Colour Me In You

The hardest thing to do is to begin with goodbye. To watch the world spin for only a moment, and to know, that the beginning of this moment, would soon become a silence, a stillness. Love is always the end.

While I had known the man before me for so long, I could never be sure when it was that I met him. The question always arose; can you know a man whom you do not love? Truly know a man? I am left to believe that I did not know him until I had known love, and when that was, I could never be sure. He had never loved me. I never loved him, until I grew to know love. By that time, he had already left.

"What are you doing?" his voice skipped off into the sound of the hushing trees. However, I was not able to reply. My hand swept down into the coloured paste, the same colour that his skin radiated. Willingly, I traced a line of this paste onto either side of my face. My cheeks blushing, burning underneath the colour I knew to be his, and all he could do was watch in confusion.

I picked up a second world of colour, one to match my own, and handed it to him. He took the world hesitantly and we simply stood there. His colour on my cheeks and my colour waiting in his hand, we both knew this position well, even though we had never held this stance before. He wasn't going to trace the paste over his cheeks.

It was dawn, and we both stood with breath held, in the middle of a forest far from home. I could feel dark droplets dripping down my cheeks, as if a colour could shed a tear, knowing I would not wish to cry for myself. And still, he stood; blank faced and confused, holding my world in his hands and never accepting the world as his own.

"Come on, it's too messy". He put the paste down on the grass. "we're nowhere near soap, and look at you!" He did not know. He did not know what shame I felt, as if I had stood naked before him and offered myself as a prize, yet he did not know.

"It was a silly game anyway." I didn't wipe the paste off my face still; I walked by his side that day, pretending all the while that he had returned my silly gesture and understood. Could it be wrong to pretend this? I wanted to ask someone, but the only one there was him, and he wasn't even there.

Now, I stood by a window. So much had changed, and somehow nothing had changed at the same time. A stranger had taken me into a room of zigzagging floors, giant metal boxes growled and hissed outside, waiting for me to join them. Yet I was still inside that forest. While my face presented clean, I could still feel the crying colour on my cheeks.

"This wasn't meant to happen." The stranger smiled at me. "I'm sorry about all the stairs, there was just no other place to do this picture." He laughed as if he was brand new, as if he had never been scorned. "Sorry, I forgot to ask, what is your name?"

"Does it matter? We're just painting a picture and then I'll probably never see you again. He lifted his eyebrows at me in shock.
"Don't be so negative", he teased. "I'm Zack." He held out his hand, a sign of friendship and acceptance.

"That's a very nice name." I turned from him and set some paper down on a desk. Friendship was love, acceptance was love and love was an end. He pretended not to notice, as if his hand had not yet been extended and I had not turned.

Together we turned the white sheet into a rainbow, and I ignored the screaming colours, knowing that such rainbow colour could only be fake, and traitors to the paper. Yet, I was mesmerised by the pattern of his hand. His soft, firm fingers plashed with so many worlds, even the fake ones.

"Why do you paint?" The words tumbled from my lips, and I could only permit them to escape.

"Why do I paint?" He played with the question, repeating it to himself.
"That's the first thing you've ever said to me that hasn't been a stiff response to a question of mine, do you realize that?" I sighed and became silent again. "wait, wait, wait" he spoke with an apologetic tone, reaching out to me, "I'll answer you. Painting is an art." He paused for a moment.

"But why do you do it? I know it is art."

"I paint because it is art", he persisted. "Art is the most immediate way to become close to others. Every stroke of paint tells you who the person was, or what they felt or what they knew, anything and everything about them."

"You sound so sure". I though back to the forest, and it saddened me.
Perhaps I never knew him, the one I loved. I had never seen his art; there had never been a stroke of colour on his cheek to see. There was nothing to see.

"I am sure." He said succinctly. He reached over, his coloured rainbow hand held mine tightly. It was the most beautiful hand I had ever seen, but it could not be real. The colours were all fake; his skin could never be that beautiful without such colour, could it?

It was dark outside, and this man who I did not know held my hand in a way that those who knew me had never attempted. All I could do was stare, blank faced and confused. Listening to the rain pelt outside, he looked at me as if he knew. As if I had stood naked before him and he had seen it all.

"Come outside with me." He stood, never letting go of my hand, not for a second.

"Outside?"I frowned at him. "It's so wet though, we'll get soaked and it's too..." I gulped to prevent the words from leaving my mouth. Messy. I had almost said messy, the very words that the man I loved used to walk away from me. Messy.

I allowed his hand to guide mine. Down the zigzagging stairs that somehow seemed to straighten themselves for us. Out into the storm where the growling, hissing cars surrounded but never touched. Zack spun me around, clinging to me and me clinging to him as our laughter created a sound that hushed all.

"Maybe it's a little messy", Zack said, and paused to wipe the rain droplets off his face. Then, accidentally, he smeared rainbow colours over his cheeks, grinning from ear to ear without a clue. When I told him, he blushed at first, but then chased me onto some grass where we fell as he held me to the ground. Here it was that he traced a rainbow over each of my cheeks, and I froze. Our eyes fixed on each other; nothing could ever separate us in this moment.

"My name is Hope" I murmured.

Together we walked. Strangers to each other, but not strangers to love. Hand in hand, somehow we just knew. While the rain washed the colour from our cheeks, like tears neither of us would shed, I knew this ending was truly just the beginning.