NEW: Watercolor Stains by Wen (1/1)
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Title- Watercolor Stains
Artist- Wen
Medium- a faded watercolor, still dripping from being repeatedly soaked in hot
tears and cold drops of rain
Description- Some take art and make it into passion. We took art and made it
into pain.
___________________________________________________________________
Watercolor Stains
by wen
My partner has long fingers, drawn and elegant like swans streaking far
across the surface of a lake. Fingers made to stroke the dipping ivory facade
of a piano and make it scream with joy. Fingers made to whirl through the air
and trap spinning threads of words too beautiful for me to count or touch or...
Love.
Most of all, his are fingers that can hold a paintbrush and construct
worlds of charcoal, oil, watercolor, and even rubbery acrylic- worlds that I
only wish I could visit. Worlds that must have haunted him.
Mulder is an artist.
I should have known by his hands, but I first discovered it one day
stumbling into his apartment. I had gone there unannounced for no reason other
than to randomly breathe his essence. He hadn't been there, and boredom of
waiting had set in. I wandered. There was a room in the back of the
apartment, hidden away behind a curtain of disarmingly intangible clouds of
dust and musty old blankets. The room was filled with dark and gloom, but
when a light was flicked on- Oh, God- At that moment, I realized that
he was more beautiful than I'd ever been able to fathom in my entire life.
I saw his paintings. None had been finished. Some had even been slashed. but Oh
God.
They were beautiful.
Images had leapt out at me, some subtle, some glaring. They burn in my
mind, even now, as I lay in my empty motel bed... The memory engulfs me whole,
vivid and glimmering like some half-forgotten dream, drawing me into his world
once more....
A waterfall of rich green fell shimmering gold-white softly into a pool of
richness he had not yet filled in. A lone black figure raced across the sky,
arms and fingers reaching into tethered nothingness. A tree stood in a vain
attempt at solidity, in the midst of ethereal swirling winds of doubt. A world
stood still, not green-blue-white, but rich colors that I cannot even describe.
They were colors that had become his language, an archaic lovely tongue
untranslatable to any but the speaker. Colors that had made me believe that the
world was a thing of light- no shadow, no fear. He had slashed that
idyllic-world painting in two. In the far corner rich dabbles of sweetness
called to me. I pulled out one painting, hidden behind a solemn tapestry spun
with the suggestion of rich brocade and dense burgundy. It was a swirl of
red-gold orange like the rising sun trapped between paper thin layers of cloud.
Its smooth brightness intermingled tightly with blurs of icy sky-blue. I
can't remember how long I stared at it before I realized that he had painted
me. The painting was a distorted mirror, but a mirror all the same. I'd
always hated mirrors, in whatever form, and I hid the painting back in its
original place.
The last painting that caught my eye was a faded watercolor, whose colors
had never been bright. Pristine and ghostlike, the remains of two figures
blurred together, and it looked as if the painting had been repeatedly soaked
in harsh, cold water to fade the figures and blur them together ever more.
It reminded me of us. After all, we were nothing more than blurs of paint that
had once been vibrant, washed away by cold splashes of fear, pain, desolation,
and the tortures brought on by our crusade...
After that watercolor, I looked at no more of his paintings.
I left before he returned, and spoke none of it to him upon returning to work.
My thoughts finished themselves with a quiet swallow of regret. The memory
done replaying in my mind, I rose from the cold bed, stumbling towards the
single desk of the room. I tapped the end of my pen on the desk, trying
achingly to concentrate on our latest case. Girl-child murders. Day
dawned, the sun rising idly, and not for me. I locked myself in my motel
room and gnawed my lip until it bled. Slowly but methodically, I clawed
the top of my wrist open. Outside it rained cold innocence, turning the sky
dark, separated, and split into sharp flashes of insolence. The day flew by
quickly, filled only with death, madness, and haunted memories of dying little
girls. After the last autopsy, I could no longer stop myself. I ran, away
from the tiny mutilated body, away from the blood, away from myself. The
steel doors of the morgue swung behind me as I ignored the confused cries of
the investigators I had been with. I ran through the rain, ran with the blood
on my hands and my face and my fingers. The rain didn't wash the little
girl's violated blood away, or mine. I ran in blind ignorance, ran until I
realized that no matter how hard I tried and fast I ran, I could never outrun
myself. Finally I fell on my knees into the cold wet mud and sodden grass.
Reaching outwards, my wet fingers grazed the molten bark of a tree. I used it
to pull myself upwards, and hugged it tightly, leaning my forehead against it.
