Anthem, Silent

Ivy

I stood, looking out the floor to ceiling, wall to wall, windows overlooking downtown Sandton in Schalk’s penthouse. I wrapped my arms around my midsection, Schalk’s cologne mixed with the scent of Marlboro that clung onto his hoodie that I was wearing, met my nostrils. I found myself leaning in and breathing in the scent, slowly having become addicted to it. I didn’t think I’d ever like the smell of men’s cologne mixed with cigarettes, yet here I was, breathing it in almost like stealing the breath of a flower. 

The sun was just rising and I was watching the light orange-ish tint in the sky. You could see the faintest of the half-moon hidden behind a skyscraper. I watched it with a small smile, hearing the background noise of the news in the background talking about the current economic decline. I had the distant thought of how this country was in shambles as I stood there, socks on my feet since the marble floors felt too cold for my sensitive feet. My curly hair was a rest’s nest, but I didn’t care. I had showered some time ago, and Schalk was moving around the penthouse, gathering certain items and packing them. He preferred to do it himself, he told me, he liked packing what he felt was important and leaving the rest behind. 

We’d been house hunting the day before and I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. I couldn’t believe that I had actually been house hunting, first of all. It seemed whatever deluded thought that ran through Schalk’s mind was more serious than I thought that it had been. I’d thought it was a case of him having a crush on a black girl or something sick like that, a fetish or something, not anything serious. But when he’d gotten me up early yesterday, dressed me in a Jean Paul Gaultier dress and YSL black heels, and driven me to view homes that I didn’t even know existed in my country. The houses we’d looked at were far beyond what my imagination had thought possible for little town girl me with dreams of a modest life. 

I, in no means, aspired for a big life. I always wanted a modest life, a life with a four bedroom beautiful home, a two car garage, private school for my kids, a great job where I had enough holidays and free time to hang out with my children, and being able to just be happy. That had always been my dream, but I was watching as things seemed to be moving hundreds of kilometres around me and I didn’t know how to slow it down. 

I heard Schalk set another box down in the living room behind me, and I found myself turning around now. The brown box was open and several things stuck out, too large to be contained in the box. “What’s that?” I asked him, pointing towards it. 

He looked at it briefly, “a canvas.” He answered. 

“Like, for painting?” no, for cooking. Of course for painting! My mind replied to me sarcastically. So I thought to move on quickly from the silly question, “you paint?” I decided to add, raising an eyebrow. 

He looked at it, and then at me, shrugging his shoulders. My eyes moved all over his naked torso, taking in the sight of his abs and strong chest. He had tattoos around his biceps, and all over his back. He looked like a God before me, his body that of perfection. He wore a pair of sweatpants that hung low on his hips, showing off his v line, and I cleared my throat and looked away. When I looked into his eyes, he was smirking, obviously in silence because of my ogling, “actually, no. I don’t paint, I sketch. I’m an engineer, sketching is what I do best. I had a canvas,” he looked back at it almost as if he didn’t know why he had, “just because.” He finished off. 

I hummed, nodding my head. “I’ve never painted before,” I found myself saying, looking at the canvas and covering the distance between Schalk and I. I reached the box, reaching for the canvas and taking it into my own hands. “I went to a public school, and the only time we painted was when we were in primary school, on plain white pages. The paint was cheap, and I remember it seeping through the pages because it was more water than paint…” I trailed off at the memory of it. “That was…only once,” I revealed to him, looking over the canvas and touching it because it was the first time I was seeing one.