Passerby

Silas

Theoretically, I'm supposed to be dead. The doctors could never explain the reasons behind my survival.  They said I would cease existence within minutes, for my frail body had supposedly been too weak to sustain the demands of life.  My family's miracle child, born at nearly 25 weeks gestation, surviving the eight-month NICU stint that followed. Every second of my childhood was a gift to my parents.  I'm supposed to consider myself lucky, except I  don't really feel that way.   Everything about my life kinda sucks. I'm legit the shortest guy in class, with an added bonus of looking the equivalent of a stick.  The restrictions on my activity prevent me from gaining much in the way of muscle, or even worse, popularity.  My lungs weren't developed properly when I was born, and my heart is a lot weaker than it should be. So there's no running in the gym, or playing soccer on the grassy green fields equipped with the latest sport tech that our school splurged on. I can't take any trips to the gym after classes, like the rest of the guys tend to do, so I sit back in my room with a brush and some paint. It's not really an atypical hobby for a guy, I guess. Even though I'm plenty good at what I do.  While the  others on my floor are out sweating rivers and staining the dressy white socks that their momma bought them, I'm curled up in a chair painting the sunset you see when you're walking across the old bridge leading over to the west side of the city.  Sometimes I kinda wish I could be out there, mucking up my uniform in the sun, where its all bright and warm. The thrill of chasing the ball toward the goal seems to be so tempting, like it's sitting there on a golden platter. With this bright,  glittering label calling out at me, that I'll be the star of the show. Weird dream for a kid who has never played a day in their life. So I'll sit here with these acrylics, a tub of water, and  the fine-bristled horse-hair brushes that my dad got from his trip to Europe last summer.  Light strokes and little dips covering the large white expanse of the canvas, it's like a river when it runs. All the colors flowing together to create the fragmented sun flecking out over the lake.
My heart gets this weird flutter just thinking about the sun. How bright and powerful it must feel. It lights the entire solar system,  all the strength it possesses makes me feel a bit gleeful to have captured it in my little picture. This will make an excellent decorative piece on my wall, bare of all the heavy coverage of the posters on the opposite side of the room.  Instead, I've got a photo wall, all different people, just grinning and smiling down at me, which is definitely a bit creepy. Except I find comfort in it, the thought that someone is there watching over me.   I've got about an hour before my roommate comes back, so best kill the time with getting my sunset up on the wall. It's not such an easy  feat, when you're nearly four inches shorter than the average student. Starting off Iv gotta climb up the ladder a ways to reach the opening in the wall of photography created by my parents and all their friends. It's the perfect spot for the sunset, lying right between the picture from last halloween where I dressed up in an old dress and wig to mess with my cousins, and the photo of Ollie. My best friend growing up, with his bright green eyes, and this wild tangle of ginger curls. You would know him from a mile away, cause of all the laughter around him. He used to tell these jokes about the hospital being haunted, and why all the nurses uniforms were red.  I really miss having him by my side, planning out these elaborate parties we wanted to have, and adventures on the backs of those huge tortoises down in the Galápagos Islands.  When we were about eight, he had been walking down the stairs of my house, and had fallen over. Nobody had an explanation for how it had happened, as there wasn't anything in the way, and he hadn't tripped. He managed to  break  his leg, in three different areas, which was extremely painful, and really concerning .  When the doctors had gone in  to complete the x-ray, they discovered the damage to his bones, hadn't been caused entirely by his fall. There was something else weakening the leg, which wasn't a very good thing. Ollie had osteosarcoma, a form of cancer, which wrecked his immune system for nearly two years, before they managed to get it into remission.  We spent a lot of time indoors then, while he would lay bedridden, too weak to move, from all the medications they pumped into his body. I would draw pictures on the walls, with huge battle scenes  featuring hideous monsters, with Ollie as the reigning champion. Whatever he wanted done, I would sketch and color in, even though his parents weren't exactly thrilled  about it at first.  But about a year ago, there was a check up that he had gone in for, and the news hadn't been good. The cancer had returned, to the extent that it was so severe that nothing could have been done.  Within months, Ollie had succumbed to the disease, and I sat beside him, while he fell asleep for the last time.
He taught me a lot I guess, which is part of the reason I kept at my drawing and my painting, so I could capture the fleeting moments of the world within a single canvas. All in honor of one Oliver Halstead.