The Scarlet Impression

Sam cradled his coffee mug, his fingers warming against the ceramic as he stared at the painting propped up on his dining table.

The Answer.

He had always found it amusing—titles on artwork. Like paintings were riddles you had to solve. And The Answer? That was a big one. Scarlet had never been subtle. She had finished the piece in the haze of her fourth trimester, the way some mothers knitted or wrote journals. He supposed this was how she processed things—twenty-two, single, trying to paint a future for the both of them.

Sam let his eyes drift over the details of the scene—cyclists weaving through foot traffic, buskers mid-act, café awnings spilling warm light onto cobblestone streets. He had studied this painting countless times, searching for the meaning behind its title. 

This morning, he saw something new.

Near the bottom right, almost hidden in the movement of the street, a man sat with a canvas on his lap, paintbrush poised. His hair curled at the ends, the way Sam’s started to a few months after Scarlet’s death. Standing beside him, in a trench coat, was an old woman handing him a photograph.

A chill traced his spine.

“Dear Sam, When you have questions, I hope—here—you find the answers. Love, Scarlet.”

Scarlet. Not Mum. She asked him to stop calling her Mum when he turned ten. “You’re double digits now,” she had said.

He exhaled, slow and steady. Rent was due next week, and he still needed a couple hundred dollars to cover it. His art supplies were dwindling too; a new set of paints wouldn’t come cheap. Southbank had always been a good spot for street artists, especially on weekends when tourists and locals alike strolled by. With any luck, today’s earnings might bridge the gap.

The Yarra shimmered in broad strokes of deep blue and murky green, flecked with golden ripples where the sun should have been. But the sun wasn’t there. Not in the sky, anyway. The morning was crisp, the air thick with the scent of damp pavement and roasted coffee drifting from the riverside cafés. A top of nineteen degrees, the forecast had said.

Sam didn’t feel like painting nineteen degrees. 

He dipped his brush into a pool of warm yellow and dragged it across his canvas, coaxing the sun into existence. He blended in streaks of orange, a touch of soft pink, until the whole painting radiated warmth. Then, for fun, he added two girls in summer dresses, their skirts swirling in an imaginary breeze. He painted their freckles, the bright blue ribbons in their pigtails, the stick ice cream cones in their hands.

He was mid-stroke when the squealing started.

Sam looked up. 

Two little girls were running toward him, ice cream melting over their fingers, blue ribbons fluttering in the breeze. 

“You painted us!” one of them laughed.

Sam stared, his grip tightening around his brush. He looked at his canvas. Then back at them.

Impossible. The answer?

For the rest of the afternoon, he experimented. He painted a rowboat in the water. Minutes later, a man in a striped shirt rowed by, looking just as Sam had imagined him. He painted a flock of cockatoos, and soon the air was filled with their raucous screeching. Each stroke shaped reality, bending it to his whim.

By the time the sun dipped behind the city skyline, Sam packed up and hurried home, his mind buzzing with possibilities. 

Could he paint himself a better life? 

Inside his tiny apartment—walls cracked, pipes groaning—he sat before his easel and sketched the home he dreamed of. A loft in Docklands, its window sprawling wide over the river, light pouring in. He painted the smooth wooden floors, the bookshelves lined with spines waiting to be read. A plush couch. A bigger bed. 

He set his brush down, heart pounding. Then, slowly, he looked up.

Still here. 

The same peeling walls, the same cramped space.

It only worked outside.

Sam returned to his usual spot the next morning, the weight of his mother’s painting still lingering in his mind. But as he set up his easel and dipped his brush into the water, the familiar rhythm of painting settled him. The Yarra glistened in the morning light, trams rumbled across the bridge, and the city stirred with life. He painted what he saw.

And then, he painted more.

A woman with a latte in one hand, the leashes of two Siberian huskies in the other. He didn’t know why she came to mind—perhaps because he’d always thought huskies didn’t belong in Melbourne’s mild winters, or maybe because the sight of someone being pulled along by two overenthusiastic dogs amused him. He added a pale blue beanie on her head, then looked up.

She passed by a moment later, almost exactly as he had imagined her.

Sam exhaled sharply, his pulse quickening. He should stop. He should pack up his things and walk away. 

Instead, he reached for his brush again. 

Across the street, a man in a leather jacket stalked toward a woman rummaging through her purse. Sam barely had to think before he painted two police officers rounding the corner, the light catching the badge on one’s chest. Before his paint even dried, the real officers appeared, stopping the man in his tracks.

A thrill ran through him—not just at the power of it, but at the rightness of it.

He let himself lean into it. A couple stood near the river’s edge, the man shifting his weight from foot to foot, glancing at the small box in his hand. Sam grinned and lifted his brush.

