My favorite color to breathe is orange. Not coral, that has too much pink, which tastes stuffy and is hard to inhale. And not really burnt orange either, where the red in it tastes like smoke.
I swirl my brush through the orange. Orange tastes so nice. Maybe that’s what the painting needs. My brush moves across my canvas. A field of sweet smelling flowers is before me, just outside my window. I brush the orange onto the window, wondering if the people walking through the field will enjoy the taste just as much as I.
My alarm clocks beeps somewhere. It couldn’t possibly be six in the morning yet, could it? I had taken a nice nap until for an hour at around midnight before my eyes shot open and my limbs begged me to dance. Mom wouldn’t like that though. She had gotten home from the long day shift she works and now lies in a heap on the couch. My bedroom is above the couch.
I was drawn to my window instead. That’s where the hours blinked by.
All the colors of my paints are spread before me. I look outside my window at the field. Something is missing. I close my eyes and stand there in the midst of the flowers. The sun casts it’s warmth on my shaking hands. I take a deep breath in through my nose, and my eyes fly open. That’s what I’m missing. Sunshine. The smell of sunshine.
Yellow, mixed hastily with orange and red, a little white. Flowers full of sunshine appear outside my window. The field is nearly complete. Why can’t I stop shaking? I am a gift, I think, my field is a gift, my hands are gifts.
My alarm clock shatters my peace again. Six thirty now. My body won’t stop humming with life. I sing along, staring through my window at my almost perfect field.
“Delia, honey.” Mom knocks on my door. I sigh with frustration. She’ll only tell me I need to go to school. Can’t she see I’m meant for something more? I’m the one. My field is close to completion.
“Delia, it’s time to-“ Her words stop short as she sees me sitting by the window.
“That painting…it’s beautiful,” her words hiss out of her mouth. A snake must be in the room. I search across the floor. She sees my paints, my window, my face. Her mouth turns downward. The purple bags under her eyes frown too. What is there to disapprove of? Everything’s almost done.
“Hun, how long have you been working on this?” she asks slowly.
“I’ve been working on it for weeks really because I just haven’t been able to sleep and well at about one this morning I thought I should really start doing something and then I stared out the window long enough and I saw my field and I breathed in the scents and you wouldn’t understand yet, Mom, it’s not finished you wouldn’t understand,” I say.
“You’re speaking too fast,” she says, “You have to slow down.” There are diamonds running down her cheeks. I want to catch them.
“You should go back to sleep,” I simply tell her. Let me finish my painting.
“I’m going to call you out of school today.” Her voice is weary as she turns to leave me in my field of flowers.
The buttons as she dials her cell phone talk to me. Their words are as slippery as the snake’s. Don’t let her call, they say, someone is listening. Someone is trying to listen to you.
“Mom!” I call out. She is frantic, poor Mom, as she quickly comes back into my room.
“Don’t use your cell phone,” I warn her, “I think someone’s listening in.”
“Sure they are, honey.” I can see her pull it out as she leaves my room again. I scream at her to put it down.
“They’ll listen in, Mom, stop. Mom you have to stop. You have to put down the phone.” Her footsteps die on the stairs.
“Okay, honey, I won’t call,” her voice wraps around my doorframe, slithers along the floor and crawls in my ear. I don’t like her snake voice sometimes. It’s too comforting, too soft. It makes me edgy. Maybe she’s in on it too. Maybe she’s the one listening.
“Go back to bed, Mom,” I dryly spit out. I don’t bother to listen to her reply as I shut my door and return to my window.
The field is beautiful and whispers with colors. There is no sun above my field, because my field is brighter than the sun. I add some green to drag the field back to a more earthy origin. This field is here, not on another planet. The green means the field is at home. The green makes it complete. I taste earth and sunshine. Finished.
I retreat from my window, never taking my eyes off of the gleaming field. Such peace, such tranquility. I do not feel at peace, in fact, my insides rumble with unease. This painting isn’t me as I am now. My energy is still alive and buzzing, humming like a bird…or ceiling fan… or a stalled car.
Cars. A street. That’s what my window faces. I take the window with the field and place it near my bed. What a tragedy that something so pretty cannot exist. I wish I felt that way. I wish my field was me.
Instead, an incomplete window that I’ve looked through for some weeks before is before me. My feelings are on the street below. Black, dark grey and pasty red. A harsh yellow line, running down the middle. On both sides of the street there are houses. The houses dance, like I wanted to before. They are not straight and tall, but crooked and jaunty. At one point they were brilliant shades of yellow and red and green and blue. Now they are covered with the murky taste of ash and soot. Once gleaming, they are faded.
The street is packed with cars. I close my eyes and take a breath. I am in the middle of the street. A fabulous red car is angrily waiting for the light to turn green. The stop light winks at me. It’s purposely making the red car impatient and I giggle. A few beat up cars, rusted and weary, chug by my side. Chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug. Their noise echoes through my ears and up my spine.
There is something missing from the street though, something out of place. Something that is hard to place. Fog, confusion. I feel the fog on my skin, the cool air giving me a rush of energy. My brush swirls in grays and whites.
There’s a knock on my door. I feel aggravated and dip my brush in black, adding more soot to the buildings outside my window.
