Broken
Pastels

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.”

- Jonathan Safran Foer

It was a wintry morning and as the icy wind beat against my pale face, I grasped tighter the paper already crumpling in my hand. Against the grey of the sky and the snowflakes drifting into my vision, I swore lightly as I made another effort to take the paper out and read it. How utterly alienated I felt as I stood outside my third workplace in the last one year on a Monday morning to read your last words, even as your warmth faded away. I took three deep breaths that resonated within my system.

Dear Muse,

I’m sure you remember the first day we met.

Yes, I do. How could I not? It was at a funeral. How like you.

People were shrouded in black, crying out eulogies and I didn’t feel a twinge of shame for not shedding a single tear at the expense of the man who lay dead. Social courtesy demanded that I attend and show remorse, but it did not dictate that I overwrite my feelings with theirs.

Perhaps this tale should be narrated with the warning that this isn’t a story about two perfect people with their perfect endings. This story is about me and him, we’re flawed and we’re reckless. We’ve loved passionately, hated aggressively and lied unapologetically. We’ve touched the stars only to be burnt by their brilliance and said things we had never dreamt of. We weren’t defined by binary equivalents of good and bad but we were the starkest shade of grey. We brought out the best and worst in each other and that is why, my dear, I must warn that my story is neither happy nor sad. It simply is.

After much contemplation, I had managed to squeeze out of the bawling crowd to find solace at an orchard located at the back of church. In solitude, I heaved as sigh of relief and switched on my phone to check if I had any messages. That’s when a puff of smoke enlightened me about your presence. You were leaning against a tree, dressed in black with a cigarette loosely dangling from your lips and your eyes grey enough to put today’s sky to shame.

That was the moment I fell in love.

“Sick of the drama?” you asked nonchalantly.

I wondered if I should pretend to be shocked by your casual line of questioning at a funeral (because social constructs demanded so, didn’t they?). But you had seen me without my mask already. Why put up facades?

“Yes,” I replied.

In the midst of spring, at 26, that was how our story began.

You were a struggling artist like so many others. And no matter whenever or wherever we met, you’d be perpetually dressed in black, carrying a brooding look about you along with a pack of cigarettes. You were a man of few words, always aloof, to the point where I knew almost nothing about you even after we had been dating for eight months. Family? Siblings? Exes? It was a persona you had created for yourself and I was drawn to it, perhaps like so many others before me.

We were different, no doubt. You’d quote Nietzsche all day long, read Lenin and throw Kierkegaard’s ideologies around like a man feeding crumbs to pigeons. And I was entrapped. I’d lose myself in your words, which were crafted so magnificently but somehow sounded beautifully hollow like a rose decaying from the inside. You were reckless and zealous and intensely whimsical. You’d carry those brushes with dried paint on them and a set of artist’s pastels – which I never saw you use – everywhere you went. You’d flip your hair petulantly when deep in thought and ask me questions about myself I had never given thought to. Sometimes, with your eyes ablaze, you’d talk about your ambitions and hopes of becoming a recognized artist, you’d talk about your string of failed gallery shows and rejected proposals and complain about how basely people treated living artists.

“We’re the ones who need the money, you know?” you’d say, your voice muffled from under the covers as we lay naked in your lousy single bedroom flat, “Not Monet and not Van Gogh. They’re dead and gone and it’s time people stopped parodying them around.”

“Van Gogh was ignored during his time too,” I’d say to placate you.

I guess a part of me always knew – then as well as now – that the chances of your breaking through a saturated market full of students with dreamy eyes, armed with colours and backed by rich families were very slim. But I’d encourage you nonetheless, because I didn’t want to lose you.

“Perhaps if they hadn’t, he wouldn’t have ended up the way he did,” you’d say leisurely as you’d reach out for another cigarette from the bedside stand.

“Maybe you just have to die, you know?” I joked, “Like a job requirement.”

Your eyes lit up for a moment before the smoke you exhaled blocked them from my view.

“Maybe,” you agreed softly.

I’m sure you remember the day I asked you to move in with me, and the day I begged you to give meaning to my life. I’m sure you remember the day I tucked your hair behind your ears and said you look beautiful and the day you cried like a baby because you had been fired from your job. I’m sure you remember the nights we fought and hung up on each other with unspoken words hanging heavy in the silence between us. I’m sure you remember the night I forgot to call and tell you I won’t return home and you waited until daybreak, calling on a number I never picked up. 

But do you remember what I told you on the first day we met?

I do.

You had asked me to stay away.

Didn’t I tell you that I was just a fucked up man looking for my own peace? Didn’t I tell you that I’d be your boyfriend if you wanted me to? That I’d take you to dine in fancy restaurants and tour monuments and carry you on hikes, I’d kiss you behind statues and caress your curves like you were a work of art, but didn’t I warn you that I’d leave?

“Don’t you ever use the pastels?” I asked you one day. I was browsing through the newspaper for jobs while you sat at the table, scribbling away furiously.

“They’re broken,” you said simply.

“Hey, I can buy you a new set,” I said brightly. “You could use one, that one’s so –“

“Absolutely not!” You almost yelled and for a second, I got scared.

“Why?” I asked meekly.

“Because you can never separate an artist from his broken pastels,” you said and continued to scribble away, your face a mask once again.

The cigarette dangling from your lips puffed away and without a second thought I stood up and said, “Put the cigarette away! I’m tired of the room swimming in smoke all the time.”

My voice came out harsher than expected but without a word, you stubbed it out and threw it into the bin as you continued your work, not sparing me a glance.

Don’t turn me into the villain of your story. Make me your equal. 

