Both hands on the counter, he lowered his gaze towards his legs, to the mahogany floor. Smoke debris, bad incense and a myriad of cheap perfumes congregated together in the thick air, choking him, failing to conceal the sweaty stench emanating from down the hall. He carried the picture album with him to one of the sofas leaning against a strawberry coloured wall. His shaking hands opened the album. Women looked back. Fancy names, above less-than-fancy women in little clothing. He turned a page. More women stared blankly at him. Another page, different women, each trying to draw his attention, to bring him to her, to make him point and say “her”. His lower lip curled downward, his brows furrowed. Page after page after page. At some point he stopped seeing, stopped discerning one woman from the next. A blur of flesh, brunette, redhead. Sadness was replaced with anger.
Anger against whom? Who could he be mad at? Who could he blame? His father for pushing him to it? His mother for idling by, letting it be? Himself for going? The prostitutes for being there? He didn’t want to be here. Three days ago was his 18th birthday. Eighteen years of existence. And after years of doubt and uncertainty from his parents, his father decided to buy him a woman. Happy birthday.
Along came the footsteps he feared, it was his time to choose. The selection was varied, they filled the room. He grimly pushed a wad of bills to the moderately dressed one, took the hand of another, and let her lead him down the hall, let her whisper in his ear.
The verge between his body and mind widened with every step. His body stepped down the hall, followed through a door. His mind escaped to distant and familiar lands in search of refuge. There he saw her, not for the first or second time. The Naked Lady. She stood in a nearly empty room, the door to her right, window to her left, her back to him, looking outside the window thus revealing her profile. She was Aphrodite revealed behind the foamy sea. She was Hera bursting out of Zeus’ brain. She looked outside the window, where blue moonlight leaked through, painting the surrounding room and herself, her porcelain figure. The curtains billowed and danced. Her expression was cryptic. Was she sad? Surprised? Enchanted? Indifferent? Her hair moved like curtains. And he lay behind her, outside her field of vision and interest, on his stomach and in pain. Thrown like garbage, a bad doggy. Sometimes when he saw her his face was pained, other times anguished. Right hand supporting his hurting stomach, his left extended towards her, wanting to approach her, touch her, open his soul to her and hope she will approach him, touch him, open her soul to him.
No. He stayed here. She stayed there. Painted by the blue moonlight.
And so he detached from the scene, to float in a sea of blue. There was only him, his spirit, his mind, nothing else but him and the colour blue, floating in the void, a giant blue invisible eye staring at him, inspecting. For him, blue is not the colour of sadness or depression. He gave the colours definitions of his own, painted his life according to him, called them scourges. For instance, the colour red. Emotion and life. No other colour can describe life as perfectly as red. What else can describe passion and power, dynamism and death? Red is the colour which runs deeply in all, a universal colour, filtering down through narrow paths, sometimes invisible, but there. But make no mistake — he did not define the red scourge from a deep passion or love for it, but only because he had to define a whole from which to subtract, the 100%, a perfect circle to ruin. When he was lonely or alone, curled up in his room and thinking of…maybe himself, maybe others, maybe his parents, siblings, friends, strangers he met or never met or could never meet or people who were made up, by himself or others. As he sat and thought of the conversations he never began or left halfway through, the sentences he never answered, the words he could not pronounce or say…then came down the purple scourge. Loneliness, another sorrow. Slowly a purple smoke enveloped him, clouded about him, and he drew it into his lounges, let it gurgle in his stomach. But what of the other feeling, burrowed deep inside of him, living in harmony and symbiosis with the purple scourge, feeding it and being fed by it? What befell him when his child self sat in the background and saw the others play and run, heard adults speak and read their words, when he failed where others succeeded, when he succeeded but it wasn’t enough? When he looked around him and saw smiles, but looked inside and saw nothing? That is the grey scourge, disappointment and inferiority, spreading in his mind and eating him alive.
So what is this blue in which he is suspended after meeting (no, seeing) the Naked Lady? What engulfed him? The blue around him is made of two: The blue scourge and the white scourge. White is love, eluding those with the purple scourge. Blue is power, eluding those with the grey scourge. The Naked Lady had an aura of power around her which he can never penetrate. She holds within her the potential for love which will remain unrequited.
He stumbled out into the cold night. Crossed a road and wandered into a park, laying on a random bench. A mist hung in the air, dimming streetlights into floating spheres of soft yellow light. Stars were obscured by grey clouds, although many were scared away by the city lights anyway. Laying down on the bench, his face to the treetops, blue light filtering through the swiveling branches, painting the tears coming down his face. He choked on anger and hatred and sadness. Towards his parents for thinking this up. Towards the prostitutes for making some fantasy which wasn’t his true. Towards himself for being there, for showing up, for giving in, for wishing for a second it were true, for being too weak to withstand the scourges and break free. He felt that he’ll never be able to know white, to claim blue. He lay back and started dissipating. His black coat resembled the bench more and more, his face fading away, legs shrivelling away along his shoes, until he became the park bench.
A dog passed by, sniffed one of his legs and enthusiastically pissed on him.
The dog, a big brown Labrador, lost his owners. “Lost” is not entirely correct since it was his intention to be lost, to not be found by his owners, so he may wander around freely. He ran away and was now happy. But don’t worry, he won’t be lost for long, for soon he’ll return to his owners. In the meanwhile though — what a thrill! He was free to do as he wish! He spent the last hour or so on an adventure around the park. Under the tree over there, a pile of leaves with the most peculiar smell. Another dog? A pack of squirrels? And what’s this, a garbage can? He could continue all day. Lookie here, is this a bench? It smelled of human, but one of its legs was claimed by another dog, which would not do — it had to be his. Approaching the bench, he raised his leg and weed on it, content on his victory. Suddenly a sadness came over him. He lay his puzzled head on the bench as his ears flopped down, his tail stopped wagging, his big brown eyes focused on the human laying there. A faint whimper resonated from the human, bringing the dog to produce a pitiful high pitched wail. The dog licked the tears off of his face, but the human did not move. Only lay there, being a bench.
