Overture In The Past

Cough. I remove my hand from my mouth…blood. Crimson against my stark white skin. Under the moonlight, my skin emits an ethereal glow. Ghost or angel as the people calls me. I am alone in the park, as I have always been. All my life. Cough. More blood. My head is starting to spin. No, I must wait for her. Just a few more hours. I close my eyes; a familiar tune starts to play in my head. Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Lucide used to play it for me. Nostalgia…1

* * * * *2

I was 16. I looked into my full length Venetian mirror at my reflection. White as alabaster. As always, that was all I could see. From head to toe, I was white. My eyes were a faint tinge of pale blue that peered through white…almost translucent lashes. There was more to being simply colourless when you were an albino. Poor eyesight, hypersensitivity to light and in my case, dyslexic. I was home schooled. I had never have any friends. My teacher did no teach me the things the other kids learn at school. He taught me art and music. His name was Lucide. He taught me how to mix colours. He taught me how to paint the Sun. 3

The Sun, I was obsessed with it. It beckoned my heart but my body repelled it, tearing me apart. Lucide also taught me to play the violin. I sang my soul out with my violin. Thoughts and feelings that I cannot put into words, my violin sang it all. I could not play the piano. I lack the dexterity and I could not read the notes for both hands at once. Dyslexia confined me, forever barred from the world or letters and words. Lucide, I loved him but he left. He did not want me. Nobody did. He only wanted my money that I inherited from father. Yet, I still loved him.4

With the knowledge Lucide gave me, I painted the Sun. I would set my canvas in front of the window in my room and wait for her to rise with all of her golden glory. She blinded me with her light. Everyday, I would paint her. The walls of my mansion were covered with her beautiful face. I lived alone in grandfather's mansion. Daily, a housekeeper would prepare meals and clean the mansion. We never spoke to each other. I did not even know her name, the housekeeper. 5

I never went out in daytime; the Sun that I loved so much burned my skin and blinded me. It was bad enough that my eyesight was poor. I ventured outside in the folds of the night, amongst the moon and the stars. I would walk in the park across my mansion. The moonlight illumined my path. I would smell the flowers. Carnations, gerbera daisies, irises and my favourite, Sunflowers. I would count the stars in the dark sky and gaze at the moon. 6

Sometimes a stray cat or dog would cross my path. They never ran from me. They knew that I was different, unlike the boys who threw rocks and kicked them. Creatures of the night, I was one of them. I would stay until the crack of dawn, to get a glimpse of her, to feel her gentle kiss of life. Golden, so beautiful. I knew that people thought I was a ghost or an angel. One that roams the park in the night. 7

To them, I was a source of fear or hope. They told stories of a red-eyed ghost that loved the flowers but some of them believed I was a fallen angel. My eyes, when light shined on them they seem almost violet because the pale blue of my irises are quite translucent. I hated them, my eyes. From the moment I was born, my appearance alienated me from the rest of the world. 8

Lucide, beautiful Lucide. With his philosophy and art. He was a misanthrope. He craved for wealth and fame. I could only provide him with wealth that he seeks but not fame. He would read me books and poems about philosophy and misanthropy that I knew nothing about. With that crazed look in his eyes he would say, "Isn't it fascinating?" I would smile and nod, then he would continue reading with vigour until his throat went dry. I loved to listen to his voice. It was determined and full of desire. 9

Art was my passion. Lucide would look at me, his eyes soft as I paint the Sun or play the violin. He said that he envied me for I am better at painting than him. It frightened me whenever he voiced his envy. I feared that he might hate me.10

After owning enough money for himself, Lucide left. On my 17th birthday, he brought me a present, a goldfish. He named it Solar. He told me that this was his last time visiting me. I was distraught. I begged him to stay. I said I would give him my entire inheritance to him, I told him that I loved him. He smiled and shook his head. He said, 11

"Nicholas, I don't need you anymore. With the money that I have now I shall go abroad. Just you wait, I'll become famous." 12

Lucide walked towards the door of my mansion and halted. He smiled and embraced me and said;
"No, Nicholas. You don't love me. You're just lonely."
After saying that he walked out of the door. I never saw him again after that. 13

A few months later, I received a package from Lucide. He gave me a violin. His violin. The one that he never let me touch. There was a letter inside the package. The letter was from his lawyer; I was to inherit his violin when he died. Lucide, he killed himself. I felt empty, I did not even cry. I picked up Lucide's violin and played it. The violin screamed and shrieked, reverberating in the mansion.14

I was 18. By then Lucide has become a part of me. A memory forever alive in my heart. I came to resent the world. I came to hate myself. I loved only the Sun and of course Solar, my goldfish. Even though I abhor my empty and lonely life I knew that suicide is not an option. Unlike Lucide, I knew that there is nor grace nor beauty in suicide. I remember that he once read me an excerpt from one of his books; 15

"The light at the end of the tunnel is no shortcut. For it is the 'true' end. One that beckons the confused and desperate; resist the urge. Walk in darkness with your own light. The 'true' light that only lights the path of the good and humble. Lose your sight not your heart. For faith is a gift bestowed by god. Nurture it and it shall guide you, through the darkness." 16

Lucide found it ridiculous but it bore some significance to me. I lived for Lucide and for myself. Until I exhaust the last flicker of lifein my body, I would paint the Sun. My beautiful, immortal Sun.17

I started to take Solar with me during my night time walks. While I clutched Solar's bowl, I would smell the flowers and gaze at the stars. One day, while I painted the Sun from my window, I saw a girl. She was around my age, with waist length golden hair that shone gold under the sunlight. She was walking her golden retriever in the park. I started to paint the girl and her dog with the Sun in the background everyday. Her name was Gloria. She had just moved into town. 18

