Chapter 5
The tubes of colour are spread out all over the floor and a blank canvas is waiting for me, rested against the wall. Joshua never puts anything away, it kills the inspiration – he says – and I think he’s right.
“I’ll be working at the night club tonight, I’ll get off at 5 a.m.”, Joshua tell me
I nod.
“In a week they’ll tell you something about your DNA…you never know what you’ll discover. But the real key is here”, he says, pointing at his forehead
“You know what happened”, he continues
I shrug
“I am not sure…”, I say
“Well, I’ve got to go now. Will I find you when I get back?”, he asks
“I’ll be here”, I tell him
Joshua smiles, blows a balloon with his bubble gum and pops it. I can tell he’s happy that I’ll stay.
“Yeah good”, he says and walks out, still smiling
The door clicks close and I am alone with the blank canvas.
The image was clear in my head, but now that I am trying to get it out of me on the canvas it seems to fade away. When I close my eyes it comes back, but as soon as I try to define the details, the whole image becomes evanescent.
The whiteness of the canvas is unnerving. I look at my watch, it’s 5.33. I close my eyes, I reopen them and it’s 5.35. I do this over and again.
It’s 6 and the light in the room has gradually changed. The canvas is still blank and I start to panic.
I close my eyes once more and when I open them I stop caring. The painting doesn’t have to be my dream. It can be anything. I just have to get the colour on there, the image that will form doesn’t matter.
Dots of light blue. Dots of yellow. Other dots of blue, darker. The colours add up, and it doesn’t seem like I am controlling them. My hand moves from the palette to the canvas, it dips in the water, in the colour, in the rag to cleanse itself and get ready for the next tint. It simply happens. I am starting to see a lizard, its blue and yellow and white and there’s a bit of brown too in there. It’s a dotty lizard. Its skin is a mosaic. The dots add up, and now…
…now I recognize it. Yes, I actually recognize it! It’s shiny and its gloss reflects the brightness of the day. Light blue. My hand fills the space around the lizard with it. That’s the sky, I remember this joyful sky.
I am peaceful watching the lizard.
My eyes close again.
I see a face. Someone places a hand on me, it is a warm protecting hand that presses against my head. And there’s a face. That face is like mine, and when it cries I cry.
When I open my eyes I see the lizard through my tears as if it were streaked, somehow deformed.
The brush dips into the colours, still wet on the canvas, and drags them into long stripes. The sky is blurred too now.
“No! No! Help, help!”. This is what the voice yells as I am being pulled away from the protecting hand.
The face like mine disappears.
I open my eyes and I am terrified, I gasp for air, I can’t breathe. I run to the bathroom and vomit, it is so painful to cry and vomit, I feel like I will suffocate and die.
A protecting hand starts to caress my head.
“Iris, what happened to you?”, I hear Joshua say as he bends beside me
“You’re back”, I whisper and realize that I can breathe after all.
“Come”, he says, pulling me up and washing my face in the sink
I rinse off my mouth
“Joshua…I am sorry”, I say when I manage to speak
“What happened?”
I don’t know what happened.
“I’m happy you’re back”, I reply instead
“Have you been sick for long?”, he asks
“I don’t know…”
“Did you sleep at all? Let me bring you on the couch”, Joshua says, slipping an arm around me
But as we head to the living room Joshua catches a sight of the canvas lying on the wall and stops short. He remains silent and his face tells me that he is stunned by what he is seeing
“WOW!”, he exclaims
“The dream is real…”, I tell Joshua
He looks at me and nods
“Do you know what you just painted?”, he asks me
“My dream”
“That lizard…I think it really exists. I’ve seen something in a picture that somehow reminds me of it”, Joshua says
“Which picture?”
“A picture of some place…it was on a website”
“What was the place?”
Joshua bugs his eyes, trying to fetch the memory.
“I don’t remember”, he says at last
“Oh come on! Yes you do!”, I exclaim
“It was long ago…”
“But can’t we find it again?”, I insist
“We must try”, Joshua says
“What time is it?”, I ask
“6 am”, he says, taking my arm and reading the time from my watch
“I have to see the dream shrink at 8, you know?”
“Well, let’s have a shower and some breakfast since you have some time”, Joshua tells me
I love how easy life is with him.
We slip under the shower together and I wish I never had to see Stephanie or step out of this place again.