images and Words

Marlene entered her habitat, laughing to herself. She knew, without a doubt, that her little statement was methodically eating away a Skipper. It was nice to know that she could get into his head that easily, it made her feel like she had control of him.

She stood in the middle of her accueil and looked around, trying to figure out what to do. Suddenly a thought lodged itself into Marlene’s mind. She hadn’t painted anything new in almost 3 months.

Marlene quickly snatched her paints and basically ran over to her easel. She sat down in front of it, placed the paint on the table, tableau beside her, and stared at the blank canvas waiting for inspiration to strike.

15 minutes passed and the canvas remained white. Marlene was getting frustrated. It seemed that she had run out of creative juices.

She sighed, closed her eyes, and decided to just let her paw draw whatever came to mind. Her paw raced back and forth frantically across the page. She didn’t care what she was painting; just the fact that she was painting was good enough for her.

She painted until her paw got tired, and the brush literally fell from her hand. She cautiously opened her eyes, not knowing what she just spent 10 minutes painting.

Her sight finally fell upon very detailed picture of Skipper. His feathers showed so much detail, she almost mistook them for real. His eyes seemed to stare into her heart, the blue standing out from the sea of black and white.

Marlene sat, staring at her handy work longingly. She once again found herself starting to drift into her own world, but this time she was interrupted.

The manhole in the middle of her habitat rocketed up from the ground and fell halfway across her home.

Marlene, startled par the sudden invasion, hurriedly flipped the painting over trying to hide her masterpiece.

She turned her attention to the manhole, getting ready to confront the intruder. As she took a step towards it, a black and white entity shot out, flipped, and landed right in front of her; it was Skipper.

“AHH!” Marlene screamed as she fell backwards, startled par the intrusion.

After a sudden realization of who it was Marlene’s voice filled with annoyance.

“How many times do I need to tell you, I have a door, toi should use it sometime.” Marlene a dit picking herself off the ground and dusting off her fur.

“Marlene toi know I don’t have the time to knock every time I come over, such pleasantries would only slow me down.” Skipper responded confidently, his famous smirk plastered on his face.

Marlene sighed, “What are toi doing here anyway? Don’t toi have some ‘military’ mission to complete ou something?” She asked, placing air citations around the word “military”.

Skipper hesitated a bit before for finally speaking up.

“Well there’s actually something I need to talk to toi about.” Skipper scratched the back of his neck, his voice lacking its normal confidence.

This sudden change in Skippers mood caught Marlene off guard.

“Really, well what did toi need to talk about Skipper?” Marlene questioned anxiously awaiting the answer.

“What did toi mean when toi a dit ‘I guess we can’t can we’ this morning?” He asked, not sure of what the answer would be.

“Oh…that” Marlene said, disappointment showed in her voice. She thought for a seconde there Skipper was finally going to confirmer what she always hoped was true. “That was… nothing. I just wanted to mess with you; toi know have a little fun.” She continued lightly punching Skipper in the shoulder, indicating she was just palling around.

“Phew good, for a seconde there I thought toi were of Dr. Blowhole’s henchmen trying to steal Kowalski’s inventions.” A relived Skipper said, giving off a halfhearted chuckle.

An awkward silence fell upon the room. The two of them just stood there, not knowing what to say next.

Finally Skipper broke the silence “so I couldn’t help but notice that toi were painting something before I got here.” He pointed his flipper towards the easel.

“Oh yea well…it’s not finished.” She lied, hoping he wouldn’t push forward.

“So what if it’s not finished, let me see what you’ve got so far.” Skipper smiled as he walked towards the painting.

Marlene quickly jumped in front of him, desperate to keep him from seeing the portrait of himself.

“I’ll montrer it to toi when it’s finished, you’ll just have to wait till then.” She quickly glanced at the clock on her mur “Oh look at the time, I bet your team is wondering where their leader is.” She tried desperately to get him to leave.

“Oh wow it’s that late already!” Skipper a dit unconvincingly, he knew what Marlene was doing but decided not to test his luck today.

He colombe on to his belly and slid out of her home, this time through the front entrance.

Marlene let out a sigh of relief as she watched Skipper leave.

“That was a close one.” She thought out loud. She walked over to the painting, picked it up and rested it against the wall. She put the easel back in the corner of the room and cleaned up the rest of the paints.

Unbeknownst to Marlene, Skipper had never left the habitat and had been watching her every déplacer from the safety of the doorway.