A Story (Where The Colors Dwell - 5)

…The echoes I felt while gazing into him. They paint a story so profound that a couple of eternities wouldn’t be enough to rummage the bottom of it; Profound enough for all to relate within seconds of it. A story filled with colors, and love.

Scene 1: Hard times

Year 12

“Take a seat.” he patted the soil for how good it’s been to us.

“Let me tell you a story” he said, as I sat next to him.

The man’s slender shadow shielded my frail limbs from the scorching sun. The cracks on my lips finally took a break from their journey, and kind as I am, thought well of providing them with a moist sip of air for ventilation. I turned my protruding eyes towards the man at my side. The contours of his face radiated a story from unknown lands, far away into the distance. He seemed weak, however. Weaker than usual.

“You need not speak a word!” is a phrase that I couldn’t utter no matter how hard I tried. The palm of his hand caressed my dry scalp as he laid eyes on the horizon, where we could see the fainting daylight.

“Can you see these colors?” The man asked.

I remained silent.

A few moments had passed when the man decided to set his gaze upon me. The lines on his face blended with the darkness in ways that hid their deformities and the torment they traced. His visage grew opaque as he leaned towards me. I kept my eyes wide open.

Scene 2: The depths of the shallow

Year 13

My sweat was now running down my bones. These knees of mine had dropped to the dirt, near a shallow water crevasse. The body of the man had not moved in prolonged moments, but his delicate breath kept the back of my neck ablaze. I wormed my way to the waters, where my thirst was quenched, but my neck left cold. And so, I screamed at the shallow, using all the dried air my lungs had stored up, as well as what they hadn’t. The ripples born from my cries deformed the man’s reflection until he was no longer unrecognizable. I could not bring myself to grieve, so I reached out to him through the water; And fell into its depths. Everything went dark.

Scene 3: If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you

Year 79

At long last, the tool that had been lying on the ground for many moments now was deemed a worthy shelter by the vermin. My days of tilling the ground were over and my hoe could hardly bear the pain of separation, which explains its firm embrace of the soil. I began to feel; Though harsh in its early years, this life of mine was long and fulfilling. That is when the boy came running on his small and shaky legs; Clumsily making his way to my collapsed body.

“Slow down, you wouldn’t want these protruding eyes of yours to fall out!” is a phrase that I couldn’t utter no matter how hard I tried. I was scared; Scared that my eyes would shut twice, but only open once; Scared that the boy might be left exposed to the bright light of the horizon, like I once was.

“You need not speak a word!” The boy anxiously shouted.

The boy’s oval shadow shielded my wrinkled face from the scorching sun. I wondered if he could see these lines on my face, because somehow, I could see the ones on his. The shadows had freshly swallowed his young visage in a desperate attempt to hide from the heat. My prolonged gaze slowly unveiled sights of a nostalgic water crevasse, whose bed had come to hug me at last. But all I could do was stare at its surface, as it reflected the man’s face in the shallow. He was looking back at me, just as the boy was. Right then, I grieved. Daylight had never been so colorful. And so, I wanted to tell him; I wanted to tell the boy a story. A story about…