Yellow Paint
"The doctors say I don't have much time left."
"Yeah, I know."
"I really wanna go on an adventure before I leave."
"An adventure?"
"Mhm. A fun one. I wish I was healthy enough to do that."
"We're only kids so even if you have a healthy body, we won't be able to go on an adventure. But we can pretend."
"Pretend?"
"Yeah. Pretend that we're going on a long journey. Pretend that we are explorers travelling around the world. We can have lots of fun together."
"Will our adventure ever end?"
"It will. Our journey will end when we reach it; the sky is our finish line."
"You mean Heaven."
"Yes, Heaven, Paradise, the afterlife, whatever you want to call it."
"What happens if I reach there first?"
"You'll sleep because you're tired from our adventure. You'll sleep because you've reached your destination."
"I want to wait for you."
"Don't worry, I'll join you sooner or later."
"You'll forget me by then."
"Even if I do, I'll find you again. We're forces of nature; you and I."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
-
The steady rhythm of the heart monitor's beeping resonated in the heavy silence of the ward. It was continuous; one after another as if a city truck was backing up on the street, alerting everyone nearby. Each time it echoed in the stuffy room was a reassurance that life was still here. It gave her hope that his heart was still beating.
Then just out of nowhere, it changed its tone. This time the sound was constant. No breaks in between the beeps. Just a long high-pitched sound that pierced through the air and penetrated her ears. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the horizontal line stretching across the screen of the heart monitor.
Flatline.
Everything afterwards passed by in a blur to her. Doctors offered meaningless condolences while the boy's parents wept dolefully. On the other hand, the girl watched the scene unfold before her in disbelieving silence, barely registering the tragedy that had transpired.
She only snapped out of her grief-induced stupor when she caught a glimpse of the boy being wheeled out of the room and out of her reach with a white sheet concealing his frame.
The lump lodged in her throat grew larger and she found it harder to suppress the tears that were threatening to fall. Her mother strode over to her and laid a comforting hand on her trembling figure.
"It's okay, sweetheart. Your friend is in a better place now." Her mother's words faded away into white noise as the girl stared blankly at the body on the stretcher being moved away by the people clad in white gowns.
She hated hearing all of the empty condolences people gave her and "he's in a better place now" claimed the top spot on her list. He wasn't supposed to be anywhere else. He was supposed to be here with her so that they could finish the rest of their adventure together. She didn't want to be left behind to continue their journey alone.
There is absolutely nothing comforting about that phrase to those grieving over their loss. It only confirms the absence of the person they wish to have by their side.
Despite her inner turmoil, she hid her woes behind a fleeting smile and nodded mutely; hooded eyes glazed over and unblinking. When her mother enveloped her into a hug, she felt none of its customary warmth. A gaping hole taking the shape of a starry-eyed boy was left sitting in her chest; a hollow void where all of her emotions seemed to have vanished in.
She then spent the days following his death counting down to the funeral with the same numbness resting in her. Albeit, on the day of the funeral itself, she failed to show up, finding the thought of seeing the casket containing his body being lowered to the ground unbearable.
Days after his burial, the girl was eventually able to muster up the will to visit his resting place through her mother's interminable persuasion.
It was overwhelming; every fibre of her being was consumed by dolour the moment she walked through the open, ancient iron-wrought gates which had rust flaking off of it. The misery in her surged with every expelled breath, always reaching higher peaks, never sufficiently soothed by her long intakes of the chilly autumn air. The pressure grew in her chest until she felt too light-headed to even hold herself upright.
Visiting his grave would be a confirmation; a slap from reality to her face; a cruel reminder that he was truly gone. She wondered idly if this decision of hers would be the bravest one she would ever make.
Taking dainty, trepidatious steps, the girl began traipsing her way towards the newly constructed grave situated nearer to the gates. The crooked, crumbling gravestones weathered by decades of neglect were further back where the air was as still as the motionless bodies beneath the sodden ground.
