OBSCURE PAINTINGS

Lenny walked up the stairs, listening to the old wooden floor boards creak under her. The wood felt so thin and Lenny feared that it would fall apart if she applied too much pressure on it.

Her mother had left a few hours ago, and her grandmother needed to get some rest, leaving Lenny to wander the house on her own. The old woman had told Lenny to pick any free room she wanted as she was the only one staying here and had enough rooms to spare.

The second floor had a narrow corridor and you could see the front door from the top. Paintings were hung on the walls, the exact designs of the paintings she had seen on the ground floor. Lenny made a stop in front of a painting and took her time examining it.

It was a nicely done work of art, but the unrealistic and incomprehensible patterns were hard to understand. Lenny brushed her fingers against the strokes of brown paint on the left side of the painting, her eyes twinkling.

But something about these paintings didn't sit right with Lenny. Looking at them made her feel uneasy and a bit queasy on the inside. It was a feeling she couldn't shake off. Not just the paintings, but the whole house. The atmosphere had an eerie feeling to it.

Lenny brushed it off as her being nervous at the change in environment and kept walking down the corridor. She sighted a door by the right and walked towards it. Placing her hand on the rusty metal door knob, she swung the door open.

Lenny's eyes lit up instantly. It felt like she had seen paradise, a paradise filled with canvases, easels, paintings, brushes and paint. With her eyes gleaming with awe, Lenny walked into the room, slowly and carefully. It was a small room, painted with grey. There was just one large windows at the left with no curtains hung on it. The room had multiple canvas, blank and unused.

Lenny walked over to one canvas and ran her hands along the white surface. She touched her fingers and felt dust on them. It seemed like it had been a while since anyone used the canvas, or even entered the room. The canvas wasn't the only thing that was dust filled. The entire air was damp and filled with dust, but Lenny had been too excited to notice.

Beside the easel were paint cans and large paint brushes, some were smeared with brown paint at the tip, which had hardened due to the amount of time it had spent sitting there.

Lenny switch her attention to a couple of paintings covered with a brown cloth. She walked over to it and pulled the cloth away. Multiple canvases with paintings on them lay on the floor, desolate and abandoned.

Lenny squatted down to get a better view of them. It was the same pattern of paintings she had seen all over the house. Who had these paintings? Her grandmother? Lenny could ask her tomorrow. She was very interested in the paintings. It had a similar style to hers, the obscure ad vagueness of it. It drew her to the paintings.

"Oh, I see you've found this room."

Lenny shot up from the ground as footsteps approached her. She felt a chill run up her spine and she made a sharp turn and saw her grandmother, arms folded and her eyes scanning the room, a hint of reminiscence in them.

"Um, do these paintings belong to you?" Lenny said. It was the first thing she had said to her grandmother since she had come here.

The old woman's lips curled into a crooked smile and she shook her head.

"No, these belonged to your grandfather. He loved painting you see, he would spent hours in here just painting away."

Lenny was starting to get invested in the conversation.

"That's amazing. Does he still paint?"

The old woman sighed and looked down to the ground.

"He passed away three years ago. Ever since then, I haven't had the courage to step into this room."

"Oh, I um...I didn't know. I'm sorry for coming in here."

The old woman walked closer to Lenny and ran her shaky hands over her long straight hair.

"Its fine honey."

Lenny locked eyes with her and saw how warm they were. The uneasy me eerie feeling probing at the back of her mind were slowly dispersing. She felt comfortable having her grandmother pat her head.

"You seem interested in all this. You like paintings?"

Lenny nodded vigorously as she smiled enthusiastically. The old woman chuckled.

"Thats the first time you've smiled since you came here, I thought you weren't happy to come spent time with this old woman." She said with a tender smile.

She looked towards the paintings that Lenny was gazing at a while ago and let out a wistful smile.

"The one thing I don't want to forget is my husband. That's why I hung all his paintings around the house. It helps me remember him even when I forget." She said sadly.

The old woman walked towards the door and looked at Lenny.

"You can use this place as much as you like. It would need a lot of cleaning though, it hasn't bed used in three years."

"I can do the cleaning."

The old woman gave her a nod of approval and disappeared into the corridor.

Lenny Exhaled and walked towards the door, closing softly. There was another door adjacent to it. She took long strides to the door and swung it open. It was a bedroom with a single bed and a small reading desk at the corner. A small woodem wardrobe was at the other

Lenny placed her small duffel bag at the edge of the bed and walked over to the desk. It had a small lamp on it. She pressed the button and it flickered on. The desk was dusty and so was the floor boards and the bed frame. Lenny sighed placed her hands on her waist. There was a lot of work to do.