Watercolor Water and Holy Fire

Elio Mikoi

When I was a kid, people wanted me to grow fast. And then, she wanted me to slow down. 

When I was a kid, mother and father told me to be this vision of a holy woman. The one who lives without a sin. The one who marries a man and has kids, to serve and to be submissive. The one who's always porcelain and delicate, who sits prettily to please people. Stay and be a fool to please the crowd of men wanting to woo you around. Mother told me to never touch the fire or else I would get burned and my skin would tear open, revealing the red flesh of the soul—touch the fire or else you will get burned to the ground. I didn't know that the fire would continue burning when it caught the tiny part of the white cuffs of my dress. The fire burned, but mother lied. The fire burned and it felt good. 

Father wanted me to grow up. Father wanted me to be a woman at the fine age of nine. Father wanted me to be like Mother. Mother wanted me to be like Father. But all I wanted to do was go to the nearby playground and drink the watercolor water that I had used to create my latest masterpiece. Youth came so fast with the fascination of every single juvenile summer memory that I spent locked up in my own room, wishing for it to become a forest so I could run freely and never turn back. But a voice would always come to ask me personally—tell us,why do you want to run and yet still be afraid? 

The watercolor water stained my mouth and dripped down to my clothes. That morning, Mother scolded me for ruining my dress, so I got a time out. She told me to reflect, but the light in my room did a better job. Watercolor water has never tasted better. The wildfire continued burning from my cuffs up to the cloth covering my arm.

What's the hurry, dear fire? Who are you trying to satisfy? I think you better cool it off before the cloth runs out. 

The watercolor water continued dripping on my shirt until the wildfire flickered, almost got caught, and folded in shame. Almost out, but still raging silently inside. I tried scrubbing the stain, I started putting off the fire. My knuckles went raw and my tears dried on their own. But they stayed. They stayed until I turned 18. Each day, I’d look at the dress slowly getting eaten by the fire—the sleeves have been cut, turned to dust, or scrubbed to death—it doesn't matter. I looked at the dress that was no longer white. The voice came back before I left home—you're moving out today, why are you still so afraid? Mother cried as she hugged me, possibly for the last time. Father swallowed his emotions and let the heavy musk of his masculinity take over him like a black shroud. I waved goodbye, with my hands filled with the baggage of each autumn that went by as I stomped on the brown paper leaves in my room. 

I went to the bridge at Sheffield Park where a foolish man once wrote "Will you marry me?" and never got an answer. I looked down below. I looked up, and let the warm wind sweep over my body. I heard steps right beside me and a voice—slow down, you're a crazy child. It felt harsh. But truth be told, it almost felt like a warm cup of milk. I caught sight of the wide eyes of a lost child stuck in a body she didn't ask for, of a redhead in a yellow cardigan despite the sweat beading all over her cheeks, of the new article of clothing I'd worn since the white Sunday church dress nine years ago. 

We sat down, and we talked about our histories. And there was passion, amplifying as the seconds went by. She told me I got my pride from a scared little boy. The phone in the nearest phone booth below rang from meters away. I felt the urge to take it and say hello, hoping that they now wanted me back at home. Mother, I'm scared, this reality feels like a fever dream. Father, take me back to our house even though it never felt like a home. The phone fell from its hook and she whispered close behind—Take a step back and disappear for a while… surely you can afford to lose a day, or two, or more. The world out there had a whole lot of gardens. The people stood still, slept, or sat alone in the garden beds, waiting for their time to bloom. But yesterday, a flower withered between the pages of 17 and 18. It was strange to look in the mirror and see that I was just a kid swallowing watercolor water to keep myself from withering like a madman on my bed, and now I have to pretend to be one of the flowers and dance on my tiptoes. But the woman beside me wrapped her yellow cardigan over my shoulders when I first took a great leap— she grabbed the autumn baggage. 

Mother, Father, I can't stop the fire from burning nor the watercolor water from dripping. Sweet summer has come with the gift of longing for the sensual touch of a loutish lover—treat her kindly. This, the greatest sin I could commit that would lead me to my first destruction. Even if this made me a fool, at least the eternal chaos would make me human. Only then would I finally be unclean. 

The red pick-up truck felt like a small utopia where I collided head first. The seat of the car caressed my body like the softest cloud from the sky, where the angels have walked and watered them to keep their plumpness before our eyes. I jumped up and down like a little kid, a first time adult. I looked over to my side and saw her wearing a peach summer dress. I was afraid to ask her if she’s cold. Were her shoulders too brittle against the air? But the cardigan smelled of her. It smelled like the wild dreams of a feverish child, the lucid dreams of a wandering soul, the dark and heavy dreams of a sleep paralytic. The cardigan smelled like the saccharine stages of her life. 

