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[Action Post]
Feb. 14th, 2012 02:37 pmIt took less time then he would have thought to reach the top of the water tower, even lugging paint buckets and brushes.
He wasn’t sure what exactly to attribute his recent mood to. Long days at city hall followed by even longer nights at the bar, or maybe the phone call he’d had with his parents that morning asking when he was going to move back home. Maybe it was being so close to graduating and not being able to do anything to move it along. But whatever it was, it had filled him with a melancholy mood and a large supply of restless, nervous energy.
He’d already tried to dispel the mood in all the usual ways. Smoking his pipe hadn’t helped, neither had a long swim in the pool. He’d tried giving the apartment a thorough cleaning, but while it had used up some of that energy it’d failed to lift his mood. Football needed at least two people to be worthwhile, and getting high all alone in his apartment didn’t hold a lot of appeal. Beer had been tried as a compromise, but had merely dulled his mood rather than dissipated it.
It seemed the time had come for drastic measures.
Once he’d decided on a side (the one facing north, so that was visible from the majority of the town), he arranged the paint accordingly and then opened the buckets before leaning back against the railing as much as he was able to take in the space he had to work with. He traced his intended design with his mind's eye, then dipped his brush in the bucket of black paint and got to work. He didn’t have time or the materials to stencil so he did the best he could, outlining the edges of the Dutch national lion before filling it in with the traditional orange.
By the time the sun rose had and his supplies were back at his apartment, mood lifted as he watched the evidence of his night's work become visible for all to see.
He wasn’t sure what exactly to attribute his recent mood to. Long days at city hall followed by even longer nights at the bar, or maybe the phone call he’d had with his parents that morning asking when he was going to move back home. Maybe it was being so close to graduating and not being able to do anything to move it along. But whatever it was, it had filled him with a melancholy mood and a large supply of restless, nervous energy.
He’d already tried to dispel the mood in all the usual ways. Smoking his pipe hadn’t helped, neither had a long swim in the pool. He’d tried giving the apartment a thorough cleaning, but while it had used up some of that energy it’d failed to lift his mood. Football needed at least two people to be worthwhile, and getting high all alone in his apartment didn’t hold a lot of appeal. Beer had been tried as a compromise, but had merely dulled his mood rather than dissipated it.
It seemed the time had come for drastic measures.
Once he’d decided on a side (the one facing north, so that was visible from the majority of the town), he arranged the paint accordingly and then opened the buckets before leaning back against the railing as much as he was able to take in the space he had to work with. He traced his intended design with his mind's eye, then dipped his brush in the bucket of black paint and got to work. He didn’t have time or the materials to stencil so he did the best he could, outlining the edges of the Dutch national lion before filling it in with the traditional orange.
By the time the sun rose had and his supplies were back at his apartment, mood lifted as he watched the evidence of his night's work become visible for all to see.