Above them, he painted sweeping white letters against the clear blue sky: Will you marry me? The moment his brush left the canvas, a plane roared overhead, trailing thick white letters in its wake.

The woman gasped, hands flying to her mouth. The man fumbled with the ring before dropping to one knee. Passersby stopped to watch, some pulling out their phones to record. 

Still not enough.

The moment deserved music. Sam dipped his brush in warm amber tones and sketched a street musician—no, a pair—a violinist with auburn curls and a man with a sunburst guitar. He imagined the gentle swells of strings, the soft rhythm of chords.

A second later, the real duo strolled into view. They paused near the couple, exchanged a glance, then launched into a sweet, familiar melody.

As the woman nodded through happy tears and threw her arms around her new fiancé, Sam felt a warmth spread through him. For the first time in a long while, he realised he hadn’t thought about what was missing from his own life. Instead, he found genuine joy in the happiness unfolding before him. 

The newly engaged couple approached his easel, eyes alight with excitement. The man pointed to the skywriting in Sam’s painting.

“You captured it perfectly,” the man had said, his fiancée nodding beside him, still misty-eyed. “How much for this piece?”

Sam had smiled, masking the surreal thrill of it all. He watched them walk off, the painting tucked carefully under the man’s arm, as if it had always belonged to them.

He exhaled. The world felt softer—lighter—when things found their place.

Then, as he secured his sketchbook, a woman in a mocha-coloured trench coat stepped forward. 

“Hello,” she said.

Sam straightened. “Hi.”

She hesitated before holding out a small, faded photograph. “This is my Theo.”

Sam glanced down. A man in his youth, smiling as he sat on a bench—the very one across from where Sam set up every day.

“I was hoping,” she continued, “you could paint him for me. There, on that bench.”

Sam swallowed.

He wanted to say yes.

But the moment stretched, and something inside him wavered.

“I… I don’t think I can,” he admitted.

The old woman didn’t look surprised. If anything, her expression was understanding. She tucked the photograph away, gave him a small nod, and walked off into the evening crowd.

That night, in his apartment, Sam stood before The Answer.

Scarlet’s brushstrokes swirled in the lamplight, the cityscape full of life. He traced familiar details with his eyes—the tiny flower stall, the man playing violin, the couple mid-laughter.

Then he saw it.

A street artist.

A woman in a trench coat, standing before him.

And near the very edge, easy to miss if you weren’t looking, an old man sitting on a bench.

Sam’s breath caught.

The old man looked just like the one in the photograph.

A shiver ran through him, something between fear and awe. Had Scarlet known? Had she seen this before he did?

His hands tightened into fists.

Tomorrow.

He would paint the old man tomorrow.

For the first time in a long while, he felt excited to wake up.

He arrived early.

Sam set up his easel with restless hands, glancing around, waiting for her.

But the old woman never came.

Not that day.

Not the next.

A week passed, then another, and still, he showed up every morning, hoping.

Waiting.

It became the one thing that got him out of bed.

But she never returned.

One Year Later

The city had shifted through seasons, but Sam remained.

He no longer watched for her, but some part of him still expected her to appear—just one more time, just long enough to let him say yes.

That afternoon, as he arranged his watercolours, his gaze drifted toward the bench.

And there—

That mocha trench coat.

His breath hitched. His fingers stilled.

Then she turned, and the illusion cracked.

Her hair was longer, untouched by silver. Her face was smooth, unlined. And yet—something in the way she carried herself, the way she sat, the way she adjusted the folds of the coat around her shoulders—

It was her. And it wasn’t.

Sam’s fingers curled around his pencil. He had already started sketching when she stood and crossed the street toward him.

He swallowed hard.

“You must be the painter,” she said.

The words felt like an echo of something he had been waiting to hear.

Sam nodded, unsure what to say.

She smiled faintly. “My grandmother spoke about you. A very talented artist who sat close to the bench she and my grandfather claimed.”

His throat felt tight.

“She… spoke about me?”

The young woman looked down. “It’s been a year since she… this is why I’m wearing her favourite coat. Why I came to sit on their bench.”

A year.

Sam exhaled shakily, his grip loosening.

He had waited for her. Every morning, he had searched the crowds, hoping. Waking up had felt like waiting. And now—

She reached into the coat, pulling out something small and worn. A photograph.

Sam’s heart clenched.

The old woman and her husband, sitting together on that very bench.

His eyes burned.

Another chance.

Before she could even ask, he said, “I’d like to paint them.”

A tear slipped down her cheek. “She’d love that.”

And so, with steady hands and a heart no longer waiting, Sam began to paint.