sadness

by

Man of Colours

by Miles Rost

(Author’s note: For Clinton, my brother, a true man of colours)

I sat downstairs, and watched him as he spent the bright afternoon in the beautifully lighted parlor of his home. The natural sunlight was able to put a unique glow on the work of art he was doing.

As a young boy, I was not as interested in what my uncle did. I didn’t really care much as to why he did what he did. I knew he was a painter, and that he did his work diligently, even if he didn’t actually make that much money from what he did. After my parents separated for a time, it was felt that my uncle would take better care of me for a couple of summers. So at the age of 13, they sent me to his manor in the heart of the West Country.

The first few weeks I was there, I didn’t do much with my uncle. I was still a bit frazzled from what was going on with my parents. But, after those few weeks when I ran the grounds and did so much, I finally was able to take a moment and watch what he was doing.

My uncle Charles was a calm man. He barely ever raised his voice, and sometimes didn’t even have to speak to get his point across. He had a silent air about him, but one that allowed for great things to come forward.

“The creative spirit does not allow for anger to fester inside, but is allowed to be spread throughout whatever you work on. In my case, my anger and frustration is carried across the canvas,” he told me, the first day I became interested in what he did, “If you have passion for something, put everything into it. Anger, fear, love, trust, everything. It will come forth in beauty and love.”

That is what got me interested in his painting, and why I got interested in playing music later on.

I lounged on the chaise in the parlor, looking at him as he took a wider brush to a beautiful work-in-progress. It looked like the start of an outdoor scene, with pastel skies and deep green trees. I looked in wonder as he did his painting, marveling at the brushstrokes and how he was able to make a painting come to life before our eyes.

“Uncle Charles, why do you paint?” I asked him, as he worked.

“I paint because it is what I wanted to do in life. I keep my life in this paintbox. When I speak to this canvas, it tells me what it wants. And I follow what it says, because that’s how I work.”

I sat for another half hour while he changed his brushes around and continued to paint. After that half hour, he had me go into the kitchen ahead of him to get prepared for tea time. Margaret, the maid of the house, kept things organized as much as she could, and made the time for tea quite pleasant.

“Uncle Charles, why didn’t you marry?” I asked him.

“I did. Once. A very long time ago, before you were born. Alice would have loved to have seen you. It was very hard for us to separate like we did.”

“You….separated too?”

“She didn’t want to burden me with her problems. She left at the time of her choosing, and went to get treatment for her disease.”

“She’s dead?”

The old man rubbed his failing eyes, and took a moment to think of things. A small tear glistened on the side of his eye, even though he knew that he should be showing it.

“I am not sure how it happened, or whether it was something like shame or the burden of leaving, but she did pass on half a year after leaving. Her heart just couldn’t stand things, I think.”

I just looked up at him, and saw the sadness in his eyes. It finally hit me that the pain of my parents’ separation was hitting him hard too, because it reminded him of his loss of Aunt Alice.

After tea, we went back into the parlor. The sun was in that special place in the sky where it seems to always be the most beautiful. That’s where his hands and inspiration took it’s flight. By the time the sun went down and the lights came on in the house, he had created what looked to be a beautiful meadow with a lone tree. Three people underneath it, one a small boy, or so as I could see.

“I…I am a man, A simple man, A man of colours. And I can see through the years, see through these tears. These are the tears and the years of a man, a man of colours.”

I never knew what he meant when he said it…but he said it in such a way that it seemed that I would finally figure it out down the road.

The artwork he made was given to my parents. When it was done, he gave it to them and told them to take a day and just look at the painting. He told them to contemplate it, and really get into it.

That fall, my parents came to pick me up. They told me that they were going to see a priest about getting things worked out. They wanted to be together, and not to experience pain like they had.

It has been many years since my uncle Charles passed away. He never remarried, but he made an impact on people that he knew. When we went through his things after he died, we found out that he had almost 200 paintings from when he was alive. 150 of them were donated to various universities and charities. The University of Buckingham even decided to keep 15 of his paintings up as a permanent exhibit. The other 50, according to his will, were to be auctioned and sold. I was to be the beneficiary of the wealth, his will stated.

I don’t think about the money, though. And when I go to Buckingham with my friends from college, we always stop by my uncle Charles’s exhibition. The world appreciated what he did. And I did too.

 

by

After All

by Miles Rost

He walked down the street, small rolling suitcase following behind him like a stray puppy dog looking for an owner. He was despondent, and tired, but he had to get to his destination. So he kept on walking.

