Master Brahm's Studio

 A master seeks to teach his students valuable lessons

The students, carefully selected from multiple kingdoms, fiefs, and villages, stood dutifully at their stations, clutching paintbrushes. Their eyes focused on the empty canvas on an easel before them; they waited for the master to speak.

“What do you see before you?” The master, a wizened man of advanced years, asked, “What do you see?”

An overly eager lad from the isle of Winsey raised his free hand, and the master raised an eyebrow and motioned for him to speak.

“A blank space, waiting,”

The master grunted, then sneered, “Poetic, but incorrect.” He looked around at the silent group and grunted again. “Waiting, yes, but what you see, ahh...” His voice trailed off, and his eyes narrowed. “What you see before you cannot be put into simple words; it is what you feel, what comes from within if you listen. It is what you allow if you permit yourself.”

The master glared at the wilting student from Winsey, “Not all of you will do that; not all of you are capable.” He whirled, turning his back on the nervous student, and the boy visibly sagged in relief.

Master Brahm hummed to himself as he chose a paintbrush from the collection on his desk. There were many, all different sizes, ranging from a large flat brush to the most delicate of all, a brush that sported only one long hair. His choice was made, and the master asked, “What is this?” He held a medium-sized brush in front of him like a sword.

Not a single student dared raise a hand.

“What? Not a one?” the master scoffed. “No one brave enough to venture a guess? I will give you a clue,” he chuckled. “What is a tool when it isn’t a tool?”

The room remained silent, but one girl fidgeted, and the master’s eyes were on her like a hawk. “You girl, you have a thought? A musing? A slight glimmer of understanding?”

The girl, a waif found in a small village from beyond the Blue Mountains, straightened her shoulders and fixed her pale, blue eyes on the master.

“What I should say, I will not, for I think we are here to learn what it is you want us to learn,” she said, then boldly added, “I think whatever I would say, you would find fault.”

The master stared, then guffawed, slapping his knee with one hand, the other still clutching his paintbrush.

“Quite right, quite right. You are an egg, barely pecking at your shell; you know nothing, struggling to free yourself,” he laughed. “Peck, peck, peck! But” he rasped,” Miss Thisbe from nowhere, you will share with me your thoughts, or you shall leave my studio!” He thrust the paintbrush into her face. “What is this?”

Thisbe didn’t flinch, and most of the room looked at her with admiration as she answered, “Sacrifice.”

“So,” Master Brahm whispered.

The master stared into Thisbe’s eyes, and she stared back without fear. Master Brahm held her gaze a moment, then turned to face the rest of the class.

“I could just tell you, yes? I am the teacher, yes?”

There was a great nodding of heads and whispers of consent, and the master shouted, “It is, yes, ‘Master Brahm! No Master Brahm.’ Do they not teach you manners from wherever you were found?”

The students mutedly replied, “Yes, Master Brahm.”

Continue reading the story in the anthology:

https://books2read.com/u/mq5qNO