Whenever I’m sitting in a park with nothing better to do, or on a subway ride that’s one or two stops too long, I end up taking out my sketchbook and drawing people. It’s always people that catch my attention, a big coat, headphones, interesting facial features, anything that I feel might be fun to put on paper. It’s mainly for practice, but the people I draw sometimes notice, which can be a bit embarrassing if they ask me to stop. All the same, it’s a good way to practice my art.
Though, something happened to me recently and now I feel like I should stop.
I was on a subway, a long boring ride. You know, the kind where the doors only open every five minutes. I was traveling to visit my family, but they live a bit on the far side. So, I did what I always did, and removed the pencil and sketchbook from my bag. The book isn’t very large, but it is clear what I’m doing whenever I do use it. With the proper tools in hand, I scanned the crowd for someone distinctive.
I found this distinctive someone in the form of an old, shriveled up lady, hunched over and reading a book. I liked her as a subject not only for the interesting features in the form of wrinkled flesh and sun damaged skin spots, but the book she was reading looked ominous in a way I can’t quite describe. It’s indigo hardback with no distinctive features other than a golden eye decal was something that struck me. So, I began letting my pencil dance down the page, with light, messy lines. I wasn’t going for anything too detailed after all.
After about 10 minutes of this, I was mostly engrossed in my drawing. Though when I looked back up at her for reference, I saw she’d abandoned her book and was staring right at me. Her eyes bored into mine, instantly sending chills up my spine. Unblinking, unmoving… I let out a nervous laugh. “Sorry ma’am! I just thought you were pretty, so I wanted to draw you.” I smiled politely, sheepishly but she gave no reply. She simply held that gaze of hers. Even as I broke eye contact, I could still feel her looking at me. “…I can stop if you want,” I tried, but to no avail. She was clearly upset, so I placed my supplies back into my bag.
She didn’t stop looking at me, but luckily my stop was the next one. When the doors opened, I said to her, “Have a good day,” before hurrying out of the door with unease filling my stomach. I could feel her cold eyes on me, even as the subway doors shut.
It was strange, I thought, but decided not to let one odd encounter ruin my day. When I finally reached my family and got settled, I told them about this encounter. “Old folks do that sometimes, maybe she was hard of hearing or something,” my sister assured me with a lighthearted pat on my back. “Well, can I see your sketch of her?”
I took out the book and handed it to her,allowing her to do the honors of looking for the page. “Wow, you got a lot done in ten minutes! But… I thought you said she was looking away from you?” I did. Maybe she had the wrong page open? I peered over her shoulder and my stomach dropped.
This wasn’t my drawing.
Instead of the messy, unfinished pencil sketch, it was a much more detailed drawing of her with much darker strokes- what appeared to be charcoal. It was still the same old lady, but she was looking right at the viewer, and smiling a wide, unnerving grin.
Without a warning to my sister, I tore the page out and threw it away in my bewildered panic.
Have I made a mistake? I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I think I need help.