I asked the gardener that tended the flowers in the park. It was my first time talking to a person other than Lucide, in broad daylight.I wore a trench coat and a hat to protect my skin. I had some difficulty seeing though. I had never been awake when the Sun was that high in the sky! It was intoxicating, I was positively euphoric! The gardener said that he knew I was not a ghost. That occasionally, I would walk in the park and smell the flowers with my goldfish. I was genuinely happy for the first time since Lucide left me. Gloria, I fell in love with her.19

It was short lived though, my feelings of love for Gloria. One day, she stopped walking her dog in the park. As sudden as she appeared, she vanished. The gardener, he died. I saw his funeral through my window. People from the whole town came to his funeral. He was buried in the park that he loved so much. I was never to know of what happened to Gloria. Before long, the flowers withered and died. 20

Again, I was plunged into a bottomless abyss of despair. I fell ill. This was when the coughing started. I felt feverish almost constantly but it did not stop me from painting the Sun and take walks in the park. The flowers, they started to bloom again. The townsfolk must have hired a new gardener. I visited the gardener's grave whenever I walked in the park. For a moment, I was delighted. That is, until I became too sick to walk in the cold night. Being unable to feel the soft breeze on my skin and smell the beautiful flowers, it broke my heart, whatever that was left of it anyway.21

A few weeks later I got a little better, I went out for a walk in the park with Solar. I could still remember; it was a beautiful night, a full moon. Whenever I look at the moon it felt like I was looking at my reflection. So white and alone, in the vast and dark sky. I felt sorry for it. As I smell the flowers I saw a cocoon under one of the green leaves, a Butterfly's cocoon. 22

The butterfly was halfway out from the cocoon. I wished I could metamorphose like a butterfly. To emerge from my white skin as a normal person. With coloured skin, eyes and hair. I went to bed after painting the sun. I dreamt a witch cursed me. I was cocooned with silk, suspended in a dense forest of wild roses with huge thorns. Then, Lucide came. He was a prince; he managed to get through the roses and saved me. The silk cocoon fell from my shoulders and there I was, coloured. My curly hair was jet black and I had green eyes. My skin, it was the colour of cream, not white. Lucide took my hand and we left the forest.23

I was 19. I never got well since I fell ill when the gardener died. Coughing and breathing, I can barely distinguish them by then. Initially I only coughed phlegm but then, the phlegm…it was flecked with blood. I knew that I ought to visit the hospital nearby but I refused to do so. I had been to the hospital once. It was when mother died. The barenness of the white walls terrified me. Everything was white. Like me. The pillows, sheets, floor even the lights, was white. The hospital stank of death and disease. The air was thick with despair and moans of pain. I did not want to go there again, ever.24

The Sun, she is immortal, omnipotent. Bathing the earth with its warm golden rays. Sometimes I wished I had wings, I wished I can fly like the butterfly, to be as near as possible to her beautiful face in the heavens above. My mansion is littered with countless paintings of the Sun. I forbade the housekeeper from throwing my paintings away. There was no more space for my paintings to hang on the walls of my mansion. I started to stack them. 25

In the evenings, I would play my violin, Lucide's violin. I would court her, the Sun. I would sleep in the afternoons for I shall wake up at dusk and sleep at dawn after painting her. I could not remember when I became nocturnal. Perhaps, it was after Lucide left. When there was no reason for me to stay awake anymore. Without Lucide, being awake in the daytime was agony, tortured by my memories of him and my longing for the Sun when she was at her brightest.26

Solar symbolized the Sun and Lucide's departure. I understood what it was like to be confined in a bowl. I used to talk to Solar. I told Solar a lot of things. I told Solar of my dreams and nightmares. I told Solar that I missed Lucide. Solar would swim round and round her bowl, never blinking. Quiet and understanding. It felt like she was listening to me even though she was merely a goldfish swimming in her bowl. 27

My coughs started to be accompanied by larger amount of blood. I knew. I knew that I had tuberculosis. I think I contracted it from the gardener because he was the last person I came in contact with before I fell ill. He probably died from tuberculosis, the gardener. It was strange, I did not felt sad or anything of the like. I knew I was dying yet it does not hit me, the gravity of the situation. I suppose it was because secretly I actually wished to die. I do not wish to commit suicide though. I wanted to die like a normal person, out of illness, accidents or maybe even old age. I doubt that I can remain sane through out my dark life of solitude. A grim wish it may be but it was my only wish that is going to be granted. 28

Aware that my time was running out, I painted the Sun until I ran out of my remaining paints. I played the violin until my hands bleed. I wanted to scream out. I wanted the whole world to know that I was going. I dread to think that my departure would be of me, in bed, alone in the dark. No. No. No.29

* * * * *30

I open my eyes. The tune has come to an end, so did my pitiful reminiscing. Cough. Cough. Blood. My head starts to spin again. Today, they will see the ghost or fallen angel as some of them believed die. Maybe I would become a real ghost or angel. I hope not. Suddenly, I feel some warmth seep into my skin. Yes…yes! She has come! The Sun! She is rising. Cough. Her light blinds me, pieces of my past flash in mind. Lucide. Love. Despair. Solar. Flowers. The park. The gardener. Gloria. Happiness. Death. The Sun. The Sun. The Sun. The Sun. The Sun. Cough. I cannot breathe. I am dying…The Sun.31

One32

I'm the only one,33

With none by my side,34

The one that's alone,35

Without a guide.36

I'm the only one,37

Who is shunned by the crowd,38

Without a loved one,39

Alone in a crowd.40

-Nicholas-