The Parables

Iman - Precinct Nine

Iman - Precinct Nine

Squeezing a cranberry, I watch a slimy red juice trickle out of it and onto my wooden palette. It forms a small splodge, small watery drops running in all directions across the palette. I put the berry down and mix up the juice with my finger, so it becomes a smooth paste. Dipping my finger into the paste, I press it down on my sheet of papyrus.

When I remove my finger, a round, red circle is left. I tap my finger against the same area but move my finger slightly every time I press it down. I continue to finger-paint the cranberry juice until a large round circle is formed of smaller crimson circles. Satisfied with it, I take a black grape from my pile of fruit and squeeze it over the palette. A thick liquid oozes out of it and spills onto a clean area of the palette. I take two more grapes and squeeze them over the palette.

Tossing the grapes away, I mix the liquid with my finger. Although it looks runny, it's quite thick and comes out in a creamy cement-like mixture. Adding the grape-paint to my finger, I paint zigzags coming out of the red circle. When I finish painting the zigzags, I take hold of a cut mango.

Tearing one mango half off, I compress it and a thick juice exudes from it, dropping onto my wooden palette in small lumps. I take the other mango half and crush it, the same thick liquid dribbling out of it. I put the mango down and churn up the liquid. When a smooth paste is created, I paint on orange zigzags in the gaps between the purple zigzags.

I've always loved painting. When I was little, Papa used to bring home the food from his work that didn't sell and was out of date the previous day. Precinct Nine's industry is food, which meant we had a constant supply of the stuff, even if it was out of date. When I was about five, Papa showed me how to make paint.

Papa took a single cranberry and split it in half with his penknife. He then squeezed the cranberry and a red juice oozed out of it. Papa mixed the liquid around with his finger, then pressed his finger against his forehead. When he removed his finger, a large, scarlet spot was left.

"That," Papa said, "is how to make red paint."

Papa soon showed me how to make many other colours after that. We always painted on papyrus that Papa bought sheaves of once a week from the Bazaar. My fascination with paint grew, and Papa helped me develop many techniques. My favourite technique is finger painting.

Mama wanted to sell my paintings, but Papa forbade it. Instead, we decorated the house with them, hanging them on the walls in every place possible. Everywhere you looked was a picture, radiating vibrant colours that lit up the house. But then, some of then had to be sold.

We were getting poorer. The out-of-date food we gained was shortened to nothing more than a handful of berries, a few strips of dried beef and a hard loaf of bread. So we sold the paintings. We went to the Plaza on Sundays and sold them in the market for a couple of pounds each. But not all of them disappeared. A few remained, pasted to a place on the wall that we always seemed to look at, one time or another. Those few paintings reminded me that I still had a hobby I could enjoy doing.

I crush a few more cranberries and churn up the mixture. Scraping some onto my finger, I paint a long, zigzag around the other zigzags in a round shape. I wipe the cranberry paste off my finger and observe the painting. This piece resembles nothing in particular. No scene of something you see in real life. Just a pattern, a picture, of something...different.

I look up from my painting and see the sun is now high above the trees of the Prairie. It glares brightly, radiating rays of sunlight that warm the earth. I smile and close my eyes. It's quiet today. The hill I'm sitting on overlooks the Prairie and the village, and barely anyone is up and about. My hand strokes the blades of the jade-green grass and I pull a blade out of the ground. I dip the tip of it in the mango juice, and at every top point of the red zigzags, I use the blade to dot and tiny spot onto it.