Raihanna Shamsudin

Honorable Mention: Fiction

“The Hand That Feeds You” 
by Raihanna Shamsudin
12th grade, Montville Township High School

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The artist hummed a quiet melody to himself as he added the final touches to his masterpiece. It wasn’t an extravagant mural or vast landscape, but instead a rather simple portrait of an outstretched hand reaching toward the viewer. He sat slumped on his stool, squinting as he tilted his thumb and assessed the composition. Every few minutes, he added a touch of paint to the blood red background or a muted teal to the vein in its wrist before nodding to himself once more.

It brought him comfort, seeing such an inviting hand almost welcoming him to take the weight off his shoulders. He was much fonder of these raw, intimate paintings than the creation of something pretty and meaningless. What was the point of making art if it didn’t extend past the eyes and into the heart? In his paintings, not one brushstroke was without purpose. The pink stains on the wrinkled knuckles were a symbol of the battles thrust upon those who were undeserving of such cruelty. The hand facing out demonstrated that even those most burdened in this world can spread kindness. Even the shade of red chosen for the backdrop had its purpose—both to emphasize the cool tones of the hand and to show that behind every kind gesture is a person with a past darker than they are willing to let on.

With one last flick of his brush, the painting was finished. A sense of quiet satisfaction filled the artist as he took a final look at his canvas. He was covered in splotches of paint from working all day, and the colors resembled something out of a crime scene—the artist chuckled to himself at the thought. The hand in his painting, however, was pristine and gentle, each finger curving at exactly the right angle to evoke a sense of emotion. The artist checked the time—it was well into the night and hours past when he should have gone to bed. He rolled his shoulders, stifling a yawn, and was about to rise from his stool when something caught his attention.

It was small, almost insignificant at first glance. Had he let his dreariness get the best of him, or did the hand he had painted just twitch? No, surely there was some explanation for what he had seen; maybe a trick of the light, he thought, as he rubbed his eyes. He challenged the canvas to a staredown, but not a moment passed before he saw it again. The movement was weak and fragile, like a man asleep for a thousand years finally waking from his slumber. But there was no denying it—his painting was beginning to move. The blood red background began to swirl around it, almost perfectly mirroring the thoughts swirling through his head. The hand, it seemed, had finally grasped its surroundings and focused in on the artist. In a gesture of friendship and reassurance, the hand stretched its tired fingertips and reached out to him.

This was a dream, the artist thought—he was surely dreaming. Any minute now he would wake up hunched over on his stool with more paint on his face than there was on the canvas, ready to get back to work. But wasn’t it the goal of every artist to “bring his painting to life”? Though his mind was going back and forth trying to differentiate fantasy from reality, the allure of holding his own creation hand in hand became too enthralling to ignore. He inched forward, hesitating slightly as he, too, released his clenched fingers from his paintbrush and reached out to the hand.

But the painting seemed to have other ideas in mind, for it did not pause to grasp his palms. Rather, it continued moving forward, and still the artist was too captivated by the delicacy and beauty of his design to process what was going on. All coherent thoughts had escaped him, leaving his mind vacant except for the sight of his creation in front of his eyes. He was dizzy, the room continued to spin faster, the red was swirling around him and seeping into his skull, blurring his vision and flooding his brain.

The hand’s every movement seemed gossamer to the artist, poised and controlled as it inched closer and closer to his neck, examining it, holding it firmly. He cared not, for he was too far gone, lost in the hypnotizing spell that seemed to drape over him at the sight of his creation’s enchantment.

He was unaware of his feet being lifted from the ground, he was unaware of his lungs screaming desperately for air, he was unaware of the blood dripping down from his neck as the hand sank its nails in. The pain was a separate entity, a small weed shrouded by a forest of thick, red mist. Slowly, slowly, he fell limp in its grasp, and when he was finally released he fell onto the cool floor, hitting the ground with a light thud.

The blood dripping from his neck soon turned into a vast ocean of crimson on the ground, leaving only his flaccid arm untouched. The police who arrived at the scene the next evening were dumbfounded, not only because there was no weapon in sight, but because the alarming sight beneath their feet perfectly resembled the sight on the canvas—an outstretched hand surrounded by a sea of deep red.