[ WP ] Your name is Vincent Van Gogh . Your day consists of painting , drinking , and dodging time travellers come back to show you how famous you are in the future .

A painter ’ s work is never complete, even as I add the last touches to the canvas now smeared with thick streaks to represent the water lilies in front of me. The lead paints let my head flutter for a moment before I took a sip of gin peering into the water as the sun painted its own majesty with golden rays across the pond. I realized long ago I could never reach the ideals of the old Renaissance painters who tried to compare their works to the masterpieces of Heaven; impressionism never tried to reach for such foolish heights. Instead the canvas allows us to express our innermost thoughts with the brush. If my work only spoke about the sorrow I ’ ve experienced, the joy I ’ ve found, and the regret I ’ ve found in life in imperfect strokes, I consider my work far more valuable than the stark reality Da Vinci has crafted. 
 
 As I packed my materials, a flash of light illuminated from the corner of my eye. Yet another person clad in strange clothes ran to me and begging me for audience. I simply waved them away and continued, supplies in hand, to the street. 
 
 “ Mr. van Gogh, please, ” she pleaded, much like the rest. “ You need to listen to me. ” 
 
 I simply ignored them and walked into the street, knowing most of these people don ’ t dare to confront me in public. They all knew my name and hurled themselves at me, but the moment I walk to anywhere with other people, they recede, but reinvade my personal time as I try to paint. At first, I figured they were a prank meant to detract from my art by mocking my failures with false promises of fame, as if anyone would dare cast their gaze upon my paintings and see anything beyond the surface level, but their sheer number and insistence convinced me otherwise. 
 
 Perhaps the alcohol has finally invaded my spirit and these men and women are naught but delusions meant to torment me. Perchance I ’ ve simply gone mad; after all they refuse to appear in public leaving me the fool to insist their existence. If the former, I can still paint in peace letting the delusions shape and form art. If the latter, I know I can still paint a sky flooded with stars behind the bars of an asylum. Letting myself confess their existence, though, is madness; yet, if they do truly come from the future, as they always do, I ’ d rather cut my own ear from skull than let them fill my head with their prophecies. A man is meant to live in the present and let his memory dwell in the past. Life itself is meant to be uncertain. 
 
 ***** 
 
 More works of a tortured artist at r/Andrew__Wells
