Love Is Black And White

3. Swan Lake

My first kiss was also the first time I relived a moment in my mind. I imagined Jade saying that she liked me. And it felt good.

It felt so good that I never stopped.

My version of Jade was not always black and white. At that time, she was still colorful. In fact, I had a different opinion on the concept of black and white, and it was Jade herself who changed that.

She made me watch Roman Holiday when we were fifteen. It was one of Jade's qualities, she rarely expressed her love in words. Getting me to watch her favorite movies was one of her own ways of saying 'I love you.'

One day, I was at her house watching this black and white movie and I started to think about colors.

"Have you ever thought how it would be with colors?" I asked her.

"No, why?" She replied, without taking her eyes off the television.

I narrowed my eyes, "I can't stop coloring it in my mind."

She laughed at me, and then judged me with a look. "Some things are better in black and white." She said.

In silence, I thought for a few seconds. "Some people say that colors bring emotions, do you think it's true?" 

She paused the movie and looked at me seriously, "Leon... Think of the night sky... The sky is black. And the moon and stars have a white shine. Does it bring you emotions?"

I shrugged. "Yes."

"So, that's it." She said decidedly. "Night sky, old movies... Some of the best things are black and white."

She convinced me, as always, and then turned her attention to the movie.

I spent a few moments reflecting on a night sky and how fascinating it was. Jade didn't use the sky as an argument for nothing. My father gave me a small telescope as a gift when I turned thirteen, and since then, she and I used to go out to see the sky, whenever the night seemed to call us. We were fans of the night sky.

Then, my mind went back to thinking about colors.

"So, why do people say that about colors?" I asked her.

She reflected for a few seconds. "That's the rainbow's fault." She answered, smiling.

Since that moment, I started to like the concept of black and white. But that was not the reason why I started to imagine her in black and white.

It happened the day after she turned sixteen. As a gift, I bought two tickets to watch the ballet that Jade loved so much: Swan Lake. 

"You know what I was thinking?" Jade asked when we entered the theater.

I shook my head and laughed. "Oh, no..."

She looked at me quickly and frowned. "What?"

"Every time you say that, you tell me a crazy and weird thought." I answered. "And I get all paranoid like you."

Jade opened her mouth, looking surprised and offended. "Oh... This is so... So true." She laughed. "Anyway... A few days ago, I watched Black Swan. By the way, you need to watch this movie, it's perfect! Natalie Portman is such a good actress!" She said, excited. "Well, in this movie, she has psychosis, like illusions inside her mind."

Dramatically, she stopped walking and looked at me.

"She doesn't know what is reality and what is illusion. So, I started to think... How can we be sure that this is reality?" She pointed around the place. "I mean, maybe this is not even happening. It's just happening in your mind, or in my mind! This, right now, can be a psychosis!" She completed, with wide eyes.

I chuckled, "Jade, you're a lunatic."

She gave me an indignant look, "Leon, if it were easy to separate reality from what the hell happens inside our mind, there would be no mental disorders like that." She said, smiled and continued to walk serenely.

And I couldn't stop thinking about this during Swan Lake.

Jade threw a grenade at my mind and there she was, right beside me, smiling and enjoying the story being told by the dance.

What if one day I confuse reality with my imagination? What if one day I start to believe in my own illusions? What if?

I would go crazy. I wanted to live in my illusions so badly that I wouldn't be surprised if that happened to me. I was never lucid enough to trust my own sanity.

Maybe, I'm a potential psychiatric patient.

I was there, thinking about how to protect myself from a possible madness, while those swans were spinning around the stage. In theory, the solution was simple: I needed to separate my reality from my imagination. The problem was, how the hell was I supposed to do this?

But the answer was right in front of me.

Swan Lake, the love story between a prince and a girl trapped inside a white swan body. It turns out that the prince, thinking he was talking to his beloved, declared himself to another girl: the black swan.

The same ballerina and two different swans: the white and the black.

Maybe I can change the colors.

But I couldn't change the colors of my reality, could I? So my imagination went to black and white.