This both came as a surprise and a pleasure. To be sitting there with a stranger whose beauty I couldn’t conquer by half or more, was to be sitting at the edge of the line. It was the beginning of this journey that felt too hot to touch. Or maybe it was just the accidental touch of her soft and febrile skin against mine. And it felt as if I had been electrocuted by a god and everything that was once broken and despicable from the blue shades of crayons had forgotten their emptiness. The road had never felt longer than the journey from school back to our house. There was music, and there were people from both sides of the road walking towards nowhere. They all felt young and alive, even those who were walking too slowly, all wrinkly and forgotten by history. We were driving in her car, and this felt like home. I never wanted to go back to that house because it felt like I was not welcome any more. 

I was so high and happy from the haze of the afternoon bliss that I never saw her eyes watching me. Maybe it was her way of saying something—you’ve been in this truck so long that the natural embarrassment has come back. But she smiled, and it felt reckless, like she was not holding back from the stranger beside her. The cardigan suits you, I think you should keep it, she said. The sun was on my side, and I’d never felt any more thankful. She told me she only loved two things: the yellow cardigan and anyone who looked good while dressed in the worst lemon-colored clothes. At that moment, I didn’t care whether we ran through a tree, or whether another bus or an eight-wheeler truck crashed into us. I didn’t know her name, but I knew that it would be too heavenly to die by her side. I looked back at her and I felt the undeniable rush of madness as we passed a dark underpass and Bowie played on repeat. The chance had finally come at last. She saw my euphoria and spoke—go on, stand up, let the wind blow you away to god knows where. A strange fear crept up on me as my knees buckled from where I stood on my seat. 

And I shouted, and I screamed. And no one could hear me but the blurry lights from my astigmatism. Life had never been this good. Life was too good right then. I wanted to ask her to join but I just couldn't. I shouted for her until my throat hurt and my lungs were all rugged out, but Bowie was still singing his song, so I continued. Maybe all that I was thinking was that life was good, and I wanted to scream all the miseries out, and I wanted to dance all alone-with her. Maybe I wanted to fly, and maybe I wanted to kiss the girl beside me but I didn’t know her name. I was scared that she would run away. I wanted to kiss her like heaven wouldn’t fall upon me, just for one day. Maybe I was just hanging by the line but I didn’t want to lose a single thread from that intricate brocade that was barricading me from thinking about the solitary days of autumn. 

I think her name was Summer, I don’t know, I'm not sure. But her lips tasted like dewdrops. I remember seeing her face, and I wanted to kiss her. It was a sudden urge. I don't know if it was the result of displacement, or of finding a new place. Now, I feel as if I belong, but also I don't. There's a need to join someone, my excitement for new experiences, the need for love. Maybe this is the consequence of grieving, from being away from my home—a house with people who were, by then, as distant to me as the midnight skies. I have a vision of ivory skin, succulent scent, freckles, and beauty inside that pick-up truck. That was the start of our private universe where I would drive and she would sing her heart out to the Bowie song as we passed the tunnel. Where we didn't discuss what we were, where we were. And that was enough. 

Sometimes I wonder if her attraction to me was only because I was the only one around who looked as lost as she was in this world. A release of some sort. A comfort that she didn't have to be alone. But some nights we would go on double-dates, snog other people, and hurriedly come back home in each other's arms, as if it was the most normal thing to do in order to end an evening, like a shared cup of tea. Is it love that we had? Yes, maybe by then. But compartmentalizing it was irrelevant. We had each other, we loved each other and neither one of us wanted more.

One time, it was Valentine's day, and out of sheer luck from my journalist work, I was tasked with going on a short trip to Italy for a week. I told her and she thought I was joking, but she jumped around when she realized I wasn't. The excitement of traveling churned in my stomach and the urge to kiss her too, but I couldn't. When Italy came within our reach, I remember the smell of the grapevines crawling like little snakes all over the place, and the peaches growing healthily. The villa was more than enough for two people. We looked all over the place in a comforting silence. Our home for the next seven days. Our mouths were silenced by the intense colour of the skies. She remembered the blue watercolor from her mouth. 

We'd never seen anything more beautiful before. That brief time came, a moment of authenticity when dreams and reality collided, showing that not everything was possible and impossible and some things were just an arm's reach from where we were standing. And I fell in love with the girl beside me, madly, intoxicatingly, like the bottle of pastis by the small terracotta table. I think she may have, too. Even just for a moment. I hoped. But I never really heard anything from her. I never really knew. On some days, we would cycle all over northern Italy while playfully holding hands, even though the angry taxi drivers would honk their horns because we were taking up space. But we would just laugh like little kids. At the villa, we left our bicycles at the side of the house, and the caretaker would take care of them the next day. The stairs were silently agonizing, the wooden floors were creaking, but we were so alone together. The shutters were closed, and the moonlight danced freely inside our room. We were behaving like strangers. I was so nervous I could barely swallow. I parted my lips to say what I wanted to say but her lips found mine first. That was when I realized we were two people unsure of what to do but relied only on what our hearts begged for us to do by instinct. 

