Aesthete (noun): a person with great sensitivity to the beauty of art and nature

“Sir. Sir! Please relax your arms! You’re bleeding still!”

The young man balancing precariously on the stretcher didn’t listen. Holding his red-covered hands up to the setting sun, his eyes widened with wonder.

“Ah…the colors are beautiful.”

All around him, the bone-chilling symphony of sirens and crying surged up and down, with the loud, rushing footsteps of police and medics thumping in harmony. The car crash had definitely taken a life, although it wasn’t clear whose or how many.

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He kept staring at the blend of celestial yellows and angelic oranges in the sky, comparing the warm hues to the unsettling blood all over his fingers. The long lost inspiration to paint flooded to his mind. It was a shame that his chest hurt too much for him to enjoy this moment of creativity.

The medic that was caring for him several seconds ago came back. “Sir! Please!”

Slowly, he moved his crimson hands down. “Someone… get me a paintbrush…”

His vision was fading, the world rapidly vanishing into a blank, white space. But the young artist only felt happier. White means a canvas! He was free to create!

The voices around him drifted sluggishly in his mind, and it almost seemed as if some of them were getting louder with worry and fear. No, the increasing silence was peaceful. There would be no one to disturb him as he painted now.

As the young man’s eyelids fluttered shut, he let go of the last shackles of life and eagerly welcomed the void in which he could paint again.