Beneath my half shut eyes, the world twisted and turned in rough blurs of green
and brown. I wept. I wasn't aware of the tears as stilted gulps and sobs came
catching all up my chest through my throat. I could only sense the pain. I was
only aware of how cold the rain was and the way it pooled down my back to soak
me and fade me further than the vanishing watercolor that I already was. The
bark of the tree was rough even in the rain, and I scraped the fragile skin of
my forehead against it until it tore. The warm weight of a hand settled
hesitantly on my shoulder. How he had followed me or even kept up, I didn't
know, but he was there. He gathered me into his arms inelegantly, as if holding
a tiny glass doll that should have broken in his grasp. We leaned against the
tree in a vain effort to stay upright, to keep a grasp on something that was
solid and real. Pretending that we were as substantial as the tree or any oil
painting could be, he held me as the hot tears mingled with the cold rain. I
screamed and screamed and screamed inside until my long suffering psyche simply
disintegrated in exhaustia. I should have gone limp, the torn rag doll that I
was, but I scraped against the tree, keeping myself upright.
And he held me. I don't know for how long, and at what damage to himself,
but he held me until the rain slowly stopped. Safe in his embrace, my
thoughts turned and twisted like clouds on a windy day. I wondered if we
would ever be more than watercolors; pale, resplendent figures fading away and
blurring more infinitely together with each steady fall of rain and wash of
water. We should have been the oil he had painted me as, bright and swirling,
untouched by any sort of storm or cold splash of water that could have chanced
our way. The rain slowly stopped, as the sun crept hesitantly back, shining
visible rays of iridescence through the breaks in the torn clouds.
A pure shaft of that sweet phosphorescence paused momentarily on Mulder's
face, and he closed his eyes gently at its brief warmth. Stroking my cheek
with the back of his hand, he pushed a few damp dark curls away from my eyes.
He was murmuring softly. I couldn't hear his words over the steady buzz of my
own thoughts, but was thankful for them all the same. I took the hand he had
lain upon my face, and pulled it closer in a subtle acknowledgment. I
wondered if he would try to make this moment into an oil. He leaned his
forehead against mine, a torn soul meeting torn skin. A heat flared between
us, blistering and painful. It was the usual electric current filled with
hallways and déją vu. Then fear sparked in his eyes, and he pulled away,
letting me go.
I suddenly realized why Mulder never finished his paintings.
Longing and desire answered would make, in his eyes, a meaningless painting.
Thus, it must have been better never to consummate the painting. Damn him
for his dependency on loneliness and pain. It was a dependency I could have
broken him of, had I not already been broken by years of being slowly washed
away in shakes of cold rain and water. I made no effort towards him when he
pulled away. He made an awkward deadpan comment to forget the moment. A
hard cold dull pain resounded in my chest, pounding and fluttering with large
wings. He began to walk away, expecting me to follow. I paused, wondering
if we could become oil paintings if I could walk away from him just this once.
There had been a time when I could have left him behind, and found a new
paintbrush to make me whole again. But that had been a time before the rain
seemed to fall everyday. The moment of clear thought passed, leaving only
the urgent need I had every time he left me behind, like a cup with a hole at
the bottom that could never be filled. Wiping a stagnant remainder of tears
away with the soggy edge of my muddy sleeve, I began to walk after him, knowing
that we would always remain like this. I followed him through the invisible
wisps of evaporating water. I always would. After all, we were nothing
more than faded watercolor stains, unfinished, and fading into nothingness
together.
.finis.
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end notes-
a big thank you to per-mel for her beta-reading and support, but most of all,
for her friendship
this was inspired not only by watching Mulder sculpt in 'Grotesque',but also by
a technique I sometimes use when painting in watercolor. I can't remember the
exact name, but it involves applying the paintto your canvas, then putting it
in a tray of water, and gentlyshaking until the colors blur and fade together.
You then remove the painting when it has been faded to the desired degree, and
allow it to dry (or else paint from there, since it's easier to paint on a wet
surface than a dry surface when working with watercolor) This creates a very
evocative, and ultimately haunting image.
This vignette is dedicated to the memory of a former fellow artist and friend,
Jonathan Long (1981-1998). The idyllic world painting and foliage waterfall
described in Mulder's paintings were inspired by 2 of Jon's own beautiful
paintings. Jonathan commited suicide less than a year ago. Please reach out to
all the people you love, even those who seem to not need to know that you love
them. Those people are usually the people that need to know the most. Jon- I'm
sorry... I miss you. I love you. God take care of you.
_____________________________________________________________________
thank you for sticking with this artist (and newborn author) down to the end
Contact Information- PaprH...@hong-kong.crosswinds.net. If that doesn't work,
then divine_m...@yahoo.com
"What fascinates and delights us in fiction is the portrayal of characters who
somehow manage to confound our expectations, yet still seem true to life."
. . . . . . . .
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