You & Me by Martin Eaton
From his car, William stared at the oppressive building. What needed to be done was daunting.
‘Everyone has seven defining moments,’ he thought. She occupied three.
“Basal cell carcinoma,” the doctor told him at seventeen. Weeks of nightmarish imaginings followed but she still managed to make him giggle.
William opened the car door, determined, tossed his N95 mask and recalled the second.
His mother’s funeral. Strangers mobbed him, crowding his grief with their own. He fiercely squeezed the hand beside him as the casket burned and felt reassured when hers squeezed back.
William grabbed the case and stepped out of the car. Steadying himself, he counted the windows until he reached the one. On emotional autopilot he removed the guitar and adjusted its pitch. The building’s windows filled with patients with so little hope in their eyes.
William began playing.
“There’s a land that I see where the children are free…”
At his window, a nurse spotted him and dashed away. William’s voice broke. He carried on.
“For a land where the river runs free; For a land through the green country…”
A bed slowly pushed up to the glass.
Weary, gaunt, eyes mere slits, his 82-year-old grandmother appeared. She wearily lifted a hand to the window. A tear ran down her cheek.
William cried and sang louder. It was their song, sung to him as an infant in her arms through silly laughter and contorted faces, showering him with overwhelming love. It was the first memory of his life.
A former design agency owner, Martin Eaton took the turn to becoming a full-time writer in 2013 after the Great Recession finally claimed his business. Four years later, New York Comic Con inspired his first public writing project: an illustrated, short story, coffee table book published as completed on Instagram. 33K people are following its near 100 stories and 150 custom-made illustrations, curated, owned and directed by Martin himself. He has also written, produced and directed a TV pilot! Mott & Spy; a dramedy about college journalists fighting their corrupt university. Martin splits his time between New York and London and loves sailing!
.mygallerynyc.com/martin-eaton
Illustration: Art Direction, Martin Eaton; Illustrator; Thomas Moore
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