Suicide Helpline

b l a c k

Shane had decided that if he were a form of paint, he would be black. He had persistently studied the colour, fascinated with the shade of darkness that represented him so well. This, of course, had led to him learning the full definition of the word off by heart.

The dictionary, being the dictionary, had arranged this particular definition in such an elaborate way that it made something as simple as a colour become fascinating. "Of the very darkest colour owing to the absence of or complete absorption of light." How was it that words were capable of somehow twisting their letters in order to create something beautiful out of nothing but darkness?

And then there was the problem with the meaning of words. Shane had taken the time to memorise every possible definition of the word 'black' (there were at least five). There were black pigments, the black race and even black as a verb.

Each definition was referring to something that had an element of disaster tied in with it and yet words continued to warp the awful meaning that lay beneath the blanket of pretty sentences. The colour black always seemed to be associated with something awful, rejected by all of the blinding colours that surrounded it.

For starters, there was the awful discrimination of race in which no words could describe the horrors. In Shane's opinion, black was a colour always wrongly judged, whether it be the word itself, a dark stain or an actual human being. It was in the definition itself, "complete absorption of light." Last time he had checked Light could extinguish Darkness just as easily. If anything, Light was crueller to Darkness. Why was it permanently written in the script that darkness was doomed to lose? What was so wrong with the colour black that it was associated with everything evil? What was stopping the simple-minded people from looking past the colour itself and into what lay behind it?

Technically, black was not even a colour. Contrasting to white which was all colours at full brightness, black absorbed all colours and reflected nothing back to the eye. In short, a man like himself who believed himself to have a metaphorical black soul, absorbed everything around him. He absorbed the sadness, the sorrow, the joy, the tears, the victories, the tragedies and despair and never reflected it back. A black soul absorbs the disaster around it but never exploits it, thus causing the darkness to get bottled up inside the human body, dark emotions churning and growing with every new devastation. Always absorbing, never reflecting. With no ability to reflect, the darkness can do nothing but continue to evolve and take over the human mind. Always growing. Always growing until there is no room for anything else.

If Shane thought of his life as a canvas all he could see were the giant blotches of black that lay on it. It was not a full picture, simply a huge, ugly mess. He did know not how to be precise with the black paint he possessed. 

He watched the retreating figure of Cleopatra Quinn with that same sense of black.

He was beginning to see that a picture could not be painted with one, sole, colour be it black, white or any other colour in the spectrum. However, with the colours a certain someone brought to the palette he was less of a mess and more of a masterpiece.

At least, in her eyes.

Sometimes Shane wished he could look in the mirror and see what she saw. From the way she looked at him, anyone would have thought she was looking at the perfect guy. A perfect guy with no problems whatsoever. That was the kind of guy that could love her unconditionally without messing up her portrait in the process. That was the kind of guy that was easy to love. She looked at him as if he was that guy. The guy who could paint her life over in the kind of glossy way that varnish could. The kind of guy who wouldn't give her a whitewash in black. A whitewash in black that acted as some sort of corrosive acid.

In her eyes, he was that perfect guy. But he wasn't. He knew he wasn't. Surely, she had to know that? How could she look at him and see any other colour than black? Or maybe, perhaps, that was exactly what she saw. Black. Perhaps there was a slight possibility that she was that one sliver of the population who did not take black for evil. What kind of luck was that? Not good luck. Perfect luck. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. He had found the one person who had realised that it was the darkness that held the shining stars and light that wiped them out of the sky.

Just as it was impossible to paint a canvas with one colour, it was impossible to live life alone. It just so happened that he had been blessed enough to find the colours that contrasted beautifully with his darkness.

So, as he was driven away on that cold winter night, he vowed to add as much colour to his canvas as he could before his thread was cut short.