Pretty Shiny Nightmare

She clutched the new pad of watercolor paper against her chest, forming her own shield, or perhaps holding her heart from bursting out of her to flop like a suffocating fish upon the ground. The world might end, they said, but all she wanted to do was paint. She was too tired to do anything else.

Her friend Rich spoke to her as they walked to the parking garage, but she could not hear him. She could only hear her pulse in…