On the Transient Nature of a Rainbow

A Splash of Colour amongst a Wash of Grey

Having grown up in a place stereotyped as having long, sunny days and weather that was somehow always perfect, it always came as a shock to people that Lilian absolutely despised summertime. Or he thought it would come as a surprise, if the subject ever came up in conversation. 

A temperate climate and countless grey days were actually a couple of reasons why he thought relocation to this soggy island might have been a good thing. It wasn't as cold or as bright as his hometown, but he wasn't so far north he'd freeze in the wintertime. On this day, however, and for the last several days, the hot, cloudless day had been mocking him through the tightly drawn curtains as he hunkered down under his covers. He fucking hated it.

He wasn't some pessimist that hated all the fun that summer brought. No, more like he didn't see the appeal of sweating his ass off while being eaten alive by insects. It was too hot to do anything. With nothing but a sheet on him, it was still too hot to even sleep the day away. 

Judging by the way the sun was glaring intently through the space in between the curtain and the wall and casting a brilliant tangerine glow, it was somewhere between mid to late evening. His back was really starting to argue against spending so long in bed, and he didn't think the queasy feeling in his stomach was going to go away with a few more hours of shut eye. That would've been all too easy. So, with nearly every muscle in his body voicing some sort of protest, Lilian kicked the sheet off and pushed himself in the direction of the kitchen. Luckily the flat was miniscule, so it wasn't all that far away. 

Really, he didn't know what he was expecting. He knew damn well there wasn't much of anything there, save for a few odd ingredients. If he had to eat undercooked spaghetti one more time, he thought he was going to be ill, and that left only one option if he didn't want to be sick from hunger or from eating the same meal.

Lilian would've been a liar if he didn't have some choice words at that moment, but even he realised all the damnation in the world wouldn't solve an empty kitchen. So after pulling on the nearest set of clothes including whatever trousers had his wallet and keys, he was ready to go. After, of course, he'd grabbed his box of pastels and sketchbook. 

By some stroke of luck, it was far cooler outside his flat than inside it. He felt like he could actually breathe out there, and maybe it was because he'd spent the last few days inside, but the air even had a faint scent of rain. Maybe this day wasn't a total waste after all.

Once he decided to let his feet take him wherever, Lilian decided it wasn't all that bad, making it outside and getting a little fresh air. His thoughts wandered just as he did, and he began flicking through his sketchbook to get some ideas of what he wanted to work on.

Once getting to those pale violet irises, he stopped in his tracks. He was vaguely aware of someone bumping into him- and cursing him for it -but he was miles away from that quaint side street. As much as he told himself that he was so low that he'd imagined the whole encounter with that awfully cheerful ghost, whenever he traced the rough, uneven edges of the page that had soaked up all that rainwater, the less he found himself able to explain it away as being a trick of the mind.

And yet it just wasn't right. So much of it made sense, but ghost stories were for tourists. There was no way that what had happened was entirely real. He was going to make sense of it sooner rather than later, if only to preserve his remaining sanity. 

Lilian closed his sketchbook and ducked inside the convenience store he found himself at far too often, the one with shitty wine and even shittier takeaway. More often than not, the flickering fluorescent lighting simply annoyed him, but today it served as a point of reflection. How different things had been before he came, never waiting for the day to end. He wondered if he'd have half the problems he did now if he had stayed in France.