The Secret Sea - (Chaptered Version)

4*

The first night in a new place is strange for anyone, but trying to get comfortable inside something smaller than a walk-in closet is even more challenging. I consider retreating to the backseat of my car, but I stick it out until exhaustion overtakes me. Before I can fall asleep, a strange thumping and moaning springs me back to alertness. I soon realize it's Steven and Eve having sex. The next day I ask Eve if I can borrow a box fan, not telling her it's to hide the noise of her lovemaking.

With the outside world muffled by electric fan blades, I start to feel more comfortable. I manage to get some sleep, but the strange dream returns to rattle my subconscious each night, leaving me unrested.

I hit the street the next morning in search of a new job, but come up empty. I'm thankful to have some renovation work waiting for me when I return to the shed. Grouting tiles and pounding nails helps cloud my troubled thoughts.

I finish tiling the "kitchen" (really, a 5 x 5 corner of wall) in less than a week. Unprompted, I build an unobtrusive cabinet out of leftover two-by-fours and paneling and top it with a chunk of scrap hardwood gleaned from a local recycler. I finish covering the path with paving stones and slap a few coats of lemon-yellow paint on the shed to match the house (Eve takes over landscaping duties after my first attempt proves to be an eye-sore). I replace the shed's chipboard floor with hardwood oak and paint some decorative accents on the trim just for something else to do.

Lacking projects, I set a wood panel on a makeshift easel. I'm having difficulty resurrecting my artistic ambitions. My older, now destroyed, works came effortlessly--abstract shapes and forms emerged on the canvas from the depths of my mind's eye. Now, as I put brush to board something feels wrong. Broken. What once was effortless is suddenly out of control.

The first new painting is a flat expanse of blue with no form or texture. The second is the same--a solid, monochrome swath of color. The shed steadily fills with poor imitations of something Rothko might paint. I force myself to contrive a fresh idea, but my mind immediately goes blank and I quickly lose interest. In frustration, I shove the azure boards in the corner and cover them with a tarp--also blue. I sincerely wonder if I'm mentally ill.