The Colors Run

My brush titters against paper, and colors run. I let them have their freedom to churn and explore each other. No better way to learn to depict a wave than to experience being one. Yet, bristles against the page, I divert them from a sketched line of a hoof. Even free, the colors must stay where they belong.

As I edge the horse’s curved foreleg, my family’s criticisms echo in my head. My subjects are always running; I should paint something different.

They are not running, not really. They are frozen in a running pose, but they never go anywhere.

I am not a real artist, my sister says, because I do not use real paint. This imitation is odorless, quality sacrificed to make it safe, but I want to believe it can be just as good as normal paint. If it is strong enough to hold my dreams, what makes it inferior?

For now, I swish out my brush, dry it, and lay it aside. The colors will have to set before I can move on. Art is patience, and patience is an art.

My world has one easel, four white walls, a bed sheathed in plastic, and a matching chair. As I sit, the cover crackles, wrinkles pressing into my thighs, but laughter outside rings louder. It pulls me back to my feet, a heavy fire flickering in my chest.

I want to laugh like that.

Standing at the door, I see them through the sliver where the frosting doesn’t quite reach the frame. They look like me, two legs, two arms, two eyes, a mouth, a nose.

“I’m glad you guys came,” one says, smile so wide, it seems to expand beyond either side of his face. A crutch angles under his arm, and no foot peeks beneath his right pant leg, only a curved piece of metal. “They say I’ll be able to leave soon.”

My hand curls around the latch, swivels, and pushes. As the bolt releases the frame, it squeaks, and the door cracks open. I can step out there, introduce myself, hear their stories, laugh with them.

My eyes run over their t-shirts and shorts, their smooth tanned skin, and my fingers rise to my sleeve. Through it, I cannot see the bumps, but they are there. I know better than to open the door any further. Even if it did not exist, I would not step over the threshold.

I cannot leave this room. I do not belong in this world.

“You should come with me to the sunset concert on the roof,” the patient soon to leave tells his friends. “There’s supposed to be a meteor shower, too.”

The words are a lasso swooping around my heart. It tightens. Tugs. For once, I want to hear a musician play, not a speaker’s rendition. I want to see the sky with my own eyes, not through a screen.

It is a horrible idea, a stupid wish, but I cannot stop thinking about it.

***

The clock displays 7:30pm, and I again stand at the door, knuckles brushing the glass, hand on the lever. I am courage. I can do this.

I slow and deepen my breaths, savoring this last safe air, bitter as it is, turn the handle, and run.

“Raquel, you can’t be out here!” the nurse at the station calls, a blur of white and brown as I tear past her, eyes set on the door at the end of the hall. Stairs wait beyond it, ready to take me into the sky.

Arms encircle me and tow me back. I squirm, legs still pumping, and the embrace tightens. My nose presses against a shoulder, and cologne seeps into my brain with every breath, chemicals translating into thoughts.

I bat them away with practiced phrases. Be strong. I can do this. I am not broken. I am human.

The intruders grow shriller. They drown me, repeating, overlapping. I do not belong here. I am worthless. I am inconvenient. I should die. Who am I to think myself worthy of looking at the sky? To breathe the air? It was never meant for me.

Tears run down my face, hot and sticky. Throat closed, I cannot breathe anymore, but still the fragrance fills me, trapped within, louder than a thousand explosions. All because this nurse wanted to smell like cloves. Who am I to ask that he not wear it? If I did not exist, my presence would not inconvenience him, and he could wear whatever he wanted.

A mask slips over my mouth and nose. It smells bitter, but the air is safe. The swelling recedes; my panting evens into soft snuffles. Gradually, the voices in my head quiet, but I remember what they said. Their echoes continue to bounce back at me, and I cover my ears. Bruises blossom on my hands.

I sit but am moving. Wheels clack against the tiles’ seams, and in their rhythm, I hear the laughter of those who had stood outside my door. Why can’t I be like them? Stong. Normal.

I can do it. I just have to get over it, suck it up, go for it.

One deep breath. Two deep breaths. Three.

Cheeks puffed with one final inhale, I rip the mask away and run. I ignore the shouts, twist and leap and dive, skin stinging where they touch me, but I ignore that, too. The door flies aside.

As I race up the stairs, I no longer feel my legs. Good, that is less pain I have to ignore. The fire in my lungs is hot enough, too hungry. By the time I reach the top, I cannot contain it. Fingers of flame crawl through my throat and nose, drawing in this unsafe air.

It is not too bad, faintly sweet, somewhat stale. It is okay. I can handle it.

At the door that leads outside, I stop, hands on the push bar. What will the air be like out there? Can I trust it?

I want to. In my room, I am safe, but it is not where I want to be.

The heavy door does not budge easily, as if it demands proof of how badly I want to leave its safety. With all my strength, I push, and the remnants of the day greet me, warmth that smells of tea steeped too long and colors giving way to night’s dark blanket.

On a small stage on the corner of the roof, a fiddle plays, bongos thumping behind him. They are separate here in person, one slightly further than the other, and I can hear that difference. A flute laces between the violin’s running arpeggios, gentler, lighter, but no less full, and I feel the sounds playing with one another like my colors running on the page.

Tears dribble down my cheeks as I stumble forward, hands finding the back of a chair, but this time it is not a bad thing. White streaks shoot across the heavens. How does the fiddle manage to punctuate the brightest of them?

I am not an artist at all. I could never create something this beautiful, art that wraps one’s entire being so that sound is felt and color is tasted. I have never eaten a cherry; it would kill me, but if it tastes anything like the sky’s red—tepid, sweet, and deep—then it might be worth it.

Another taste creeps in, musty, burnt, and sour. Smoke fills my nose, and a javelin spears through my skull. A whooshing throb overwhelms the music as my gaze falls to the crowd. A gray cloud streams from the mouth of someone in the audience as blankness replaces my entire view of the world and I fall.

***

Colors run again, red swirling into orange, purple consuming black as I try to capture the image before it leaves my head.

I wish I could have seen more, but I shouldn’t be greedy. I should be grateful for the moments I was given, the precious few seconds where I could pretend I was normal. Who am I to expect others to hold back from what they want to do just because it will ruin something for me?

I had my moment. Is that not enough? I have my painting of it, now finished. I can keep it forever. So why does the scene blur? Why do tears spill over my lashes? Why does my brush still sweep the colors as if I never want them to stop running?

-fin-