The Misfortunes Of Lolita: One Shot

A story of love, too.

a sad story and a story of love, too
the shards of a broken girl and a boy who hot-glued the pieces together to make art.

FRANK

"The art of mixing colors existed from the stone age," boomed Professor Reeds' baritone voice.

Mr. Reeds looked every bit like an art professor. The beret, the scruffy beige pants, the tattoo on his ankle. He had dark African skin, hair like lamb's wool, intelligent eyes.

Frank kind of liked him due to his:

1. Encouragement of any kind of art. [Such as when Frank had handed in a nude painting of Eve from the Garden of Eden, french-kissing the snake. The topic was 'When I was your age, this never would have happened.' Mr. Reeds had given him an A-.]

2. His good taste in music. [He played music in his class to set the mood. The day the tunes of Bohemian Rhapsody reverberated through the room, the students went crazy.]

Mr. Reeds believed that nature stimulates the brain or something so they were all sprawled on the green grass of the university's garden with their art supplies and sketchbooks while Mr. Reeds lectured them on the origin of color.

"There is a cave in the depths of South Africa, where the oldest evidences of stone age art is found," Mr. Reeds continued, with reminiscent eyes.

"The stone wall was their canvas. The earth their color palette. They had ochre and charcoal and leaves. Add saliva or animal fat to it and voila, you have paint." He cast a twinkling eye at his students.

"The stone age artists had to work with a pathetically small choice of colors. But they had a trick. Can anyone tell me what it was?"

"Mixing!" said a voice from the back.

"Yes!" exclaimed Mr. Reeds. "They mixed colors. They mixed sandstone red and blueberry blue to get a deep purple, they rolled mud and white soil into greys, they mashed oil and mint leaves and all that finally resulted in psychedelic creations."

"So enough with the history. Now, I want you to experiment and mix up horrible concoctions. I want you to choose any color combination and hand in a piece restricted to your chosen colors, by the end of the class." Mr. Reeds dismissed his speech with a smile.

The class erupted in a buzz as the clattering of palettes and paint cans reverberated in the garden.

"I'm thinking of black and white." said Jay.

Jay was his roommate at the University. He was an excellent footballer and had got into the uni with a sports scholarship, just like Frank. Jay was strangely addicted to Pop Tarts and had a knack for singing rap songs in the shower.

If Frank's story was a teen fiction novel, Jay would be the comedic relief.

"Black and white is a classic, right?" Jay continued. "I mean I don't even get art. Just because mom makes me go to these preppy art museums she thinks I actually enjoy..." He trailed off.

"Anyway, what color combinations are you thinking of?"

Frank felt sharp strips of grass cutting into his palm. There was a minty smell in the air. The sky was cloudless today.

He thought of flowing river hair slipping through his fingers. Skin borne out of the earth. Black coffee eyes boring into him. He imagined his hands curving over her waist, pulling her closer till she gasped. He imagined his name on her lips.

He closed his eyes.

"Black and brown." He answered.

It was not even a choice.