The Painters

I have begun my first fiction book and I will finish it someday. For now I write for myself and those close to me.  Perhaps, someday, I’ll publish it.

Enjoy the first chapter but remember, it is still an early draft.

The Painters – Chapter 1

It’s black inside this place. Whispers, secrets half-spoken, just beyond hearing. They taunt me to follow them. I’m frozen on the brink of danger, unseen but always present. Terror of the unknown. My imagination concocting far worse than could be possible. The constant chill tells me there’s an opening, something more. But something with colour, or something even more barren, I don’t know. I remain frozen. Warmth eludes me. It does not exist in this sunless place.

I yearn for freedom, for a return to green pastures, new flowers, and the sun. I miss the warmth on my face as it spread across my body, face upturned, eyes closed, soaking it in. The fresh green grass tickling the back of my neck and legs as I basked in the yellow orb. Fresh cut grass and sweet peas, drifted in and mingled with the stench of the black.

A sudden trickle of warmth down my cheek brought me back. I was silent and numb as the salt slipped over my lips. At least I could still cry. Maybe that was all I could do here. I tried to yell, to call out, but there was no sound. The voices came again. They stirred a longing in me to go to them. Who were they? Where were they? They had to be near enough to reach me yet distant, for I could never make out their words. They were the songs of another place, perhaps even another time. Each time they sang to me, they brought me peace – hope – colour.

I closed my eyes as I listened. The song was familiar yet different each time. It always started with Blue. Calming and peaceful like the mountain lakes of home. I felt still. Breathe in the cold air and think of winds off the glacier, not the pit. The image carved itself into my soul and the canvas was ready for the next layer.

Pink’s voice came sweeping over the lake in my mind and painted a meadow of tiny summer flowers. The cold fit when the voices sang, it was right in the mountains. As each clear bell-like sound came to me I longed to understand. Who were they? How did they know just when I needed them?

They did not always sing to me. Too often they were silent and there was nothing but the rhythmic drip, ticking away every moment of my exile, and the smell of moss and dirt. And always the black.

The song brought me strength to hold on longer. I knew that night would eventually end, or at least I clung to the hope that this was not eternal. I almost took a step this time. If I could just move, maybe I could reach The Painters.

Yellow began and the sun burst through the clouds in mind’s meadow. I felt my head tilt upwards; such a vivid memory. The warmth spread slowly across my body. Maybe this time it would reach the chill within.

I knew Orange was next for his baritone always followed the steady soprano of the sun. The moment Orange began, the wind became dry and, for an instant, I remembered the warmth of the desert. Blue still trickled along the rocks bringing life to Pink. Green burst in and I could see Spring erupt all around me. Purple peeked in long enough for me to smell lavender in bloom. The Painters’ voices began to fade and I saw the sun set over my beloved peaks again.

I kept my eyes shut, desperately clinging to the images, the wind on my face slowly dredging all remainders of the sun and desert wind from my skin. I was cold again. When the last flower faded from my mind I opened my eyes. Or did I? The black was the same as when my eyes were closed so I was never really sure. Awake – asleep – alive – dead – how would I know?

The drip was back. I preferred the sound of water over rocks to that constant time keeper. Time passes differently in the black. I waited for each drop as if waiting for a blow that must come; each caused me both pain and relief. I winced with each plop. Would actually feeling the water bring relief or would being wet have made this unbearable? What if the water stopped? How would I ever know how long I’d been here?

My legs were sore; I had been standing for hours. As much as standing hurt, my fear kept me from walking. I hated sitting but my legs were numb.

I slowly began to lower myself to the cold floor. My hand reached out to find a dry spot to rest in. Nothing but mold, mud and wet moss. My hand landed in something soft and slightly warm. It slipped over my fingers and glued them together with a foul-smelling ooze. I swallowed hard so I wouldn’t vomit again, realizing I had just found the site of my last stomach revolt.

I was paralyzed to move. My hand covered in vomit, my legs aching; I began to shiver. The cold was becoming unbearable. It slipped past the memories of blue skies, clear mountain lakes, and lavender and showed me only the dark cave I feared as a child.

I don’t remember how old I was when I first hiked to the ice cave.  Half-way up the mountain’s face was a cave that never fully melted. We had gone on a picnic one afternoon and followed other adventurers to this spot. My mom and dad helped my younger brother and I scramble the rock slide to reach the cave.

When we reached the mouth I was both fascinated and terrified.  We hadn’t brought a flashlight so we couldn’t go in very far. We explored the mouth of the cave with its towering opening and warm rocks. But despite its height, the crevice was narrow so the sun didn’t reach more than ten or fifteen feet inside. The shadows called me and I ventured beyond the brightness of the sun. As I walked into the shadows, the temperature dropped with each step. Small patches of ice appeared. Without a flashlight it was not safe to go much farther but the lights dancing on the ice walls and floor told us there were brave souls farther in. I wanted to go to them, to explore every hidden thing locked in the stone and the ice, but I could not bring myself to scale the rock wall for fear of falling.

I wandered back towards the mouth of the cave, careful to stay near the edge of the sun. Whenever I stepped in far enough to reach the shadows the breeze shifted and a draft came from inside the cave. It felt like winter.

The rock wall was the secret to the ice. Still in view of the cave’s mouth, the barrier was only a few feet high but it blocked the sun and the summer breezes from ever reaching the deep places within. I knew people who were brave enough to crawl into the unknown, sliding on their bellies when it got too tight for hands and knees, but I never could.

Year after year I returned to that cave with my flashlight, determined to explore it this time and yet I never made it in far enough to need the light. What was in the dark? I’m sure my imagination created things far worse than could have ever been there, yet I remained frozen. I cheated myself out of a mysterious and beautiful world because I was petrified by what might have been. What if it was worse than I imagined? Or what if it was nothing but more rock?

The symmetry of my life sank in and I began to laugh. I’d spent my life dreaming and imagining but never doing. Now that very same thing was both saving me and killing me.

Was I dying in this place? The thought had never before crossed my mind. Dying unknown and unseen in the black; my worst fear realized. I couldn’t be dying, I felt the pain too intensely – my cramped legs, my empty stomach, my swollen tongue, my desperate soul.

Abandoned and alone I collapsed to the stone floor. My knees hit the sharp rocks but I didn’t care. My filthy, sticky hands sank further into the puddle. My forehead hit a soft patch of moss but as I went limp and fell on my side a pile of loose gravel dug into my cheek bone.

My shiver grew into convulsions as I began sobbing, gasping for air. For the first time since I got there I heard my voice. It sounded like the cries of a wounded animal as I tried to scream between the gasps. My throat was raw and my voice raspy. I was yelling so hard there was very little sound. I couldn’t catch my breath; I couldn’t stop the despair that was clawing its way into my soul.

I stopped fighting and Black took hold of my mind. All memories of The Painters seemed to fade. I could no longer see the flowers, the lake, the sun. I couldn’t remember warmth or peace or hope. With Black came only emptiness.

I lay on the floor for hours, or maybe just minutes before I opened my eyes. Had dehydration finally taken over? I knew, for the first time, that my eyes were open because I could see a red tint in the black. The red grew until it became a faint glow.

In all the times I heard The Painters there had never been Red. With the colour came a warmth that began in my core. Never in my life had I felt warmth that moved and grew the way Red did.

Red was different than the others. It began as a single voice, just a glimmer in the distance; so faint I wasn’t even sure it was there. As Red grew, so did the voices; or did the voices come first? It was like listening to a monk’s song.