polychromatic world
When I was younger, I never felt the years passing by me. Every year I didn't have to look back, I didn't have to miss what I'd lost. But now that I can feel the nuance of what hadn't been spoken, I feel at once a sense of camaraderie and yet also, a twinge of regret and reminiscence of who I once was. Living every day as a black-and-white puppet in a daze of people passing around me, living their colorful lives around me while I stand still, I've became painfully aware of the impact time has on change around us. It's an unsettling feeling. I used to be terrified that the impression of the people I had lost, whom I still hung on to the memories of our time together, would change and distort over time, molding to a new world marked by the passing of the seasons. Summer, if our memories were still happy, would be blown and scraped away by the next spring. I used to fear this, yet now instead of the hole previously occupied by anxiety and unease, I find different emotions in their place. Acceptance, of the change, and moving on. Indifference now, like the vivid motions of painting on a delicate layer of heavy perception onto someone who used to shine so brightly, she didn't have to fear time. ... The memories of laughing innocently Now, faced with a dark mask I don't remember it anymore Too busy hiding the pain I couldn't show Too busy crying alone In this world, there isn't a hand outstretched The passing of time. Do you regret it? If you went back, Would you change anything? Could anything be changed? Believe me when I say I'd rather die than go back. ... The strong tea flavor hit my nose immediately. Dim lighting which made me wonder if this was a dream, a black sky outside that almost taunted me. There wasn't a single spark of a star in the sky. A single yellow lightbulb shone feebly onto crisp sheets of old papers, sheet music scores, etude books, drafts. A single stick note pinned to the wall displayed a rough doodle of a black stick figure, collapsed and silent amidst colorful lines and blurs of the vivid life around her. The scattering of pens across the table messily reminded me of my high school days, studying for the final. I didn't recognize the strange scene in front of me. Was it another world? I gazed at my reflection in the glass of the floor to ceiling window and saw a older reflection staring back at me blankly. I tried to wiggle my eyebrows, smile, tilt my head, but it never reached my eyes, and the same emotionless stare bored into my brain. A painting half finished stood ominously in the corner. The paint was still wet, and brushes were tied to the large panel that looked like a madman's kaleidoscope. And within the jumbled mess of scratched out lines, overlapping colors, and lucidly polychromatic euphoria, the familiar monochrome outline of a hunched figure was faintly visible...