Light Infantry

Tiny strokes, so delicate and feathered as to be almost invisible on the black, evidence of long hours hunched at a work bench.  But no time now for massage, for shoulders drooping in relief.  The yoke of the paintbrush is heavier than one might suspect.  Careful, careful, whispers the tiny pot of turpentine.  Don’t fuck this up.

The dimness of the studio is breached by sound, by a chimera in green footy pyjamas.  Climbing the ladder of his lap, staring disapprovingly at the canvas with the look the Sphinx gave to Oedipus.

“Daddy, no.”

A small, chubby hand attached to a similarly pudgy arm.  But braver, so much braver than the large, knobbly fingers that had held the brush before her.  Yellow covering the black in its entirety, bumblebee stripes [but no bumblebees yet] giving way to a golden wheathusk field.  Heart palpitates, then pauses as the pathetic fluorescent bulbs hanging by strings above respond to the glowing landscape, making brave stabs at flickers.

“Look, look!  Light!”

Not even near finished, a hand goes directly into the jar of blue and flick – it’s a splash on gold, water droplets in an infinite ocean of brillance.  She laughs, and the sound is absorbed by the swirling creation in front of her, bowed now under the sheer force of such presence.

“Over there,” she points authoritatively, and the pots follow her orders, lined up like tin cans at a shooting rally.  She takes red paint in her mouth and licks the canvas, presses the crown of her head first to the neglected lid of the green and then to the front of the painting, leaving a twisting mass of verdant branches with drips rolling down the sides as well as down her cheeks.

“Daddy,” she says seriously, “this is supposed to be fun, see?”

Tipping over the paints with aplomb, soft fingers grab the aerosol can like a terrorist and shake drops of brown, pink, purple onto the stretched fabric, flickering fish and cats caught in mid-twist.

And finally, she takes the black, neglected and forlorn in banishment, and retrieves the paintbrush from the corner.  The same delicate strokes [it must be hereditary], but this time over a riotous tumult of colourful creatures.

Two figures, barely more than sticks, carefully labeled in the Tupperware tradition.  The ‘a’s are hesitant and facing in the wrong direction.

Daddy and me.

Weathered hands reach under arms, flying her into the world she’s created – no longer wary of the brilliance that encases her.

And God saw that it was good; and on the seventh day they rested.

“Come on, sweetheart.  I’ll make us a pot of tea.”