The girl had once enjoyed her trips to the cemetery with the boy. But that was before she lost him. Back then, the two of them frequented the cemetery and viewed it as a place of solace where time seemed to stand still and tranquillity reigned in the air. The two friends usually visited the older graves that were long forgotten by the living for even their mourners had joined them under the porous soil. It wasn't nice to be forgotten, she thought. That was why she and the boy tend to leave wildflowers on the old graves to reassure the restless souls that they were still remembered by someone even if it was a mere stranger.
No one wanted to be forgotten or to cease existing in people's memories. Hence, the dead were laid to rest with epitaphs engraved on the gravestones with promises of them remaining in their families' hearts forever. But the promises are always broken since the prospect of being forgotten one day was inevitable.
There is a Jewish saying that you die twice. The first time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time before you're eventually forgotten.
She'd be damned if she let him die a second time.
With that thought in mind, she steeled her resolve and quickened her pace.
Weaving past the gnarled trees hunched over the vast expanse of land, she wandered through the deserted cemetery with a heavy heart. She let her feet trod over decaying heaps of fallen scarlet and gold leaves until she arrived right in front of it.
Her gaze drifted to the name carved on the slate of marble. She swore she heard the sound of his voice as if he was right there with her but one quick survey of her surroundings proved that she was the only one around for miles.
Taking in a shaky breath of the frigid autumn air, she knelt down and brought her hand up to trace the letters of his name.
"You did it," she said in a faint voice, her grip on the bundle of wildflowers tightening, "you've reached the sky."
She placed the canary-yellow flowers on the grave with the utmost care. The bright, homely colour caused memories that she had shared with the boy to resurface from the dark recesses of her mind and replay themselves in her head.
-
"I don't think you should come over anymore," the frail boy announced out of the blue, shattering the reverie she had immersed herself in.
The girl drew her lips into a thin line and set her yellow-coloured pencil down. "And why the hell not?"
"You're wasting your time on a dying person."
The girl said nothing though her hand faltered and a mustard-yellow line went astray from its original path. She resumed drawing with only a grim twist of her lips that belied her distress. The girl might not have given any indication that she had heard him but her friend could still see through her indifferent facade. After all, he knew her better than anyone else and he could tell his words were the equivalent of a knife to her back. She had given up too much for him: her time, her efforts, her smiles and her kindness. They were all squandered on him—a pitiful boy teetering on the edge, stuck in a limbo between life and death. Here he was holed up in his room like an incongruous Rapunzel cursed to languish in a tower with his own body as his captor. And there she was, his valiant knight, scaling the tower every day to bring him wild flowers and decadent chocolate she had smuggled from her father's bakery with a ready smile and a sketchbook in hand.
"Why are you still here then?" he asked, failing to add the words: "With someone like me.".
"I just thought my company might make you happy," the girl muttered, leaning forward to let her hair drape over her shoulder and hide her face like an inky-black curtain.
"Nothing makes me happy anymore," the boy replied matter-of-factly with a crumpled copy of a smile. The conversation came to a brief lull.
"I'm not sure if this is true, " the girl began after a lapse of silence, dragging her colour pencil across the sketchpad in long thin strokes, "but I've read somewhere on the Internet that Vincent Van Gogh used to eat yellow paint because he thought it would get the happiness inside of him. Of course, many people thought he was insane because the paint is toxic. But the person who posted that thought he was just like us."
The boy shifted in his sickbed, wearing an inquisitive look once his interest was piqued. "Why do you say so?"
"Well, imagine being so unhappy that even the strangest ideas could work like painting the walls of your internal organs yellow. It's really no different from falling in love or taking drugs. There is a great risk of getting your heart broken or overdosing. But people still do it anyway because there will always be that slight chance it could make things better for you."
The girl finished the last stroke of her drawing with a dramatic flourish of her wrist, the motion knocking her cluttered pencil case to the floor. She beamed like the sun, immensely pleased with herself when she succeeded in drawing a laugh from the boy with her antics.
"That person believes everyone has their yellow paint. And I believe you do too." The girl gently dropped her sketchpad onto the boy's lap. He stared at it, his lips curving up and his eyes growing teary when he realized that it was a simple drawing of him in yellow and white with a seraphic grin on his face. Unlike the real him, the drawing of him still had traces of happiness found in his vibrantly hued eyes.
