There was a chill in Blanket Cobb's bones as he set up his crafts table. Quite like an omen, Cobb thought as he watched slush form on the filthy sidewalks from his living room. Slush had a habit of creeping into Cobb's aura, infiltrating his flesh, penetrating his bones. Cobb preferred summer and sushi to winter and the cold bones that came with it.
The crafts table consisted of some acryllic paint tubes, encrusted with years worth of dried paint and artist's tears, and some wooden figurines Cobb had scavenged from the dumpster down the street. Next to a slightly rotten nativity scene, another Jesus scrutinized his baby self in the manger next to his "virgin" mother. Cobb started with a tube of bright, scarlet paint. He painted a large "A" on the Virgin Mary's head. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. Jesus was crying crimson blood. This is very stressful, Cobb thought. I will take a break to look out the window.
He turned his head to the window and glimpsed a woman on the street below wearing elbow-length rubber gloves, a surgical mask and many pieces of jewelry featuring the Evil Eye. Cobb was familiar with the Evil Eye; he knew it's power and respected those who wore it. He opened the window an inch and shouted down to the woman, "Oy." The woman looked up and her eyes spoke of unspeakable horrors. Cobb could not be one hundred percent sure, but he sensed a mysterious, Geisha-like smile underneath the mask that covered her nose and mouth. A new chill entered Cobb's bones, traveled to his tummy and provoked butterfly-like flutterings.
He shut the window and got back to working on his Post-Modern Nativity Scene, where Jesus still cried blood and Mary was exposed as the adultress Cobb always knew she was.