He was close to his destination, when he looked over at a bus stop. Normally, a bus stop wouldn’t inspire any sort of pause for him, but the plexiglass and metal frame, with a bench and transit computer inside, immediately shot a memory into his head, sending him backwards a moment.

His mind carried to the forefront a memory of a woman that he gave his heart to. The image of him on a cold winter’s evening, holding her from behind, overlayed his vision of the now-empty bus stop. His vision filled with the warm feelings on his face as he nestled it next to hers. He played the role that night, of the knight in armor bright, faithful and true.

He continued to look at the bus stop, and he saw the moment where things went south. The vision of himself and his beautiful young woman, having a battle of major proportions there at that bus stop. He didn’t even remember what it was about, it was so long ago. All he saw was the fight that they had, and how the tears that flowed from her eyes broke his heart even now. He knew he made a mistake, but there was nothing he could do about it.

In a moment’s blink, the bus stop returned to it’s empty state, with a bus pulling away from it and roaring down the street. In his heart, he felt the hole in his heart. It was always there, ever since that day, but there was nothing he could do to fill it. All he could do is let time heal his wounds.

He started walking again, slowly, as he approached his destination. He went to the counter, and the Korean woman asked him where he wanted to go.

“Busan,” he said. After a moment, and a swipe of his card, he received his tickets and went downstairs to the departing buses. He took up a seat on a bench near where his bus was, and he just looked around.

Twenty minutes passed by before his bus to Busan pulled in and started loading passengers. As he walked up towards the door, he took a look back at the terminal and saw a blonde-haired figure standing far back, looking at him from a distance. He tried to see if it was her, but he couldn’t see her face. After a few second and a blinking of his eyes, she was gone.

He put his suitcase under the bus and got on board. As the bus pulled away, he looked at the terminal and the city surrounding it. He sighed, knowing that his time was finished and he was moving on. He wished that he didn’t have to go. He wanted to be the one to hold her in his arms. Yet, he knew it could never happen.

He would never know if he could love anyone else again, and as he traveled in silence towards the eastern coast and a ferry that would transport him to his new home, tears started to flow down his face.

by

Keep Coming Back

by Miles Rost

15.

The number of years since Gary Takamura left high school and went to a new country to get his bachelors. He would eventually get his master’s and then his doctorate. Three universities around the world took him in, and gave him a lesson in education. Yonsei University gave him his Bachelor’s, then National University of Singapore for his master’s, and finally Monash University in Melbourne, Australia for his final doctorate. At 34 years old, he was a social sciences doctor, dealing with statistics, cause and effect, and other such sundries. He had gone very far in his life.

However, in his whole mind, he was unable to leave Rehoboth High School behind. His home for four years in the middle of the Colorado Rockies, Rehoboth was where his greatest triumphs and his shattered dreams all came from. He specifically looked back on one event. Rather, he looked back on a two year event with great warmth and with great heartbreak.

He was reminded, every day, of Becky Franklin. His one and only girlfriend in high school.

15 years had passed since he had left Rehoboth for Korea, and while he was successful in his job, he saw that there was that nagging hole, a hole about the size of a fist, lingering where his heart should have been. He remembered the soft curves of her face that were perfect for his cheek to rub against. He remembered her laugh, and how she would roar at the hint of a bad pun. He remembered her spirit, how she fought for everything in school and succeeded where many had failed before. Finally, he remembered her faith. Unwavering, unshaking, a faith in Christ that he never could understand or imagine.

His memory turned to a night, the last night they were together.

“I received an opportunity. Full ride in South Korea,” he said, with brightness in his eyes.

“But what about us? I thought we were going to head to Oregon, go to the U of O together…” she replied quietly, with disappointment and sadness in her voice.

“That was the plan. A full ride, though. And it’s one of the top schools in Korea,” he said, oblivious to what she was talking about.

“I…see,” she simply responded, dejectedly.

15 years after that night, Gary looked back as he sat in his apartment in Los Angeles. He was successful in just about every venture he had. He should have been happy with where he was and what he was doing.

The hole that was in his heart ached that night. A longing that was indescribable. He felt lost, and so full of regret for the past. He wanted that feeling back. The feeling of bliss, contentment, and simple human contact. He wanted Becky back. As he closed his yearbook, putting it on a glass table near the window where he looked over the LA Basin, he smiled a mournful smile.

“Becky, I just don’t know why I keep coming back to you. I don’t want to get over you, it seems,” he said, out loud to the air, thinking in the most vain of hopes that she might hear his words.

He poured himself a drink, downed it in one shot, and proceeded to his bed. It was going to stay with him, just one more day…