"I think I know what my yellow paint is," the boy said in a soft, dulcet voice which would have gone unheard by the girl if the room wasn't pin-drop silent at that moment.
"What is it?"
The boy lifted his gaze, locking eyes with the girl.
"You're my yellow paint."
-
A wave of nostalgia washed over her as the girl bit back a bittersweet laugh upon reminiscing of her past with him.
Like the domino effect, her recollection of that poignant memory consequently set off a chain of events where snippets and fragments of the times she had spent with the boy flickered past her eyes like a rapid slideshow. Perhaps all of her memories of him would haunt her for life.
One, in particular, was a faint memory that lingered in the depths of her mind but had never fully surfaced into her consciousness until then. It took place on the day before he had left; the day before he had said his last farewell to her.
She had taken him stargazing that night as per his wishes. It was a difficult feat to move him from his sickbed to the lawn outside since his legs were beyond the point of functioning. But in the end, witnessing his whole face light up in unadulterated bliss at the sight of sequin-silver stars dotting the atramentous stretch of night sky was worth all the troubles she had gone through. Seeing the unmistakable look of joy evident on his visage, a smile of her own danced across her lips. His happiness was infectious.
Compared to the pale, sickly boy bedridden from dawn to dusk, the boy standing in front of her with a carefree grin and radiant eyes looked alive for the first time since she had laid eyes on him.
When he swivelled around to beam at her, he held her gaze and her breath hitched. His usually dull, empty onyx orbs were full of renewed mirth and life.
Blue, brown and green were often romanticized in books and she didn't understand why black irises were always left out when they were equally as gorgeous.
His eyes weren't a shade of golden-brown or blue-green. Underneath the pale slivers of moonlight, they were pools of ink devouring light in their intensity; billowing clouds of volcanic ash - burying jet and obsidian in their depths. He had nebulous eyes that reflected the heavens, so dark celestial bodies resided in them. The universe was captured in there and at that moment when their eyes met, she finally knew what it meant to stargaze.
Last but not least, the most painful memory of him had taken place only a few hours before he had slipped into a permanent slumber. He had been lying on the hospital bed with tubes attached to his skin, looking frightened and emaciated. When he spoke, his voice was nothing more than a tentative whisper.
-
"Tell me a secret."
"What kind of secret?" The girl said.
"Any kind."
(There is light in your heart yet your mind is a dark, treacherous place. You absolutely baffle me. Your very existence is a paradox, a contradiction I can spend centuries studying without comprehending a single thing. You are mismatched, mistaken and mislead. You are whole and apart and in-between.)
"I don't keep any secrets from you."
"That's a lie. Everyone has at least one secret they've never shared with anybody."
(You told me to forget you when you leave. You don't know that it's impossible for me when you've already left such a great imprint. From all the time we've spent together, I've memorized the slant of your brow, your constellation-like freckles, the sweep of your lashes and the rhythm of your steps. I would know you blind, deaf, numb, in this world or any other.)
"Fine, here's a secret: I'm afraid."
"Of what?"
(The dark. Things that go bump in the night. Being reminded of my own imperfections. Speaking to an audience, disappointing others, being alone for too long and you. I'm terrified of you because I gave you the power to destroy me and you don't even know it, you have no idea. I'm also less afraid of greeting death than I am of losing you, and that scares me too.)
"Of butterflies."
"You're messing with me."
"Shut up, you asshole. I'm being serious. It's the weird scaly wings and their twitchy tiny insect legs that freak me out."
"Tell me another secret."
(I love you.)
-
And that was their final conversation. He had slipped into the hands of death quietly and suddenly a few hours later, never learning her true secret.
"You won't be lonely up there. The stars will keep you company until I'm done with my journey too," she whispered, hoping that the autumn wind would carry it to wherever the boy was.
Rising to her feet, she gazed heavenwards, her rheumy eyes awash with deep emotions. She cast one last look at the grave before turning and walking away, leaving her regrets at his resting place while harbouring remnants of sorrow in her lipid orbs.
– TO BE CONTINUED –