“Honey,” my mom says, “I’m back from work. How’ve you been today? Can I come in?” She’s back from work already? She works from seven to seven as an ER nurse. It couldn’t be seven already. I tear my eyes from the street and look outside a different window, the one that permanently resides on my bedroom wall.
Here, the snow wraps its chilly fingers around light poles and doorsteps. The concrete screams from the ice. At the end of my sagging street the sun casts sparkles throughout the snow. I place my palm on the window at watch as the ice begs to consume it too.
“I’m freezing,” the outside cries, “Let me in.” My mom had entered my room and sat on my bed without me realizing.
“Another painting?” my mother asks.
“Don’t talk about it so loud, Mom, they’ll take it away from me,” I replied. The snow is in on it too. The snow will tell them of my windows- of my secrets and my feelings- of me.
“One more night,” she says to herself as she exits the room. I don’t question her. There is a strong smell of hospital that carries the sounds of crying babies and texture of withered men as it drifts behind her. It chokes my throat, binding my senses. I flop down on my bed where the comforter whispers words of comfort to me. I wrap it around my shoulders, and only because I am warm and safe from the ice, I fall asleep.
I wake two hours and fourteen minutes later. I know because the clock yells in red at me from across my room where it sits on my desk. I’m sure that mom is sleeping, but my stomach is trembling in hunger, so I make my way downstairs. The walls lean over me as I walk, trying to listen in to my thoughts and gain access to my windows. They can’t swim through the moat in my mind though. Nice try, walls.
When I walk into the kitchen, I am shocked but that quickly fades into curiosity. Before me a boy around my age of sixteen, with gleaming golden cat eyes that sing to me sits on a stool at the counter. The most peculiar part about him is the stretching eagle wings that take up most of the space in our cramped kitchen. They shine, even though the sun is down. I anxiously make my way around him as I try to go into the cabinet and get some peanut butter. I’m feeling too much like getting back upstairs to bother with bread, so I grab a spoon and dig into the Jiffy.
“No bread?” The boy questions my decision.
“You’ll wake my mom,” I say nervously, ignoring his question, “You’ve got to be quiet.” He stares at me so boldly with pursed lips that eventually turn into a smile.
“I’ve been waiting. See you upstairs,” he murmurs. I take the peanut butter with me as I tip-toe back to my loft. For a moment I stare at the window of the cars. It’s perfect, like sludge and cheap wine blended together and painted into a macabre city that is desperately trying to smile. Just like me. I take the window down and set in gingerly by my wishing field.
The boy, who I have decided is an angel, is nowhere to be seen. I search along the ceiling and around my easel. He isn’t under my paints or in my closet. Eventually I look under my bed and see a dusty window lying on its side. I slide it out, disrupting the dust bunnies. Although they angrily yell at me, I am focused.
After brushing away all the dust on the window, I see the beginnings of a scene. I can’t remember when I started creating this, but that isn’t what matters. What matters is that it is unfinished, hanging in a cruel suspension of possibilities. All that is there is a boy in the middle of nothingness. There’s a sea of white, of possibilities, around him. I take a deep breath.
The boy in the kitchen has the same hunched shoulders as the one sitting. He has the same charming face and round, innocent eyes as the boy in the kitchen. And as I mix my paints, I realize he has the same golden eyes and glowing wings as the boy in the kitchen. The boy in the kitchen had been calling to me.
Instead of on a bar stool, the boy sits on the edge of a crystal blue lake. He looks lonely, I realize, so I reach into the window and find myself beside the lake as well. Above me there is white, but beside me, there is an angel and so I do not feel scared of the possibilities. He turns his head and his wings ruffle as he reaches out and tucks a piece of my long dark auburn hair behind my hear.
“You can hear the singing,” he says softly. I would ask him what singing, but I know what he’s talking about all too soon. If I close my eyes tight, to the point where red dots dance around my eyelids, I can hear harps and voices. I can hear God.
This is why I’ve been chosen. Through my window, I have found heaven.
As I look up, a sky of multiple colors has formed. There are colors that have no name, colors that feel like ivory and silk when my eyes run across them, and colors that frighten me. Through the crowd I can see the feet of more angels.
I feel the air, the scent of being clean. I am at peace, and without realizing it, I have held the boy’s hand. It is softer than anything I’ve felt, yet firm in the way I need. Suddenly he embraces me, and I feel heaven pour through my bones like liquid rushing over my body.
I am pure again.
“Delia, grab your coat.” My mom’s voice has torn me from my peace. It is firm, like jagged rock thrown at me that pins me to the ground. I was not here just a minute ago and now I am held down. A minute ago I was cleaned and now, as I stare at my mom’s face, I realize I am not pure. I am back to being a smoggy city.
I cannot tell what time it is as my mom buckles me in the seat and starts the car. I do not know where we are going, but I feel like screaming. What if my windows are touched? What if they harm them? What if my salvation is gone?
Spoiler
This is a short story of mine that turned into a not-so-short-short story. As soon as I can go around reviewing for people I'll post part 2! Hope you enjoy, and I promise, it all comes together. If anyone wants reviews just message me! Oh and if you like it... LIKE IT!(:
