How things …

It was a damp and dark room. An old dirty carpet covered the floor. I adjusted my spectacles, sipped some hot black tea and yawned. I’d been reading for a while and was tired.

She was standing beside me. I haven’t a clue as to when she came in or how long she’d been standing there. I turned and looked at her. She was standing slightly bent, peering into my laptop screen. She turned to look at me. I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes and raised my eyebrows and waited for her to speak. She gestured and asked me to move a bit. There was space only for one person to sit on that chair. I let a breath out, closed my laptop lid and moved enough to let her sit. She sat. I felt bad that I wasn’t smelling better.

We sat quietly for a while. She smelt really good. She looked a little displeased. She got up and switched the light on. One could now see the patchy dirty walls. She looked around the room. Then she looked at me. I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes and shrugged.

She opened her bag and took out a bucket of paint. She opened the bucket lid and splashed the paint on one of the walls. She took another bucket out of her bag, opened that one and splashed it on one of the walls. This was a different colour. She did this for a while; she seemed to have a lot of paints. Occasionally she’d use a brush or a roller on the walls. It seemed like she used a lot of paint, the excess paint being absorbed by the carpet. She painted all the walls and the roof, and in a million different colours. It looked like a confused cloudy sunset of red and purple, but also like a stormy sea of blue and green, and a  special sunday desert varnished with orange and brown, and like wedding jewelery in gold and silver, and like music with colours I don’t know the name of, with gradients, and shapes and trees and mountains, and empty space and stars.

She stood there. Little bits of colour on her apple smooth hands. A slight tilt of her head accenting her uneven jaw.  She looked around, content that she had done a good job.

She pulled the carpet out, dragged it with her as she left.  She came back with a new carpet, a soft white furry carpet. She was wearing a new set of clothes. The paint marks were gone. Her pencil straight jet black hair looked freshly combed. She laid the carpet.

She looked around and smiled some more. Her glow compensated for the light that my single incandescent bulb should have given, but that poor old blackened thing didn’t stand a chance. She looked at my light bulb, and frowned. She got a ladder, got up, took the light out and left. It was dark. After a while, I could her foot steps and some activity. Then I heard a clap. There was light, from the most beautiful chandelier I’d seen. She clapped again and the light went slightly dim.

It felt perfect. The light, the colours, the background score, her smell, her presence. She turned to me and smiled. I closed my eyes. I smiled back. I opened my eyes and she was gone. The room was dark and damp. The carpet looked old and dirty. I let out a sigh. I adjusted my spectacles and wondered when next she’ll come by. I wondered if my tea was still hot. I was tired. I tried to sleep, but her memory would keep me awake late into the night. I pondered what the meaning of life was and how she could be so beautiful and so good at making me feel so beautiful. I wondered how her tiny bag could hold so many buckets of paint and whatever happened to that ladder? I opened my laptop lid and let the LCD display light up the room slightly.