A Masterpiece (Cleo)

[Sunar Chugani]

The mural had taken nearly a week. First they'd used one of the projectors from the art club to project their image onto the wall, stenciling it in with pencil. Then they'd blocked out the larger areas with bright primary colors. Each layer of paint needed to dry before they could apply the next layer, which meant there was only so much work that could be done each day before they had to stop. 

But now it was almost finished. They had worked from one end of the maze to the other, adding details with sponges and stippling, but now all the paint was applied and dried. The mural looked finished, but they were still working on the very last step: 

Applying varnish. 

Cleo had begun at one end of the wall and Sunar at the other, painting the varnish on via crosshatching so that it would look more even. 

Eventually they would meet in the middle, and thus the task would be finished. 

Sunar balanced on the ladder he was borrowing, reaching above his head in order to stroke his brush so that it almost touched the ceiling. 

"This varnish sure smells strong!" He exclaimed, wrinkling his nose. "It's a good thing we're doing this after dinner." 

Maybe the smell would be largely gone by the time breakfast rolled around. 

[Cleo Warren]

This mural was lot more fucking work than Cleo had thought it would be. Not that she expected it would be easy, but Jesus Christ it was a lot of work for just two people. Luckily, they had the equipment they needed to project and trace the image she’d made in Illustrator and didn’t just have to free-hand the entire thing.

Still, it had taken both her and Sunar the better part of the week, but it was almost done. And it had really started to look pretty fucking good. So she supposed it was worth constantly being covered in paint all week. Honestly, she didn’t know how it happened, but she always managed to get whatever art supply she was using all over herself. This project was no exception.

Cleo swiped a blonde strand of hair out of her face with her wrist, blowing away the smaller pieces that had escaped her braid. “Yeah, it smells fucking nasty.” She agreed, wrinkling her nose. It wasn’t a fowl smell like garbage or anything like that; just strong and chemical-y. Definitely not something you wanted to smell while you in the middle of a meal though. Plus it didn't help that it'd gotten so fucking hot in here. The precog had tossed her jacket on a nearby table only five minutes into the job.

She reached up on her tip-toes, trying to reach the top of the mural, but her brush was just a few inches shy. Cleo wasn’t short by any means, but she still wasn’t tall enough to cover the higher parts of the mural evenly. “You might have to get the top of my side too.” Cleo said, jumping up slightly. Unless they had a stool or something they could drag over. She could stand on it, so long as it was sturdy.

[Sunar Chugani]

"Okay," Sunar agreed amicably. He clambered down from his ladder, dragging it slightly the left. His brush remained in hand, coating the side of his jeans in varnish as it slapped against his thighs. 

Earlier in the week he had attempted to use one of the plastic cafeteria chairs as a stool, but none of them had proven stable enough and so he had found the only ladder stashed in the art room. Perhaps he should have seen if the janitors would be willing to part with one of their ladders for the duration of this project, but he simply hadn't considered that Cleo might also need some help reaching the top of the wall. 

"If I do the top of your side will you get some bottles of water?" He asked as he climbed back up the steps, reaching as high as he could to continue coating their mural in varnish. It was hot in here, and, being the East coast, also very humid. Despite his use of hair gel his hair wanted to plaster itself to his forehead instead of spiking up, and the back of his shirt had sweat patches. If Cleo couldn't (or wouldn't) get water for him he would get some himself once he was finished, but the thought of water sooner rather than later was appealing. 

[Cleo Warren]

Cleo wasn’t put out when Sunar only came in with one ladder. While it would have been practical for both of them to have their own, Cleo wasn’t the biggest fan of heights. In all honesty, it wouldn’t really have been that high and she could’ve (and would’ve) sucked it up for the short amount of time, but she was still glad that Sunar had happily volunteered for the task.

She was much more comfortable painting the bottom part anyway.

“Sure.” Cleo agreed, setting her paintbrush on top of the can next to her feet. Now that Sunar had mentioned it, she also realized how thirsty she’d gotten over the past few hours. Plus she needed a quick breath of fresh air; the varnish was starting to give her a headache. She headed over to the vending machines that always remained open, even in between meal times. She could still smell the varnish, but it was definitely not as strong on the other side of the cafeteria.

The precog shoved in the two crinkled dollar bills that she’d found in her back pocket. There was a five in crumpled up with them, and it looked like they’d all gotten washed with her shorts. Whoops. That actually happened a lot, since Cleo was often too lazy to put her change back in her wallet, and usually just ended up shoving it into her pockets. But she never got tired of finding surprise money.

She grabbed the two water bottles out of the dispenser and headed back over to their painting spot. Now that she was looking from far away, she realized how well put together it looked. Hopefully the rest of the student body thought the same.

“Here.” Cleo said, holding the cold water bottle out to him after cracking open and taking a sip of her own. “It looks really great from across the cafeteria.” Personally, she thought it looked good from any vantage point, but you could see the whole mural in full on the other side.