To be Free as a Bird

Davides Beach- Midnight

Sweat dripped down my ghostly pale face, and I held back a string of choking coughs. I stared wide-eyed at the delicate white paper as it fluttered to the cold tile from my shaking hands. After a full minute of shock I filled my gasping lungs with much needed air. At the same time, my legs gave out underneath me, and I collapsed the freezing floor holding my head in my hands.

The pounding in my skull echoed throughout my head as I desperately tried to make sense of the situation this mysterious man had forced me into. I had taken all the precautions to make sure no one had discovered my plan, yet this man claims to know all of them.

I staggered to my feet and shakily walked over to the counter and sat down on the lone rusty bar stool. It creaked and groaned under my weight, however it faithfully held its ground and remained standing. I took a deep breath and attempted to calm my rapidly beating heart before I tried to do anything else.

After minutes of calming myself down and rereading the blackmail letter, I walked out of my small kitchenette and down the short hallway to the only closet in my small 200 square foot house. The door rasped as I opened it, revealing a room that could hardly be considered a closet. In the small room there were lines, wooden planks, a tarp, a small black box, and canvas. The closet had no organization whatsoever, with wooden planks thrown all over, and torn canvas littering the floor, a fine layer of dust resided over all of the contents.

I carefully picked up the small black tackle box and a roll of blank canvas. Carefully shutting the door to the closet, I meandered out of the small house and out to the patio. The once bright green grass was a dull color in the shade of three magnolia trees. The newly bloomed petals, which were a beautiful shade of pink lace, rustled in the wind and fluttered down to the thriving grass.

I quietly sat down in the old, beat up, beach chair and placed the black tackle box and canvas on the weatherworn table. I slowly opened the box and pulled out powdered minerals, all of which were different shades of reds, yellows and blues. I carefully started mixing more complicated shades of violet, orange, black, and white.

I started painting.

Painting had been a passion ever since I can remember, so it wasn't a surprise I was able to make a living in the critical art world. Many of my paintings were bought by government officials and the few tourists who were let into the country. I believed I would be able to live my life peacefully in the beautiful country which I had grown to love over the years. However once my brother, whom I considered a best friend, was shot and killed in front of "el paredón" my life had grown cold, I could not longer do what I loved because every action reminded me of my dead sibling. The brother that I failed to protect.

I silently gripped my brush and dipped it into the Crimson paint. I absentmindedly spread the red paint over the white canvas, reliving the memories I made with my best friend, my brother. The first time we began painting, to the time we climbed the tallest magnolia tree in our town. As past memories and experience flowed through my brain, my brush drifted to the Violet's and indigos, to oranges and yellows. Eventually, a dusk sky replaced the once blank canvas, black trees dotted the skyline and two white birds flew higher than the clouds.

The colors screamed despair, but the piece held a sense of calmness, something that could not be explained to anyone else. Not a fellow artist nor a teacher. My eyes watered at the familiarity of the two birds in the sky.

One was flying high, soaring above all of the trees and despair of the ground. This bird possessed a free spirit that only wished to fly through the air.

The second bird was falling out of the sky towards the mass of black trees. It's wings broken, never again to be repaired. I coughed violently as I realized what my brain had been trying to tell me. How, despite the colors, the painting had a calming feeling on my distraught mind.

My brother and I, Me and my brother. I slumped down in the dull white chair that I had been sitting on for the past couple of hours. The noon sun had sunk to the horizon and was now disappearing until it would reappear once again at dawn. The sun sank down below the water's edge, bringing the last ray of light with it. As the sun disappeared my eyes fluttered close on the 3rd of May, 1976.

And I did not wake up in this world again.

Author notes:
[in this context]

Red: a color meaning warning, danger, or anger
Orange: a color meaning sluggishness
Yellow: a color meaning instability
Purple: a color meaning moodiness or mysterious
Black: a color meaning death or evil
White: a color meaning purity, goodness, or protection
El paredón: this is a wall where Fidel Castro is known for having prisoners or enemies of the country shot and killed by a firing squad.
Cuban Magnolia trees: trees native to Cuba