Writing Prompt: There was something about the painting that bothered him.

Morning all. Monday holidays always make the following week speed past. I expect this will be no different. So let’s jump into the first official prompt of the racing week and speed on into it shall we? Timers set and off to the races we go.

No idea what is wrong with the painting but I like the character. Or the idea of the character. I may work on a character sketch at lunch. If this story doesn’t pan out I am sure I can use him elsewhere.

And in case you are looking at this is a confused way, I did use the sentence for Monday instead of Tuesday as I forgot that I was skipping it. In my defense I write these before my coffee and just take the next sentence listed out of habit. So I did Monday’s prompt and will skip Tuesdays and do Wednesdays on Wednesday. Fun start to the week. But I did like the sentence.

Tuesday, October 13th: There was something about the painting that bothered him.

There was something about the painting that bothered him.  He passed the painting every day on his way in.  He walked through the doors, past the gallery, glancing to the side each time and taking in the sight of the painting before he went into his office. 

He couldn’t not look. 

The painting was fantastic.  He knew that art experts praised it and there were flocks of people who came to the gallery to study it.  It was a masterpiece and one of the few pieces from the artist that were on display.  Most were in private collections.  If you wanted to see a Duncan Garroway in person, this was one of the few places you could do it.

No one commented on his interest as it seemed natural.  He certainly didn’t tell anyone hat something about it bothered him.

But something about the painting bothered him

He just didn’t know what.

Then that day came, the lunchtime where he forgot his packed lunch.  He knew it was packed, if he closed his eyes he could remember packing it and still see it sitting on the shelf in his fridge.  As his house was a good forty five minutes away from his office and his lunch break was only an hour, the memory did him no good. 

During his obligatory annual physical his doctor suggested some changes to his eating habits. It had been a shift as he wasn’t used to taking food seriously, but once he made the adjustment he found he quite enjoyed it. While dinner was an excuse to explore strange and alien ingredients and different world cuisines, lunch felt like an adventure.  He wasn’t all that bold in his lunch choices, but the act of packing made him feel like he was setting out on an adventure instead of just going to work.  He was packing supplies to keep himself sustained as he traversed the wilds. 

At least that was what he told himself.  It also helped him think of some od the less enjoyable phone calls he had to make as dealing with the hostile creatures of the wild.  Like the disturbance of the painting, he never told anyone about that either. He made the necessary sighs that a man in his fifties was supposed to make at the thought of eating better. Everyone was expecting it and usually offered one of the well-worn jokes about cleaned arteries and slimmer waistlines not being worth it. 

That day, he was disappointed in his forgotten lunch and after a moment of soul searching, decided he didn’t want to break his streak by going to one of the near by lunch spots.  In addition to the health benefits the doctor told him he would experience, he was noticing some extra heft to his bank account with the lack of convenient food spending.  It actually made him happier than the possibility of lowered cholesterol.

Instead of lurking about his office, he decided to take a turn through the gallery.  At lunch time it was almost completely deserted and he thought he might have a chance to study the painting and realize what I was about it that bothered him.  He figured that once he identified the mental irritant, he could shake it out, like a small pebble out of his shoe.  Once gone, he could appreciate the painting a others did.