Chapter 7:

Chapter 7

Mokhoddis School Days Episode II


He gave his canvas another chance. This time his emotions were imbued with wisdom bestowed upon him by Rashid.

“Hmmm capture the scene huh? Each painting is its own world… And with each world comes a set of rules.”

Mokhoddis thought about his painting while he pressed the tip of his paintbrush against his pursed lips, leaning back on his chair.

“I got it, the subject will be… The time in a 5th-grade spelling bee when I didn’t know how to spell the last word but deduced how the word is spelled using its language of origin and taking my chances using the probability of how it will be spelled based on the sentence structure and other words that are considered the same difficulty is given to previous contestants….” Mokhoddis rambled to himself out loud. Lifting himself forward in the chair he almost started painting before, “No… it's too bland. How about the time I outsmarted the magician at the Golden Hills festival and won a rare ExoMan 6262 special Gundam…” Mokhoddis leaned back in the chair once more. “It’s too chaotic and doesn’t really count as an obstacle, but the time when I cheated on an English test using mirrors to communicate with Phet…no I don’t think admitting to a crime is the best thing to brag about.” Mokhoddis sat at his desk with the canvas in front of him. Before he knew it, hours had passed. While he was in his dilemma he scratched his head in frustration. Laying his head on his desk he glanced at the calendar. “Only 2 days remain until the Golden Hills art festival.” He rested for a while, “the spelling bee idea was the best. I was creative and it was a very pressuring situation. It perfectly displays my abilities.” Mokhoddis compromised with himself to settle on a subject for his painting. “Now, to figure out the composition, how would I add symbolism? A fat judge that looks like Phet? And a notebook representing spelling? Wait, how would that represent spelling? What if people mistake it for reading instead? They would think it’s a reading competition right?” Mokhoddis cupped his hands on his face.

In painting, you create your own rules and your own world

“My own world? But what would that look like?” He leaned back in his chair again, but this time on the verge of falling backward. Quickly launching himself up again in a rush. “I got it! A mean judge that looks like Phet standing in front of a wall while on the other side lays out the correct spelling of the word. The canvas is split in two, I stand in front of the judge and have different weapons in front of me to choose from, each representing different tactics I used to break that wall. The trebuchet will be the language of origin due to it originating in Europe which is also the area in which Latin originated. And the hammer will be the word in context in a sentence…” Mokhoddis jotted down ideas. “This is so exciting.” All he needed now was to paint his vision.

“I’m finishing the painting tonight and I'm gonna walk all the way to school with it so Phet and Rubina can witness my superior talents in art!” Mokhoddis plotted like a cartoon villain.

2:43 AM

The moon was high. A cloudy night, yet the waxing crescent was still visible. Mokhoddis slipped the window open earlier to allow the humidity to escape. It backfired. Now wind hurled into his room, blowing pieces of paper around like a tornado of paintings. Mokhoddis was too tired to intervene.

“Why is this so hard?” He teared up.

Having skipped dinner and his math homework to put life into his idea- to no avail. His lines were always off. His colors never turned out how he wanted. Everything was wrong with how he painted. At this moment, Mokhoddis had a thought that had never crossed his mind.

“Am I stupid?”

He remembered Rashid’s scars and quickly got up. “No! If that man could develop art so unbelievably cool, if he can improve so much, so can I. After all, I have a high IQ. It was proven when I was a kid…” He said ever so boldly, yet with a sense of doubt at the back of his mind. “I need to visit him one more time.”