On his way back from school, he stopped by an old post office and watched it being repainted. It was the only old building in the neighborhood and was a desperate move to blend in with the modern society.
He looked up and saw a man standing on the edge of a ladder and trying to reach the corner of the wall with his brush. Tommy gasped and covered his eyes when he saw him slip. Somehow, he managed to hold onto the ladder.
He looked at his hands. A few drops of paint had fallen onto his palm. He tried to wipe it off but a light shade of blue remained. As he stared at his hands a feeble thought crept into his brain.
“I can paint me.” That thought illuminated his mind the same way
lightning brightened the dark night. He looked around and felt the seemingly ordinary world with a new glow.
A group of kids were running to catch the bus. An old lady was talking too loudly on her phone. The near by market was crowded and people
were yelling at each other. He joined the chaos to buy a box that contained all the colors and a few brushes of different sizes. With a soul full of hopes he returned home. When he stood in front of the mirror with a box of paint in one hand and a tiny brush on the other, he realized that he was a blank canvas.
He dipped his brush in the bright red paint and stroked it across his eyelids. It felt fresh and cold. The smell of paint rushed through his nostrils. He dipped his hands onto the dark blue color and spread it across his arms. He was so focused when he painted his ears that it felt like the whole world had come to a pause.
He enjoyed how the brush tinkled his skin, the way the smell wrapped him like a hug, and how the paint slowly dried and became a part of him.
After a sleepless night the birds had started to sing again. He can finally
let the world see him the way he wanted to be seen.
