WHITE
I close my eyes, see the hair. Plastered in a swirl of thalo blue, too short and black to be mine, too long to fall from the brush. I remember tapping ash from my Camel, wondering who trespassed my studio. I reached for that hair and my arm went numb, the air zagged white, and out the window fog huddled grey over the sound. I crumpled on the paint-spattered floor, counting cigarettes and brushes rolled under the easel, the shadows passing.
Now the world is blank canvas — the shades open, the sun pours in, harsh titanium. The television murmurs too low to hear, too loud to think. Nurses turn me, rub my pale unfeeling feet and arms and backside, and swaddle me again in brilliant sheets.
My son comes. I smile but he cannot see it. No one can. He sits by the bed and cradles my hand, stroking the parchment that stitches me together the way the nurses do, but longer, with smaller, tighter circles. He talks to fill in the space, more than he ever talked to me before, and I blink fast. A single tear squeezes past, and I wish I could feel it slide hot and wet down my cheek. His hand reaches. “Oh Mom” he says, and peters out of words, my poet son. I close my eyes, see the hair.
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Author's Note
Other stories by Linda Simoni-Wastila
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Let me be the first to call this beautiful. A perfect confusion. A delicate, primal emotion. Speaks novels in a few words.
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Beautiful and sad, Linda, White, the presence of all color, is a perfect title for this, too. *
This is a great addition to your color sketches. It's beautiful and painful in that way only you can do. And I love the way you fold it over with the repeated line,like the woman, mute, rolled over in bed by the attendants, in white sheets like a mummy.
Good piece of writing, Linda. The imagery here is very strong.
Lovely poetic prose with so much color, and a great contrast with your choice of symbolic title.
Powerful. A chilling work of imagination. Brings back some nightmarish memories.
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Dear all, thank you for the kind words and faves on WHITE. I've been traveling and just back, and am humbled by your comments. Peace...
You have captured here my worst nightmare-- on several levels.
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Susan, thank you for the kind words and star for WHITE. My nightmare, too. Peace...
First off, let me just say that I have a "thing" for pieces that come full circle, and this one certainly does that by starting and ending on the same phrase. I also like the metaphors you use in places, such as:
"Now the world is blank canvas — the shades open, the sun pours in, harsh titanium. "
Along with the thalo blue hair, the "whiteness" of the air, and the gray fog, this creates a very vivid picture in the mind (or, if not picture, then trail of colors/emotional resonances). Nicely done and, as others have noted, somewhat "dark" as well.