“How did you get so good at that?” the little boy asked as he studied the movements of my hand across the paper. I gripped a charcoal loosely, attempting to allow the feelings to flow through me and onto the paper.

For a moment, I didn’t speak, the faint scritch of the charcoal the only noise in the room, aside from the little boy breathing near my ear as he craned to get a better look.

I smudged a few strokes, letting the charcoal blend into a soft gradient, a shadow that swept across the paper and gradually faded away.

I unceremoniously dropped the charcoal onto the desk and leaned back.

“I had to pay,” I said, turning towards the boy.

“You mean like… art lessons?” he asked, studying my work for a moment longer before meeting my eyes. Once he did, he edged away slightly, recognizing he had encroached upon my personal space in his effort to view the piece I was working on.

“No,” I said, then shook my head. “Yes… Not really. Kinda.”

His brow furrowed in confusion. I sighed and reached for my towel, wiping my hands on it.

“It’s more like I had to pay in mistakes,” I told him. “Like, after making enough mistakes, the gods decided I could have what I needed to just… do it.”

I watched his face as he absorbed that knowledge.

“You mean, you just had to do it for a long time and be really bad at it until you just… weren’t?” he asked, almost in disbelief.

“Pretty much,” I said. I stood and started packing up my kit.

“Wait. That doesn’t seem like fun. Nobody just… taught you anything at all? Ever?” he asked, pained.

I turned to him.

“Listen, kid,” I said, “nobody ever taught me anything. I could visualize, and I could attempt, but every time it’s like something moved my hand in the wrong direction. Each line was out of place. Things looked awful.”

I closed my charcoal box and shoved it into my bag before continuing.

“But every mistake I made seemed to make the gods happy. It’s almost like they enjoy watching us not be perfect. And if we please them enough, they might bestow the ability to do the things we dream of doing. And then they can get credit for it. Because they’re the gods. They need us to give them meaning.”

I turned back to him.

“It’s why so many people don’t make it. They get tired of paying the price.”

I slung my bag over my head and settled it at my side. Rolling my paper up, I handed it to him.

“But maybe this’ll help.”

Surprised, he took the paper roll and looked down at it as I slipped away.