Life in Paintings

Chapter 45 - White on White

Chapter 45 – White on White

I wake up in the next painting feeling blinded automatically.

Absolutely everything around me is white. I'm in an entirely white painting.

I look at my hands, worried that I'll be one with this painting and then my body will not be there either, but I can see them. Or at least I think I can.

Some moments I feel like I can see my hands and some where I can't. This is honestly so strange.

Is this how I turn mad?

I get up on my feet and I look around me, but I can't even tell if I moved at all.

I don't know where this painting begins or if it ends.

I have no concept of passing time and no marker to find my way.

It's not like I can follow any kind of road to get out of this white nightmare.

This is just me and nothing.

How do I get out of here?

I can't kill myself, there's nothing sharp, or nothing I can jump off of, or hurt myself with.

Next option is to fall asleep, but I don't think I can fall asleep like this. Even if I close my eyes, the light coming off the whole white space is seared in my eyelids.

I start walking. I keep feeling like I'm going to hit a wall, but I never do.

For all I know, I could be walking in circles.

I can't believe I'm stuck in one of these all-one-color paintings. I never saw the point of them. Now I know. They're a form of torture.

This is probably what it feels like to be in solitary. I hate it. I can see how people would go mad.

I've been walking for... I don't even know. It could be five minutes and it could be five hours.

My legs are getting a little tired.

I remember seeing this movie where the lady hit her head against a pole to kill herself. Maybe I can hit my head against the ground hard enough.

But when sit down to do it, it's like this whole world shifts, and the ground is against the sole of my feet again.

Alright, so not an option.

I sit again, but this time I cross my legs and I try to meditate.

I try to clear my head of everything and just fix my mind on my breathing.

I can't stay here forever. Eventually I'm going to have to get out.

I need to find Gustave again...

My eyes fill with tears thinking about him.

I hope he's with his family now.

I should hope he moves on from me, and builds a life for himself without me in it. It would be better for him.

But thinking that makes me bawl.

And I'm all alone in this place, so I let out my loud cries echo through the nothingness.

It would be easier for both of us if we'd never met each other.

But god, I don't want an easy life if Gustave can't be in it.

I cry some more.

It's useless to think about any of this because I might never see him again.

This makes me cry more again.

I feel like I've been here for days and crying for just as long.

I just know that the crying gets to be too much at some point and I feel like I'm suffocating in this place, like it's closing down on me and I'm panicking and hyperventilating enough that I end up passing out.