The Purpose of Art

When I write, I like taking inspiration from other pieces of art. Other books, music, drawings and paintings all help me set mood and details. I think art in general is meant to put you in places you could only dream of, whether the medium is paint, sounds or words. It puts you in a world you not only see, but you can hear, feel and smell. It draws emotions that are real.

The following is a scene from a short story I'm writing that I've really worked on for emotion and feel. It's unfinished, but I hope to have it posted here soon.

When I start waking up, the first thing I notice is the hard cold ground. A steady drip falls on my upper back, and it must’ve been going on for a long time because my back is just completely wet. I push myself up and a drop lands right on my nose. It’s so cold I jolt and wipe it off, fully waking me up.

It takes my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but I don’t need them to discover how filthy I am. Apart from the wet spot on my upper back I’m completely covered in grime. The jacket, shirt, pants and shoes I’m wearing look like they haven’t been washed in weeks; my hair and face are a greasy mess, and my arms are similarly covered in muck.

When my eyes finally adjust, it turns out there’s not much to see. I’m in a circular space about twenty feet across, made of uneven stonework. Littered around the room are wooden crates of various sizes, not marked in any way but also appear to have been here a while. The floor is the same stonework as the walls, and just as uneven, but caked in a layer of muck.

I look up to see that the walls go up fifty feet, and there’s a wooden ceiling above that. The horror sets in that I’m in a hole. “Hello?” I call out weakly, but an echo takes the feeble words all the way up. The only thing that answers are the drips hitting the ground. I stumble over to the wall and place my hands on the cold, smooth stones. “Hello,” I call out stronger, but no one answers.

I see a figure at the top of the hole, looking down on me. I can’t even tell what he looks like, or even if it’s a man or a woman. “Hello?” I call out to the person. They don’t answer me. “Can you hear me!? Can you help me out of here?!” The person walks away. “Wait!” I call out helplessly. Rushing over to the wall, I call out, “Come back, please!!”

The person doesn’t return, ever. I wait for what feels like hours and they don’t show themselves again. Despair sits in. After a while, I come to the conclusion that the person was a figment of my imagination.

I sit along the wall, trying to figure out what happened to me. How did I get here? How does my life find me here? But nothing comes to mind, and it frustrates me beyond anything. How does one get this trapped?!?

I snap back to the present and realize I’m surrounded by crates. Maybe something in one of them could help me. The nearest one to me is about two feet long by a half foot wide, and about a foot tall. I pull the creaking lid up to see a bunch of trophies. Plastic high school athletic trophies of various sizes and ranks packed with hay to cushion them in their box. None of this is helpful, so I move to the next crate.

I go through all of them, and nothing in any of them can help me here. The second box I checked was a little bigger, and it had a PlayStation in it, and various games packed away like the trophies were. The third had a bunch of small remote controlled toys in them with their controllers. It kept going and going with more useless items; posters, CDs, comic books, electronics, even one of the hugest boxes had nothing in it other than literally thousands of different sized marbles. Out of anger, I roared as I flipped the marble box over, spilling its contents everywhere.

After finally standing still for only a few seconds, I broke down crying. My legs buckle and I’m just unable to keep standing.