Watercolor Memories

There was ice in his eyes; a stark contrast to the gold in the sky on this hot day. He was young, and a riot to the people whom he called sister and brother. But outside, he touted an umbrella to “block out the sun”, except I suspected it was to act as a veil to hide his quiet, forlorn gaze. There was once a time when his soul was full of zest, and ripe with dreams, in particular one where he would marry the girl he loved. A jukebox, he was; always singing melodies with the boisterous ting-tongs of a xylophone. Now his songs were dull and drear, like a violin on a rainy day. But those dreams and songs were but a foggy blur in the abyss of forever, and the time came when opiates outweighed the pain and implications of starvation. Wax and smoke, altering visions of reality; abstract watercolor paintings were now all that was left of his view of the world. In one painting was a picture of the everglades, in which a naughty-looking snake and a pirate spied on predators as they lie in a cluster of tall grass. A dynasty of thieves and crooks, held but in the beloved dirt in which they roamed. Who would be the first to kill? Who would win the race of wit and luminosity? The water and paint poured a pointless story onto the windows of his cadillac, for time had crawled on; the taxation on his heart a dreadful whisper of what had transpired.