In the metropolis of Seattle, a young man named Julian Smith stood before the University of Washington. Today was the day his dreams would come true.
He has been studying for the past two years here in a boring computer science degree ,his goal was to pursue art to paint a scene that would haunt the viewers forever but due to family pressure he got into this degree. "Come on smith now is not the time for you to be thinking about this.
I will paint a miracle and get popular with money that comes on rolling " he thought about the opportunity to attend this competition, how he searched for classes to paint during class time, how he trained every night.
Julian stood in the center of the University of Washington's Suzzallo Library, the "Harry Potter" room as the freshmen called it, though to him, the Gothic arches felt less like magic and more like a gilded cage where he bound himself.
Around him, the rhythmic clack-clack-clack of mechanical keyboards echoed like hailstones on a tin roof. Hundreds of students were buried in LeetCode problems and system architecture diagrams which he found that too monotonous to find the missing puzzle, but Julian's eyes were fixed on the soaring stained-glass windows, tracking the way the Seattle gray light fractured into amethyst and gold against the dusty floor.Times like this were often when he remembered that art are the parts of humans which would make them not too bored on their journey .
He reached into his backpack, his fingers brushing against the cold, smooth plastic of his MacBook—the tool of his "boring" degree—but settled instead on the worn charcoal pencil hidden in the side pocket."Come on, Smith," he whispered to himself, his voice lost in the hum of the air conditioning. "Now is not the time for you to be thinking about the debt or studies. Remember today you have come here to study after that only competition."
Julian's mind drifted back to Rainier Valley. In his neighborhood, the fog didn't just roll in; it clung to the ground, blurring the edges of the colorful, peeling paint on the Victorian-style houses that had seen better decades showing creativity of nature on ground. He could almost smell the scent of his father's shop—a mixture of overripe bananas, floor wax, and the metallic tang of the old refrigerator units .
He could remember from his childhood days about this smell which could be a nostalgia feel .He saw his mother's hands, mapped with blue veins and callouses from stocking shelves, and his father's back, which seemed to curve a little more each year under the weight of a rented life.
To them, "Software Engineer" was a title that sounded like a life raft. To Julian, it sounded like a slow drowning. They saw him as their hope to be better than them to succeed, but he became obsessed with art.
Every night for two years, after the house went silent because of the past where he was rejected to pursue his dreams because his father was a painter in his good old days where he was crushed after wasting his days in his youth and he didn't like his son doing it.
Julian had traded his canvas for a keyboard to appease his father, but his mind remained a battlefield. Every day was a desperate juggle: Python scripts by day, charcoal sketches by moonlight. After a chaotic first year his coding assignments were submitted, Julian had practiced. He had transformed his tiny bedroom into a makeshift studio, using the glow of his laptop as a spotlight. He had searched for digital art classes during Data Structures lectures, hiding his canvas behind terminal windows.
He had trained his hand to capture the "haunting" quality of the Seattle mist—the way the city looked like it was mourning something it couldn't quite remember. It was this scenery painted by god which he first saw that filled him with awe. He wanted to capture this moment, this feeling into him so that he could tell whenever he is sad that this imagery defines me.
Today was the turning point in the morning newspaper when he saw The "Emerald Horizon" Exhibition. He was thrilled because he could try here. It was a prestigious city-wide competition held at the Seattle Art Museum, and for the first time, they were accepting student submissions. The grand prize wasn't just a trophy; it was a solo gallery showing and a five-figure grant. It was the "rolling money" he had promised his reflection.
If he won, he wouldn't just be a painter; he would be a provider. He could tell his father to stop hauling crates. He could buy the property instead of renting it.
Julian stopped dreaming about the future; it was a two way competition and to qualify he had to pass the preliminary to move toward the city wide competition, the back of the library, seeking the quietest corner of the Graduate Reading Room to sketch his final conceptual layout and to learn some elements which he could have neglected.
As he rounded a heavy oak bookshelf labeled Fine Arts – History & Theory, he was moving forward when he collided with someone.
A stack of heavy, leather-bound books hit the carpet with a series of dull thuds.
"Oh, no—I am so sorry!" a voice exclaimed. Julian dropped to his knees to help, his charcoal pencil rolling away under a table.
"No, it's my fault. I wasn't looking where I—"He stopped mid-sentence as he reached for a book titled The Alchemy of Color.
His hand met another—smaller, paint-stained at the cuticles, and trembling slightly .He looked up. The girl across from him looked as if she had been pulled directly from one of the scenes he tried to paint. It was like the scene he saw, about the haunting fog with darker skies but it was covering a beautiful or most perfect scenery from mount rainier. Her hair was a masterclass in contrast: the top half were her natural, earthy chestnut brown, which seamlessly transitions into a silky, pin-straight curtain of dyed platinum blonde.
The texture is incredibly smooth and reflective, catching the light like polished silk. She was beautiful, with a soft jawline and high cheekbones, but her eyes are her most arresting feature.
They were like a deep, crystalline oceanic blue—shifting from turquoise to midnight navy—possessing a depth so profound it gives the observer a "sinking" sensation, yet they pulse with a vibrant, observant life. She was beautiful.
As she wore an oversized denim jacket covered in acrylic Smalt Blue smears, and a UW ID badge dangled from her neck: Lily Vane – Art History & Visual Culture.
"Are you a painter," she said, not as a question but in an almost knowing tone. She wasn't looking at his face
she was looking at his hands, which were smudged with the charcoal he had been clutching."I'm a Computer Science major," Julian corrected automatically, the "safe" lie sliding out of habit and he quickly hid his hands behind his back .
lily laughed, a light, genuine sound that drew a "shush" from a nearby table. She picked up his charcoal pencil and handed it back to him.
"CS majors don't carry 4B charcoal pencils in their pockets, and they certainly don't look at the light hitting those windows like it's a personal insult. You were composing a frame, weren't you? "Julian felt a flush creep up his neck.
"I was... thinking about a an idea to paint".
As this was his first time speaking to such a beautiful girl" An idea ?" she asked, her eyebrows arching.
"I'm stuck too. Or trying to think of getting out of this creative slump block which I call. I've been stuck on the 'haunting' requirement for weeks. Everything I do looks too... pretty. Seattle isn't pretty. It's deep." She had a look as if she knew what pain hid behind the gimmick of beauty.
Julian looked at her, really looked at her, and then back at the blank window outside the scenery.
For years, he had been a solitary observer, the "Knower" of his own private world, convinced that no one understood the pressure of the Valley or the lure of the brush.