Vincent - "My First Imp"

Another day, another drooler... it was the dog days of summer and all Vincent could do was sprawl out across the carpet in the back of his van. A small electric fan seated close by attempted to keep him cool and keep him company. Vince had nodded off to sleep in the middle of the day in order to save more of his waking hours for the much milder evening air.

The sky darkened and the shadows deepened as night fell, but Vince wasn't awoken by a fresh cool breeze as he had expected. Instead, he was dragged back to consciousness by an irritating racket. As he struggled to remember what day it was, it also slowly dawned on him that he had a visitor in his living space. A very, very small visitor.

The source of the noise was a chirop that had somehow gotten itself stuck in his van, and was now aggressively screeching, flapping, and smacking into walls. Vince was initially unfazed and his vision was clearing slowly as he took in the situation.

His demeanor shifted immediately as soon as he was aware enough to notice streaks of red on the imp. He was not awake enough to remember that imps cannot be injured, an he panicked thinking that the thing was covered in blood from hurting itself in its frenzy.

Vince sprung up into action as fast as he could to help the creature, but quickly fell back down as he tripped over his own legs. He had been sleeping in doll form since it meant less warm fur to deal with, but now his gangly build was getting in the way as he stumbled around the small interior of his van. His clattering was unfortunately scaring the fragile chirop even more and making it even more frantic, so much so that it couldn't even find the wide open door of the van when Vince went to open it and try to shoo the invader out. The whole thing was a mess from the start.

After too many painful minutes or trying to herd the panicked creature towards the escape, Vince had awoken enough braincells to settle down and think of a better way to approach the situation. He winced as he reached into his trash can, past some food scraps and shreds of used crafting materials, eventually pulling out a flat box. It was a practically empty package of imp treats that he had... acquired, from his friend Luv. Vince fumbled with the crumpled packaging and made a quiet cackle of triumph when he found his lucky prize hidden within- a stale, half-broken imp treat that must have escaped him when he had carelessly assumed the box was finished. His carelessness was now his good fortune as he evenly spread the treat over his open palm and slowly inched his way back towards the fluttering chirop.

Upon realizing what was in Vince's hand, the chirop immediately dove towards the snack, landing suprisingly precisely on top of it. Vince was was taken aback by suddenly having a speck of life sitting in his own grasp. He <span;>had been expecting to slowly lure it out the door with the treat, so now all he could do was stare at the thing as it went to town on the measly snack.

As he took in the sight of the chirop, a realization slowly dawned on Vince. When the chirop was in motion, he had foolishly assumed the red streaks on it were blood, but up close he now could tell that the streaks were far too vivid and lumpy to be the case. They looked more like a very familiar paint...

A brief glance confirmed his fears- he had earlier been too distracted to notice that one of his canvases was not how he'd left it before his nap. There was now the outline of a winged smudge added to a painting that Vince had left out to dry. <span;>The stifling humidity had prevented the paint from drying quickly, so the paint would have surely come off if something were to touch it... or crash into it, in this case.

Ironically enough, the painting depicted a door opening out onto a red sunset. The poor chirop must have run straight into the canvas, expecting it to be an actual open door and running into the same fate as a cartoon character. The comedy of the scenario evaporated Vince's concern for the state of his artwork. His artistic eye actually began to appreciate the change to the piece- the impact smear left by the chirop added a ghostly figure to the focal point of the canvas. The mark of an accidental artist- quite inspiring, really.

Vince had spent long enough pondering the artistry of the moment and snapped back to reality, just to realize that the little perpetrator was now making itself comfortable in his hand. Having finished the treat, it had decided to curl up around Vince's fingers and didn't seem to want to move. Vince tried to counter this by taking the imp outside, gently shaking his hand, and even turning his hand over onto the ground, but the creature held fast. It seemed to have quickly grown comfortable with Vince, just as Vince had suddenly grown a fondness for it. Vince sighed with the realization that he may have accidentally tamed the beast, for the better or worse.

Still a bit groggy from his nap, Vince crawled back into his van and started to make some preparations for the chirop, should it really decide to stick around. All with one hand and the help of whatever other contact points he had available such as his elbow and his tail, he prepared bed of cotton stuffing and fabric scraps, just so his new companion would have a place to relax that wasn't the hand Vince needed for work. Helping a chirop wasn't how Vince had expected to spend his night, but at the end of the day it didn't bother him. He cozied back down onto the floor and pulled up a web guide Luv had sent him on imp care and continued on his evening, with just a little more company and a bit more of a smile than before.