see a bald head and a pair of glasses. My grape shaded eyebags hang in the reflection. The small man straightens his business suit and adjusts his glasses for me to look at his sharp, predator like eyes.

My hand extends down asking for a handshake. His eyes turn into disgust as he takes a step back. I look at his squeaky clean nametag “Blundell Matchbox.” My body freezes. That name needs no explanation. He is the son of the man who founded Matchbox. He is the leader of some of the best comic runs like Noiman and Black Lantern. He has the fifth highest net worth of five hundred billion.

“I will be your mentor, everything you need to know about running our creative department I will be the one to teach you.” His voice has a little bit of ego in it.

Blundell holds the door open to my office. Visions of coworkers laughing and talking about different narrative or creative decisions fill up my brain right before the door fully swings. I wonder if ill make any friends? Part of me regrets not taking the time to make some in college. At the same time I hope they don't distract me too much. I have a job to do after all.

I rush into the office and quickly put down my stainless paintbrushes, bright colored pencils, and big pink erasers. Large window blinds cover the windows. I take my seat at the end of the long wooden table. Seats circle around it with people looking down. Their eyebags hang down to the huge stack of papers in front of them. While their gray skin shakes and screams for some sort of sunlight.

“Huh?” My throat turns dry as bright reds and pinks flash on the antennas of the big silver box sitting at the head of the table. The eyes light up a clearish blue while the clicking gears visible in his stomach make me sick to my stomach.

“Dont worry he doesn't bite” Blundell steps behind the abomination and starts petting it, everyone surrounding the table looks up at him at the same time.

I gulp and pull on my collar to give me some breathing room. “I figured.” my laugh afterwards comes out awkwardly

“Oh” he coughs slightly. “I wasn't talking to you” his attention darts to the supplies I put on the desk.

“You won't be needing those.” he tosses everything I had into the abomination’s mouth. The crunching of its yellow rusted teeth evaporates my heart along with my supplies. Blundell smiles with not a single hint of reflection.

“This is our money maker right here!” Blundell shows some emotion.

“What do you mean?” There's no way this is how Matchbox does things. This is all a dream, or a company welcome party right?

Blundell pats on the abominations back. “Go ahead and show Mister Borismortier how he will be running our creative department”

The abomination repeats the order blundell gave him through the scratch and glitchy soundbox in the back of his throat before his eyes light up even brighter, projecting all different types of files.

Noiman and Black Lantern pictures show up under the lines of Original creator names at the top od the projector. “Cappyman” and “Crybaby” light up under it. Hundreds of submissions load into the mailbox by the second, the screen lights up green and then red multiple times sorting them.

“Affair” and “Embezzlement” Run adjacent with the submissions pausing and loading with every flick of the screen.

“Matchbox takes the submissions of all the people who think they can work with us and asks if we can use their ideas” Blundell looks into the screen the screen reflects as a magma red in his eyes.

“If they say no” he smiles as a recording pops up on the screen of a red dressed, high heeled woman walking in on her naked husband.

“Where is the creativity?!” I yell at the top fo my lungs. Blundell turns around, with a closer look you can see how much of his skin is veinless. “This is a crime! Do you have any shame in yourself?!” My hand slams on the desk, while my body heat rises.

Blundell sighs in annoyance. “What is our company motive?” he announces to the table.

“Knowledge is power” everyone around the table chants at the same time.

“Exactly” Blundell rubs his hands together. I reach in my pockets frantically searching for something to stop the madness.

“It's like my father would say, knowledge is power. Knowledge is king. Knowledge is the reason the air exists for you to breathe. Without it we are nothing but a bunch of monkeys roaming around the everlasting resource of this planet”

He pauses, clearly feeling proud of himself. “Now to you Mister Borismortier” a little piece of wood slides under my fingernail in my pocket.

“Tell us why we hired him” the abomination repeats his order once again before speaking in the A.I robotic voice I heard at the front desk. Images of my massive paintings and my carefully crafted sculptures I made in college flash through my head, bringing a tear to my eye.

“Malachi Borismortier. Graduated top of class. Never went to any parties. Sat inside for hours at a time for his craft. Sacrificed time with even his family to get extra credit” I think back to the acceptance letter from earlier. How stupid can I be/

Blundell walks up to me and puts his hand on left my shoulder, I return the same favor with his right shoulder. “So, how do you feel about working here.” his dead eyes reflect the lifelessness in my face.

Why should I? Everything I've ever worked for is a lie. There is no point for me to be working anymore. At the same time though, Isnt that the reason I should take this job? I have no friends, no family, I dont even own anything other than art supplies and a desk. So will that all be for nothing?

“Sir…” What am I doing?

“You can go fuck yourself” the match clicks in my hand for a few second before the gust engulfs the bright red flame around his whole suit. His screams don't last long with how short he is. I feel another match in my pocket, as I look at everyone around the table. Every one of their gray expressions or black eyes depresses me. This is going to take a while.

The black smoke rises in the background of the ashes. The yellow sun sets creating the purplish sky of night and day mixed. The blue and red sirens squeal as they fill up my ears. The navy blue clothed men take off and look on the gold star they wear on their chest.

I look down at the silver handcuffs making slightly red cuff marks on my wrist. Have I ever felt this happy? The way that machine turned to ashes so quickly. The way it screamed for it all to stop.

I uncontrollably start laughing as the black tires on the car start turning. How many friends will i make in jail?