In Her Eyes – Part 3
by John Walker on Mar.16, 2006, under The Rest
It hasn’t snowed. If it had, it would have been something too close to perfect. As it is, cold, clear, sharply blue, it paints a flawed and beautiful background.
This afternoon she has things she must do, responsibilities that must be met. But this morning, this crisp morning, is all hers. Some days, in these circumstances, she would be frustrated by this empty space. Today it is time in which she wants to do nothing but float.
There is a hill, a horizon with promises of woods, and any number of paths to walk on. The hill possesses caves on its hidden side, the woods contain trees she would have climbed ten years ago and fallen trunks she will walk along today. It is the day on which she will have the idea that at first seemed childish and silly, but would one day be realised. It is the day she will make her mind up, although she won’t realise for many weeks.
***
It had become peculiar that ideas – their conception, their evaluation, and their implementation – had been performed in so many stages. So many insecurities. Had it been fear, paranoia, immaturity? Now matured, to have an idea was to realise the idea. To formulate was to deliver. The ridiculous constraints of time had been shaken off: time only offered the opportunity for doubt – doubt that did not exist before the addition of time.
There was the apple. The idea was that the apple should be destroyed, pulled apart from the middle outwards. And so it was. All those shackles of, “how?”, of, “am I capable?”, were rusting, broken. The idea was that the fridge door should be ripped from its hinges, smashed on the tiled floor. And so it was.
The idea was that things should change colour. Not the primitive colours that had, in hindsight, been boring her so deeply. The real colours. The colours she could bend and shape, the colours she could feel and breathe. By the sink was the vase in which she had arranged wild flowers, before. The flowers were now long dead, brown wisps drying to the sides, but the vase remained a cerulean blue. This blue was of course still weak, a washed out blue of the world, so now she offered it the colour that she held inside her.
Real blue wove into the layers of the worldly blue, twisting itself in veins through the fabric of the vase. Eruptions occurred all over, depth blossoming, swelling the nature of the material, opening it, exploring it, regenerating it. And now it stood majestic, a vessel of awe in amongst the flat existence of the surface upon which it stood. And then it was red.
The idea, the delivery of the idea. It was green. It was blue again. It was a wild orange. It was the sweetest honey. It was jade, silver, white. It was liquid. It was a pool, melted, destroyed.
***
Seventh birthday. The first that will be remembered into adulthood. All her friends are here, her parents trying to maintain control of eleven children while conducting party games. They are sitting in a circle, a parcel is being passed. Each time the music stops another layer of paper is torn away, each time there’s a sweet, each time getting closer to the big prize at the centre. They are all taking longer and longer to pass the parcel on, as now they are realising that this will make them more likely to win. It will be a few years still before the prizes are replaced with forfeits, and the tactic reversed.
Her best friend wins, and this is ok, because although it would have been nicest if it had been her, at least it was Sarah. Sarah has won a car that when you pull it back on the floor, it goes forward by itself. This is ok too, because she already has one of these, and it’s the same colour anyway.
Food is being served, and she’s hungry. She’s been watching the food be prepared all day long, and hasn’t been allowed to eat any of it. Not even a little sausage. Now she’s allowed, and she’s filling her plate high with more than she’ll manage. Her friends are doing the same, except for Laura who doesn’t like any of it. And now she is eating, liking the taste of everything apart from the cheese and pineapple things because the cheese is Cheddar and she hates Cheddar. Someone has spilt a drink. Both parents are running over with cloths and paper because the drink is red and the carpet is beige and everyone is pointing at the red puddle and gasping. Then someone points in the other direction and squeals.
Jamie is kneeling on the table, and he’s unwrapping the presents. Her presents! All the presents her party friends had brought and her mum had put on the table for later, and now he’s already unwrapped three of them! Her dad stays to catch the red fizz, and her mum spins around and hooks James under the armpits and pulls him from the table, wrapping paper still in his hands. She is crying now, and she is crying as hard as she can, because nothing this unfair has ever happened to anyone.
***
The remains of the vase lost her attention, molten china evacuating from the puddle in thin rivulets towards the edge of the counter, perhaps red, perhaps blue. The first stream gently ran over the curved edge and began a steady spattering on the floor.