The sun blared through the window, harsh against my eyes. Why couldn’t it take a break, let it be cloudy, or just go away. I don’t want to pull the blinds, because then I couldn’t paint. The mountains looming in the distance are purple in reality, but in my world I paint them in a deep red, in contrast to the grey sky they are pinned to. The grey sky is cloudless, making it my world and not reality.
Reality is dull, flat, lifeless, plain.
I hate this world.
I want to live in my head.
But I can’t.
Not yet.
I continue to paint fast and free, creating dead blue meadows, roaring yellow oceans, and tall, lively pink trees. My world spins out on the page, dancing in the bright shadows, and dark sunlight. Behind every tree, under every wave, and in the tall grass of my meadows, is a girl, opposite of me with blonde hair. I can’t see her eyes. I didn’t paint her there. She twirls around the trees, climbs and then leaps, disappearing in the middle of the fall. She is not my creation, nor are her actions. She dances and leaps, hopping from place to place and always disappearing in the middle of her death that she causes for herself. She leaves before drowning, before cutting herself on the sharp ends of the plants, before falling down the mountains. Her hair flows down always flowing down, never going up even when she is falling down.
She is magnificent.
Perfect.
Unearthly.
I want her to pop out of the page, leap with me and take me away from this too bright world where I drown in sorrow and light all at the same time. My own black hair falls onto the page and then is in my painting! I can’t believe it, so I put my finger on the page. The second I do, the girl appears, close and taking up almost the entire page. She grabs my finger and tugs, trying to pull me in.
I throw myself on the page, sinking through white nothingness into my twisted world, still clutching my brush. The girl’s bright blue eyes shimmer, her smile growing so large, literally from ear to ear. It blinds me, and takes my breath away. She starts to twirl in one direction and I follow. She starts running and I run after her, but I can’t keep up and she disappears behind a large pink tree. I run around the tree, trying to find a girl I don’t know in a painting I created and then jumped into. My head hurts and suddenly she pops out from behind a tree 20 feet away. I try to scream but I can’t, my voice comes out as purple bubbles, popping without a sound. Now that I think about it, our feet made no sound when we were running, it scares me.
The girls smile disappears. She walks towards me, the grass and plants dying after she passes them. Everything turns black, falling down into ash. Her eyes become vacant, empty, and so hollow. Her dress turns grey, and then holes appear, making it look old and weathered. Then her skin becomes grey, and flat, like she is dead. The only thing that remains is her hair, still flowing behind her as if it is a flag of a reminder of what she was.
I am so scarred, and I try to run, but I can’t. I can only clutch my paint brush in fear and despair. I created this world and now it is turning on me.
I made it.
I didn’t make her.
I made it.
I made it!
I made it!
I MADE IT!!!
With one last push of adrenalin, I lift my arm with the brush in hand and I flick my wrist. Paint comes out the dry tip; the white paint splatters on the girl, making her writhe with pain. Her mouth opens to yell, but nothing comes out, bubbles or otherwise. She falls to the ground, her eyes screaming but not making a sound. The white paint slowly covers her and then seeps onto the ground. Whatever the white paint touches turns blank, like a pure canvas.
Canvas.
Canvas!
I start walking around, painting white on everything I created. The now dead pink trees, the lifeless yellow oceans, the magnificent span of the blue rolling meadows. It all disappears, turning blank and empty. The girl is gone, and so is the world I made. The only thing left is a white page, blank and hungry. Except me. I am here, with no way out, in a silent world that has vanished.
But I have a paint brush.
I make a sweeping motion, painting stairs that go so high, I can’t see the end. I start climbing, hoping that when I reach the top, I will jump from my page and spring into the real world.
But I can only hope.