\chapimg{Discount\_Bees}{art/Discount_Bees-Artist.jpg}
\chapauth{Ben Biddick}
\chapter{The Artist}


The satisfied young child sat on his favorite chair with his pens and
pencils. He squinted at the pain in his punched-in black eye. He shook
it off and began to draw. The boy was the age of a third-grader. The
silhouette of a man fell to the paper from the magic of his artistic
hand. His expression was dim and solemn. Happy at being dim and
solemn. His appearance was dim and shadowy. His hair matched his
apparel: black. The color of night.

The boy was talented. He could draw with the ability of a veteran. He
had drawn since the first time his hand, equipped with pencil, scratched
on the piece of clear, lineless paper. There were endless things to make
with paper and pencil. Anything. He had progressed in his ability with
every drawing he drew. Most sketches were of lonely, sad, grotesque, or
terrible scenes.

The figure on the paper was now fully drawn. It was a shadowy and dark
figure. His long robe fluttered against him. He had a tail. The tail was
a lashing terror and pain deliverer. The figure had an expression that
cut right through you, right through you to your soul. The creature of a
man held a head. It was bleeding and had the expression of fear, frozen
there eternally with the instance of death. Now the boy had to draw the
exact details of his bullying tormentor and the house in which his
tormentor lived and the bully would be as good as dead.

James McDaniels sat at home on the couch. His father lay there on his
recliner, drinking a beer. He was drunk four Coors ago, but kept
drinking. He always did. James stood and went out the door. He picked up
a rock and threw it. He had to blow off some steam. His father's steam,
which had been given to James with the drinking of each beer his father
drank. A young kid walking up the road passed the house.

``C'mere kid,'' James smirked.

The boy reluctantly started to run. James ran to him and quickly caught
him. James hit the boy as soon as the victim was in punching
distance. James hit the boy just like the other three he had blown off
steam with. After James was done, he let the boy up. Blood was running
from the victim's nose and mouth. He got up and ran as fast as he could
this time. James smiled. Soon enough though, James' happiness turned to
sadness- his father was swearing at Jame's mother. He sat on the grass
and began to cry.

Just then, the door slammed behind him. James began to turn around. He
hoped to God that it wasn't his father. He hoped it was his mother so
they could run away from their father's publicly known case of
alcoholism. It wasn't his mother. It wasn't his father. It was a large
dark, shadowy man with a tail and a terrible expression. James
stood. The man smiled smugly.

James garbled, ``Who are y-you?''

The weird man's tail answered the question for him. It flung at James
with the speed of a lightning bolt. It struck James's face with the
force of a semi hitting him at the speed of fifty-five miles an
hour. James's head was completely torn off his neck. Blood showered the
front of the house and the newly cut lawn. His headless body was thrown
to the ground. Blood spewed from the neck as the torn blood vessels
vomited their liquid.

``Compliments of The Artist,'' the figure said as it walked away.