The Rainbow Chronicles

Portrait of a Friend

A wet streak of paint glistened as it trickled down the empty canvas. What was to become of it, however, was still a blurry haze in the young woman’s mind. She had picked up the brush intent to portray a friend. It had seemed an easy task until but a moment ago. The compulsive urge to depict every feature of his as truthfully as possible was now being distorted into wavering uncertainty. There was so much that she needed to share about Him. Still, her reluctance to ever acknowledge his existence in words, which had for years defined their relationship, was taking over, yet again. Indeed, she never spoke of him, not to her family, not to her friends. He was a weakness that had conquered much of her time, most of her thoughts, and was slowly claiming her soul.

Hardly anything ever separated them these days, but it didn’t use to be so. She first met him, briefly, as a child. His presence then was like a lonely shadow that never quite grabbed her full attention. With time, however, his visits frequented, albeit unbidden and unappreciated. Slowly but surely he became an integral part of her life, and she learnt to tolerate him - still harboring resentment deep in her heart, still craving to escape from his imposing clutches.

The brush was soaked in jet black. It had felt like the right color to depict him on an impulsive level, and then again it didn’t seem convincingly adequate. For, yes, he could take you on the darkest of journeys, those that scare you out of your mind, and, yes, he often whispered of death, decay and disappointment, and what better color could suit someone like that than black! But black were the eyes of her beloved dog, and their warmth could in no way be described with the same color as someone like Him. Black was the ink her grandmother’s letters for her grandfather during the war were neatly written in. And that care and love could never be painted the same color as Him. Black was the raven that had mesmerized her soul ever since she encountered him in Poe’s lines on a rainy August day. And this pre-eminent inspiration could not be conveyed with the same color as Him.

Then maybe grey was a better suit - for he could certainly drown every other shade in the most mundane of greys imaginable. If he happened to find her enjoying the exquisite arrangement of flowers gifted by an ardent admirer of hers, he would make sure to quickly point out how transient their beauty was; how soon they would wither and shrivel into a grotesque token of evanescent feelings. And grey stood for loss and depression, so perhaps that was the best choice of color for Him. But grey were the pebbles on the bottom of the stream she would go to with her father on those lazy Sundays long ago. And the joy she felt tossing the small stones back into the waters, laughing at her dad’s resolution to finally beat her this time, could not bear the same color as Him. Grey were the silver clouds that fired her imagination once she spared a moment to look up into the vast expanse above. Often on such occasions she would get completely lost in the intricate plots of the fairy tales that her mind weaved out of those fluffy silvery threads. And that overwhelming enchantment could not be characterized by the same color as Him.

Her mind opted for green next, for he had an unfaltering talent for poisoning each gesture with the shade of doubt, for slithering into the coziest corners of her mind and spreading his venom, powerful enough to corrode the foundations of each stable notion of her sanity. But the calming fragrance of the mint leaves of her tea of choice and the intoxicating odor of the pine trees in the forest behind her grandparents’ cottage, were a strong antidote that dissolved the toxic residue of his presence, and could not be rendered the same color as Him.

She quickly glanced at the palette in her hands. The arctic blue of sadness was quickly washed away by the azure turquoise of the enthralling ocean teeming with curiosities. The carmine acids and crimson reds of war and violence were assuaged by the candy kisses of her beloved and the velvet scarlet of his roses for no particular occasion. The color of pestilence was dulled by the luminous lustre of the stars in the infinite night sky. The taffy pinks and lavender violets were fit for the magic unicorns she sometimes painted for her nieces, but could in no way capture even a tinge of his true colors.

“What would the others pick?” her mind wondered. She knew a lot of people were acquainted with him. Albeit she never spoke of him, she had seen in the fake smiles and glazed looks of strangers that they knew him as well. The more they knew him, the less they too mentioned him.

In an instant, she reached for the solvent and splashed it over the now fully dried streak of color on the canvas. Blank was the only proper color for him. For once numbness sets in and the void takes over your soul, once emptiness fills your eyes and the desire to seek the vibrancy of life vacates its spot to inevitability, then Pain has truly become your sole companion. She resolved to leave the canvas blank and left the studio. Having chosen to keep her heart and mind colorful, she said goodbye to her old friend Pain.