Sky

The sky, sometimes orange, tints of yellow, a fiery red, sometimes withered and grey, but mostly blue. Blue with dots of fluffy clouds, sometimes in shapes, sometimes in sizes, but comfortably light and pale.

Thomas looked up, eyes closed, guessing to himself what it would be that day. He imagined – a dark blue hue slowly seeping into a pastel colour, and not a spot in the sky. Lying down on the wild grass, he opened his eyes to exactly as he imagined. A clear, blue sky, with a touch of a gentle breeze licking his cheeks playfully. He exhaled slowly, hearing nothing but the sound of his own breath and the rustling of the grass and trees nearby. The sun was mellow, and he barely needed to squint his eyes.

He lay there, forgetting everything in the world.

He set his mind out to be a blank canvas – blank like the sky, and stopped thinking.

Merely seconds later, a shadow hovered over him, causing him to squint.

“How many times must I come looking for you here, Thomas?” The shadow spoke, with a thick German accent.

Thomas shook his head, and sighed as he got up.  “As many as I want,” he mumbled, scratching his head. Right as he looked up at the towering figure in black, he caught a glimpse of cloud floating by. It was time to go.

He failed again today, and sought to try again tomorrow.

As he left the sunny field behind, he glanced behind him, and thought he saw two figures chasing each other in the distance below, near the lake. They seemed to be hikers from the mountain nearby. He blinked in an attempt to distinguish them, but they vanished. His thoughts returned to him right then, and welled up within him. The open field suddenly felt suffocating, and he hurried on, not looking back again.

–

“Thomas, you have to stop behaving like this.”

Thomas sat there at the end of a long table, staring down at his food, his mind seemingly elsewhere. The long glass windows parallel to the table cast rays of light in small intervals, as one ray touched a scallop on his plate. He concentrated on everything else on his plate other than the scallop, but that ray of light insisted on it, and that was all he could see. A scallop. He felt sick.

“Behaving like what?” he suddenly asked.

The butler did not budge. “Behaving like a ghost, Thomas. You may not be aware of it, but your ‘ghostly’ presence in this house is disturbing the Lady. I implore you to think of her. She will be your wi-,”

Thomas let out a short laugh. “Give me a break, Leon. I’m done.” He abruptly got out of his chair noisily. “Does this disturb her too?”

The butler was slightly taken aback. “Done with what?” He snapped.

“All this!” Thomas gestured to the food before him, the windows, the shelves, and at the butler. “All this, thinking, all this silence! You!” He spat on the ground before the butler. He stormed off.

The butler stood there, unmoving, his mouth pressed together to a thin, slightly wrinkled, line.

–

Thomas flipped through the butterfly encyclopedia. The spine was breaking apart – held together by the thinnest lines of tape – and the pages yellowed-out with age. He lay down on the hard ground of his quarters, pouring over every word, every image, every colour of the encyclopedia. He absorbed the book like a hungry scholar, tracing his fingers over the pages, smelling them.

Through the cracks of the door, a woman glared. If Thomas had noticed, he didn’t react. The slight curl of a smile emerged from his lips – nothing more. Seconds later, the woman stormed off, her heels clicking sharply against the wood, as if every step were meant to pierce through it.

There was a knock on the door soon after. Without looking up, Thomas asked him to come in. He knew only one person in the world who knocked like that – erratic and harsh. “What do you want, Leon?” he grumbled.

The butler said nothing as he threw down an envelope. He waited till Thomas cared enough to look up from the book. Finally, he rolled his eyes to the envelope on the floor. With that, the butler promptly left, without a word. Thomas returned to his book, but eyed the envelope again. The butler often did odd gestures like this to get his attention, but Thomas had a feeling he knew what this was about.

I resign. I have had enough with this house, this place, the people in it, and you, Thomas. I couldn’t keep your father’s promise.

 I don’t expect you to understand, like anything else, you think the whole world revolves around you. I don’t know if she told you, but I pulled the strings. I am merely doing what your father would have.  

Leon.

Thomas stopped thinking again. He didn’t finish reading the letter. The thing welling up in him swelled even larger, choking him, and he let it. Instead, he saw the blue sky again. Something which remained a constant throughout all this, and will continue to be.

 

---

 

Note:

Hello! I’m trying very hard to write more. Even if it’s just a short 1000 word daily exercise, or a prompt or whatever. I’m also trying to read more…. slowly.

This piece was spurred by a picture prompt:

Wow, that sure wasn’t obvious at all! And i’d mention what song was playing on repeat as I wrote this but I’m already as unoriginal as it gets so I won’t. lol.

Don’t worry if you don’t understand the piece – i don’t either! Think whatever you want of it, interpret however you want! Go wild!