The pencil scratched at the page as the artist painstakingly colored in the shoreline on the table of toys the girl was looking at. They thought she'd be a she, seeing as how they just felt it was...right. They colored, and sketched, and took a break to get a glass of water, the room spinning as they stood up.
They got back to work and looked a the drawing. That was the front done. They made a Christmas tree in the background and imagined it all green and red and yellow, some cheer lighting up their dreary studio apartment that year. This was their biggest project yet, and it had to be perfect. They sketched in everything, even the pleased look the girl had on her face. But they stopped before finalizing it.
This girl they were creating, when they were done, would be human. And humans were ugly. They lied, they stole, they hurt. They were beautiful, yes, but they had innate flaws that they always dealt with. We're the artist to finish the drawing, they would turn this unattainable perfect sketch into a flaw. And they couldn't bear to do that to the child on the page. So they cleaned up the worst of the lines, but kept the sketch just that--a sketch. Anything more would be a crime.
They put the paper away and got out a new one. Maybe, this one would finally be the one they could allow the flaws to permeate.
The apartment was covered in faded sketches, through the years, of everything from toys to birds to people. Some partly colored, some no more than blobs of shapes. All unfinished. The artist couldn't stand adding flaws to their works. It was far too unkind for their nature to allow it.
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