Shadow Lines

Ch. 5 The Painting of Words

Ch. 5 The Painting of Words

Time: 3:05 A.M.

Where: The living room of Evelyn Arousela’s house

The Conversation:

“What are you doing up so early?”

“I’m painting.”

“Painting what? Another dream?”

“No. I’m not painting pictures. I’m painting words. Come over and I’ll show you.”

                Approximately twenty minutes later, whilst I was gently carrying away the soul of a dead young girl who died of a disease, Markus Rivialani arrived at Evelyn’s house. His hair was a bit dishelved and his clothes looked as if they had been hastily put on. Which they had. Dark bags shadowed underneath his eyes.

Time: 3:32

A pounding on the door. The tired, frustrating kind. A shouted word.

 “EVELYN!”

                Evelyn pulled open the door, her hair messily pulled back. She smiled brightly and ignored the seething look on her friend’s face. She pulled him inside and gently led him to a scrapbook lying on the ground in the midst of paint and brushes.

Time: 3: 36

Markus Rivialani picked up the scrapbook. He wore an exhausted, angry look. Five words.

“What the hell is this?”

                Evelyn was offended at her friend’s language. Yet instead of lecturing him about the matter, she pulled open the scrapbook to the first page. Silence suddenly filled the air. “Read.” Evelyn said, and stepped back.

                Markus’ eyes strayed across the first words. As he finished reading the third paragraph, I stepped inside the living room. Evelyn spotted me, smiled, and gestured over to Markus.

                I made my way over to her friend, and peered over his shoulder.

                And although I was not quite sure what was going on, I began to read.

The Title of Evelyn Arousela’s Painted Words:

The Starry Sky

            I was alone. 

            I glanced up at the starry sky, feeling so cold. And alone. So alone…

            Finally, when the pink and soft yellow streaks filled the quickly fading dark sky, I made my way back inside the house. My mother lay on the tile of the kitchen floor in a pool of vomit. My father sat beside her with his back leaning against the kitchen cabinet, dead to the world. The horrible stench of alcohol filled my nostrils as I went to the closet, pulled out a mop and filled the bucket with water. And then I began to clean.

            Normally my brother would help me clean, bringing my parents up to their bedroom, washing the vomit out of my mother’s face and long, matted brown hair. People said that she looked different now than she had growing up. They said that she had been beautiful lady. My father had been a handsome man too. But now they both looked sad and dead-beaten. I once told my brother, when we were much younger, that one day they would both come back. They would stop drinking that awful foaming liquid. But they never did. I should have never told my brother lies.