I was afraid that when the morning came, she would wonder what she had become that night. Would she feel shame and anxiety creeping inside of her? Or the creeping shadows of her father, who wanted her to be her mother? Or the silent cries of her mother ordering her to kneel and beg for forgiveness? I knew all of these things because I knew her. And there she was bewildered and breathing hard, but I didn't let her. She was amazing, and beautiful. I wanted to cry as I traced the soft browns on her torso. It was hard to breathe, lying next to a person who was so close but far out of reach. 

At last,that morning came. No one was moving to pack our things. We stayed silent and dislocated from the reality that this was now. She hadn't packed her things yet. I told her that we could live here. She could become an artist and use her watercolors, while I could write and publish my works. In the last 24 hours, when the walls of the room were breached open by an unknown wind, we gave each other courage to properly build it up again. We imagined our life in this province surrounded by tuberose, and peaches, and hanging vines. And life. 

She stood up and started packing. Her eyes were red as she folded the dirty clothes and the dirty towels. I wanted to scream and howl and stop her hands from moving. I wanted to hold her where she was standing until the plane had left. But I couldn't. And I remembered thinking how cruel our fates and our plans must be. They are out there somewhere, floating across the sky, and not long from that moment, they will burst, and never to be found again. Another version of our future, another version of ourselves, another chance for us, in a perpetual orbit, in another universe. 

In the warmth of the day, she dropped her hand close to mine, and I couldn't bring myself to touch it. But I reached up and held it. We'll be okay, right? Nothing will change? I asked. Whatever we are, wherever we are, we'll be okay. 

Every day I will go back to that dark tunnel with Bowie's song playing. I will look at my side and see the yellow cardigan that she handed me once we stepped off the plane. It's like a goodbye, a thank you. I wanted to say that it was hers, tell her to keep it, but I couldn't. Every time I go there, I remember the breeze of Crema, the sound of our drunken laughter, the saltiness of the sea, and the taste of peaches and cream, the toxicity of 50-year-old wines, and the taste of her skin, and the sky's always so blue in that place that it could defy anything else to be blue again. 

And I will remember the look of happiness on the face of the girl, and I will remember my love and admiration for her that almost made everything so normal, so possible, that it hurt. The darkness of the tunnel would end, and I would look up at the sky. They've always been gray since I came back. What happened to them? What happened to us? 

We hadn't seen each other for a while when we came back to the city. We had both suffered, but differently. The doorbell of the house that used to be a home rang, and she was standing in front of me with that wicked smile. I'll go if you still want me to, she said. She had only just arrived, but any time with her felt right. Before I could even say more, I felt her arms around me. And everything she could have said during that time in Italy was said at that moment. And that was enough. I know, I whispered. I knew that I wasn't the key to unlock the piece of her that she was not ready to give to anyone but him. He'd come later, behind her. There was an air of familiarity between them, and it felt too sacred to be broken, and I knew that they'd already kissed like we once did. And his eyes looked like powder puff blues, and I knew that I'd have trouble with those eyes. They would give me nightmares. If this was a dream, I wanted to wake up, please. I didn’t want to keep sleeping because I needed time to figure out what to say when she would utter his name. I knew that he was the key to her lock, and I just needed time. 

We had our time. She had hers. But I never had mine. But maybe just like the collision between the dream and the fate of the crowd, we could be anywhere. We could. But my heart will sometimes fail to beat, and I’ll lay til what feels like the doomsday. I'm scared. And there I am again, eighteen again, writing poems for the wrong people. O Captain! My Captain! O starless nights. O bitter dreams. O salty seas of Italy. Sometimes I feel like drowning back in that blue sea. And I haven't cried. But everything feels so heavy and shameful. It feels like my veins are leaking a thousand red tears, my body is overwhelmed. And I'm drowning, I'm drowning in the sea of sorrow. I go back to the start, I go back to the tunnel to do something enjoyable. It feels like a “fuck it” to the world. It feels so heavy and cold, and I'm shivering and it felt so fucking normal, it hurt. And I saw the yellow cardigan. I'm out and I'm having the worst of it. All I needed was time. 

Stage of grief number one, denial. I never needed time. I'm mourning the love I thought I found, but all that time was non-existent. I stand in the field of paper maple leaves and I think of many things that are her, and I'm starting to hurt all over again, and the pain is too distinct. What did you see with these leaves, winter? What happiness did you see with these leaves in your room? I was once found, but I got lost trying to help another lost flower be found. 

We were all so much more than this once, but I never grew to hate her. How could I hate her? She was so beautiful and it's making me cry. Sometimes I still come back to Italy on Valentine's Day with only the yellow cardigan beside me, the only memory of her before it all ended. Summer chased Winter, but she melted trying to catch a love that wasn't for her. Spring chased Autumn, but she withered before the first light of the day. Summer got cold, but Winter stayed warm. Sometimes I think about that week we spent together, and I think that I will never meet anyone like her again, and I don't want to feel like this for anyone again, and in that knowledge I know, it was love. 

I searched for light and sun and found both.