clouded ~ billie eilish

chapter 4 ~ the masquerade

Note:
Sorry for the ridiculous wait time on this one, dis bitch was Going Through It. regardless, here we are with an update, i rlly hope some of u are still here to read it! always looking forward to hearing ur thoughts :)

another note: lets jus assume this series will take place in a c*vid free universe. obviously this chapter is abt a masquerade...which is...ironic.....but.......
we not gonna talk abt it!
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thursday, september 14th

1:34 pm

Thursdays, I've decided, are for void filling.

My few days off are usually devoted to painting, a craft I've loved since childhood. My earliest memories of painting are vivid: the stick-figure portraits drowned in color, the endless rainbows, the scribbles, the bathtub crayons, the markers I took to my arms and bedroom walls... My mother says I learned my colors earlier than the average toddler, a fact I'd like to think says something about me. As far as I can recall, color and line have always been essential to my existence. I always felt the colors people are naturally drawn to, the ones they love, that trigger emotion, that encourage expression, can reveal so much about them.

During my college experience, I fed my hunger for color with with figure drawing classes and color physics. I found that I excelled in the subjects that I loved (poetry, psych, anything visual), but struggled endlessly in those I hated; primarily math, most science, and Spanish. Unfortunately, the passions I have are more commonly associated with low-paying careers, and I spent endless semesters questioning the thousands that my parents and I were paying for a degree that might prove pointless. Those years were dark, directionless, and hazy as all hell. I'm not sure I have ever truly escaped them.

The anxiety drove me away from school in just two years. Back then it was easier to call myself a creative. I was studying studio art and light design, the subjects I felt correlated to the world of color, and I loved the work I was doing. Back then I knew I had a gift; today it is harder to tell.

Sunlight is always welcome. This morning it streams perfectly through the living room window and onto the floor, interrupted only by the vertical shadow cast by the window panes.

Perfect painting light, I think to myself. Something about the sunlight wipes my mental state clean, like I can see clearly.

After coffee, I spread my setup across the floor. Mixing colors on my palette induces a trance, and as the first lines begin to flow from my brush I realize this is long overdue. It's been at least a week since I've painted, but it feels like I never stopped. Its a love affair; the colors, me, and the suns that slowly moves across us. I swirl pigment across the canvas in flowing, abstract shapes. For the first time in a while, I completely, happily lose myself until my setup is engulfed in shadow, and I realize the sun has migrated entirely across the room. By the time I've cleaned up two and a half hours have flown by, and those abstract shapes have blended into a landscape of color.

When Whit returns from class she gasps and begins to sing her praises, jumping excitedly from foot to foot as she suggests hanging the painting in the living room. When I respond that I'm unsure of the color scheme, she launches into a monologue about my so-called "artistic intuition" that, dare I admit it, boosts my confidence. I decide halfway through that this is the first thing I've made in months that I actually like.

"...and you're so talented and amazing, how did I ever end up with Picasso as my roommate. My grandkids won't believe it." Whit trails off and wraps me in an over-dramatic hug.

I chuckle and rock back and forth with her, "you're silly, I missed you."

"I missed you!" she breaks the hug, "wanna do something? I'm done for the day."