Yellow

You sit. The pot of paint in front of you, with your hands on your knees and your heart in your feet. The light is shining in through the open window onto your back, but you can’t feel it. You can’t feel a thing anymore. Did you ever, really? It’s been such a long life. Too long. The years behind you seem to have dragged for centuries, and now when you look in the mirror you see a man fifty years older than your age. You rub your palms anxiously up and down your thighs, and bite the inside of your bottom lip until you taste blood. A terrible nervous habit, she always used to say, giving you a light clip over the ear with a smirk on those pretty, pretty lips…

But what does it matter now. Nothing matters now. The thought spins round and round your mind, echoing as you watch the sunlight glinting off the silver lid of the paint pot sitting in front of you. That glorious vat of liquid sunshine, full to the brim with yellow syrup that symbolized only the good and pure in the world. How you long for it. Ache to be reminded of the happier, more carefree days that seem so many years ago now. Days full of laughing, and longing, and loving. Of her. You remember her eyes. How there was something about them that you could never quite capture on canvas no matter how many canvases you went through. You remember her skin, how soft it was to the touch. How soft her belly was against your own in those nights when you’d swear it was just you and her. You and her. How warm her hands were, as the lay so gently on your chest. Those were the mornings spent between the sheets, bathing in the soft yellow morning sunlight. That was happy.

Enough. You lean forward in your chair, grab a butter knife, and lever the top off the pot in one swift move. Pop. You lift up the lid and watch that sunglow liquid collect and drip off the edges. Beautiful. Like the nectar of sunflowers. Those were her favourite flowers. You would have painted every flower in the world yellow if it meant that she would have stayed with you. Please stay. I love you. If only she had listened! You’d gone down on your knees for God’s sake. Prayed, with oceans in your eyes, fire in your belly, and desperation clinging to every syllable that left your gasping lips. But it hadn’t been enough. It was never enough.

You’d met her in the summer only a year before now. She was a regular Botticelli Venus with her long, golden, glimmering hair, pale skin, soft figure, and eyes that changed so swiftly between green and brown.

Why do they change so?

It’s my mood, darling.

Ahh, you’re telling me stories, it could not be because of that.

Don’t you see though, when I’m with you, they lighten.

Is that good?

Of course it is. When I’m with you, I’m happy.

That’s all I’ve ever wanted.

The attraction between you two was undeniable, and like the night takes over the day, your love and longing for her had swallowed you whole. She had become a tonic for your pain, the only thing that silenced the screaming that filled your head until it ached. She was better than any absinthe you had ever sipped or any pills the doctors had made you swallow with eyes tight shut. She became your everything. She was your every thought, your every memory, and eventually you could only vaguely remember the life you had before she existed in it. But eventually, the summer had turned into autumn and an inescapable chill had descended. The black fog was beginning to roll like waves back into your bones and no matter how hard you kissed her you could not get the taste of melancholy out of your mouth.

Why do you look at me that way?

It’s as if you despise me.

I don’t despise you.

Then why do you turn every time I reach out to touch you.

It’s nothing. I’m tired.

Well of course you are, you paint so late into the night that I sleep alone now.

I’m all alone.

I’m sorry.

You’d begun to turn to cheap booze and even cheaper women to try and fill the hole in your chest that she could no longer fill. You’d stumble, with arms outstretched like a child learning to walk, down the alleys dimly lit by the barely glowing street lamps, with your mind a mess of blues and blacks, and collapse through the door, sleeping wherever your body happened to fall. When you weren’t drinking or with other women, you were in the side room, painting. You’d paint for hours on end. Paint right through lunch, dinner, sunset, midnight, the sounds of her sobbing in her room, the pain in your back, and occasionally sunrise too. You painted cities, night skies, women, rivers, bedrooms, and flowers…so many flowers.

In the morning she would bring you black tea which she would leave on your desk without a word. She didn’t try to touch you anymore, and you preferred it that way. You knew it pained her to have such distance, but you also knew that if she touched you…oh, if she touched you, you would shatter.

And then came the day when your world was split straight in half down to its core.

I can’t…I can’t do this anymore. You’re barely here, and when you are, you’re either painting or passed out. People are talking, and it pains me. I know you’ve been with other women. Cheap women. Nasty women. Do you feel better when you’re with them? Do you feel more at ease than you do with me? Because I’m glad. I’m glad you don’t sleep in our bed with their lip and finger prints still on your skin. I’m glad you’re all dried up because now I know that it was a mistake to fall for you. Do you hear me? I regret you. You were a MIS-

*Slap*

*Sobbing*

Oh. Oh no. Darling, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just…I haven’t been well. And the women, that’s nothing. I was just drinking there, I never touched them, don’t believe what the shop women say, you know how they gossip. And I know the drinking is bad, but, darling I’m trying so hard to make us some money with my paintings. Darling, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Don’t cry. Darling, I didn’t mean to hurt you, oh look at you, your cheek is all swollen. Here, let me-

No. Don’t touch me. You will never touch me again.

She’d left in the winter with her bag under her arm and her skirts swinging. She’d left you on your knees on the hard wooden kitchen floor. She’d left, and you’d watched out the window with trembling fingers as she’d climbed into a waiting carriage without so much as a glance back. And then she was gone.

Enough. Your stomach tightens as grief for your loss floods like black ink injected straight through your veins once more. How did you get to this stage? Barely eating, barely moving, barely breathing. You’re a living corpse. A ghost seeking salvation at the bottom of a pot of poison.

But it’s calling to you and you lean forward, dipping your finger in, watching paint run like treacle down over your knuckle. You’re a sad man, you whisper to yourself. A used up man with a cracked hunk of lead for a heart. Your mind and body are filled with darkness, thick like tar. When you speak, out blows ice. When you touch, everything freezes over. But who could blame you, really? You, a man driven so deep into despair that he cut his own ear off in the name of love! In the name of loss. You will be happy. You will make yourself happy if it’s the last thing you do. And then, suddenly, it all becomes clear. The blood rushes to your head as electric sparks run right up your spine. It’s all become so clear! You laugh out loud at your own ignorance. How could you not have seen the answer before? It was sitting right in front of you, you silly old man. You rock back and forth giddy with excitement. It would be okay. It would all be okay. You will consume this pot of sunshine liquor, every last drop, and it will make everything beautiful. Fill me, you cry out loud. Fill me up until I overflow and my heart turns to gold. Until my veins flood with gleaming liquid fire. Until my insides become so full to the brim with yellow light that it begins to shine out of my skin like sunbeams. Then I may be happy once more.