I called this piece “Dandelions”.  It shows a badger in a field of wispy dandelions, clutching one in his hand.  It seemed to be everyone’s favorite at the last show at Chimera.  Halfway through this painting, I was inspired by the painting to write a kid’s story about the badger’s life.  I stayed up really late one night writing it…when the story was done, it in turn inspired the rest of the painting.  It was fun having the two mediums work with each other.  The story is posted below

Dandelions

Meet Badger.  He’s an intellectual, of course, but he didn’t learn about the world by any conventional means.  He was snatched from the wild in his youth by a traveling group of rogues, who wanted nothing more of him than to make him their entertainer, to keep their spirits high.  They taught him to do tricks, stand on one leg, bark on command, catch fish from the river, turn around inside his own skin, anything that sparked a laugh from the group.  And he learned quickly.  But being the figure of amusement for others got old quickly, and one night while the group was on the outskirts of the city, he escaped towards the luminous sprawl, heading directly into the heart of the burg.  He found refuge there in the first dark place he could find, the subway tunnels.

Thus marked the place where he would learn about the world, feeding on scraps, ducking past trains hurling by, sleeping in a hovel in one of the subway side-routes that had long been abandoned.  It was lonely at first.  It wasn’t easy down there in the tunnels, and food was scarce, but fortunately luck was on his side.  He met others.  It would make sense that others would be down in those tunnels…others that had been down there much longer than he.  Three humans, an old man, a surly, sass-mouthed woman and an orphan boy in his teens soon became his best friends.  They showed him how to live.  Showed him how to navigate the tunnels.  Showed him how to swipe food from unattended delivery trucks.  Taught him the do’s and don’ts of living in the underworld.  Taught him to live with grace in a place where there was none.  His friends became like family to him. They were able to get by, helping each other, even though they didn’t have much.  He carried his two sole possessions with him wherever he went: a torn bandana that he wore around his neck, and a picture of a dandelion that he found in one of the passageways.  There was something about the way it looked that gave him hope.  Something beautiful about how perfect it looked in appearance but how frail and fleeting it’s existence was.  He often fell asleep looking at the picture, reflecting on the parallel lives that he and the flower shared, both surviving amidst the harsh winds that blew.

Being the fastest and most skilled at going undetected, the badger became solely in charge of fetching food for the group.  It was easy for him to swipe a bag of bread or some fruit and scamper off back into the tunnels, and he kind of enjoyed seeing the daylight from time to time during his food collecting endeavors.  He must have gotten casual, because one day while snatching a melon from a food stand he was ambushed by a man with a net and a white frock.  He couldn’t escape, and upon feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder he fell asleep for what felt like weeks.

When he finally came to, he realized he was somewhere he’d been before.  He was in the woods again…surrounded by trees, and off in the distance, mountains.  With no way of getting back to the city and no hopes of ever seeing his friends again, he felt alone in the world.  He ate occasionally, but sank deeper into loneliness.  The winter came soon after, and with nothing left to do, he went to sleep.  He slept for a lifetime.  He slept without waking.  He slept through the cold, slept through the whole winter, through the days and nights and weeks without coming out once.

He awoke to something landing on his nose.  It was small and furry, and as he sat up, another floated into his burrow and landed in his fur.  Curious as to what these were and where they were coming from, he got up and trudged out of his hole.  It was extremely bright outside, and it took him a while to open his eyes completely.  As he regained his focus, a smile crept across his face.  He found himself in the middle of a field, surrounded, as far as he could see, by dandelions.

-The End

Thanks for reading!

Nick

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