“Why do you always wear black?” I asked.

We were eating at a cheap restaurant outside my new workplace. Low on cash, high in spirits, drunk in love – living every teenager’s dream.

“Because I don’t want to be distracted,” you said. The lamest reason I had ever heard.

“How can colours distract someone?” I pressed on.

“The way your hair distracts me when it covers your forehead,” you said and blew lightly at the lock of hair that had loosened from my ponytail.

It took me days to realize that you hadn’t really answered my question. You never did. You still haven’t.

I often wondered what it was that drew me to you. Perhaps it was because I could never understand you. And don’t we fall in love with what we don’t understand?

Don’t romanticize what we had.  Face the facts.

“Is it an official party?” I asked.

“Yes,” you answered as you gently pressed down your black tie on your black suit in front of the dresser. Your slick hair was done carefully without a strand out of place.

“Can’t I come? Isn’t there a clause for family?” I asked.

“You aren’t family.”

I forced back the rising apprehension. “Well, you could introduce me as your sister,” I said, feigning an air of indifference.

“You’ll be bored, believe me.”

You didn’t return until the next morning.

But dear muse, I do believe that all of us were sent here to fulfill some mission – do something, however small, to change the destiny of many. And for years, I had wondered what mine had been. What had I been sent to do? It couldn’t have been to simply pay taxes and die. It couldn’t have been to find a girl, get married and leave three kids behind. Until I met you, I was lost.

“I’m going to create a masterpiece,” you declared one day.

It was 3 am and I didn’t take much note as you slowly slipped out from under the covers to retrieve your set of broken pastels. All I remember is that those days, I woke up to an empty and cold bed, as you’d work out in the balcony all night, peeping at me occasionally through the curtains. I’d toss in despair, not finding your arm round me and sometimes, open an eye to find your silhouette by the curtains, broken pastels at your feet. In the morning, you’d arrange your pastels according to their shades and look underneath the shelves for that one piece that always went missing.

My love, not everyone is a caterpillar waiting for their metamorphosis. Not everything is meant to transform into something beautiful. Not every person you invest your time in will turn out to be worth it. Some people are there for a little while – to pour your life to, to lift your spirits a little, to remind you to not give up, or to teach you to love yourself. 

Your insecure spirit scares me, you know? There’s so much more to your life than finding someone who will love you or despairing over someone who doesn’t. There’s so much more to it than being sad over your hair not sitting straight on a Monday morning or a missing sock before an important meeting.

All I’m trying to say, my love, is do not despair. We were never built to last.

As the days grew shorter and winter came closer, I’d return home early to find you lying passively or dabbing furiously at the easel you had been working on for the past month. Whenever I tried to steal a glimpse, you’d angle it away from me and give a reproving glare that’d instantly put me in my place. Tell me, what were you drawing? The moon? The emptiness? Your dark clothes made the lone room that much gloomier and I watched as the burnt cigarette stubs in the ashtray doubled in number. Those days, I’d watch as you’d carelessly chew and gulp the food I made and cuss at the empty blank walls of your house that you promised you’d get painted but never did.

I’d watch with fascination and repulsion as you’d lose yourself within that easel, shrouded in that black monstrosity, painting with your fingers and dabbing with those broken pastels – the ones you’d never let go.

My love, you’ve asked me several questions and scarcely have I given you any answers. Hardly have I even thought them over because I never saw them as worth my while. Blasé questions offend me. Favourite food? Favourite colour? What type of music do I listen to?

What a pathetic way to know people.

I had learnt that some things are just pretense – a part of the illusion you created. Why do you always wear black? Why do you keep trying to justify yourself? Tell me! You’d take a drag of your cigarette and puff out the toxic smoke like it somehow helped you breath. You’d say some words and quote some existentialist and pretend like it was the smartest thing anyone ever said. You’d remind me all the time that you were only a flawed human trying to clean up his own mess. What a joke. You were just a confused soul. You were just a child looking around for a way to live, wondering if the right girl would set you straight.

You weren’t some holistic artist who wasn’t appreciated by the critics, or another Van Gogh who drowned his depression in the colours of the sun.

You were just another fucked up man hiding underneath layers of insecurity, trying to make the world remember you and keeping up your charade to con others. You were just trying to justify your existence because you couldn’t cope with the fact that you weren’t anyone special - or memorable. But somewhere in there, you got lost in your own game. You weren’t the depressed hero you pretended to be - or wanted to be. But I fell for you, like many others before me.

I hated you. I also loved you.

But one question persists: Why did I have to go? 

The answer, my dear muse and love, is within these pages. I am simply one of the hundreds, thousands of people you’ll meet in your life. You are simply one the hundreds of girls I’ll sketch throughout my profession. And yet, we had our purpose to fulfill in each other’s lives. For me, it was to create a masterpiece – 

You. 

A masterpiece like no other, one I’d spent night and day creating – which once complete would leave us with no reason to exist anymore. In those wintry nights when snow carpeted the streets and you frowned as the tea you made remained untouched, I did exactly that. I captured every line of your face, every curve of your body, every lock of your flying hair – just the way you looked the first time we met. Happy. 

I don’t dare think of the sleepless nights you’ll spend after reading this letter. How delicate our hearts are, but I know you’ll emerge from this a stronger woman. 

How incredibly foolish, you might say, for someone to allow something so utterly vague to dictate their lives. But you know me better than that. You wouldn’t be surprised, would you? You knew it was coming. Nobody realizes the worth of what they have. Even themselves. Perhaps you have to lose yourself first.

Perhaps I should’ve clung on tighter. But people change people and on that wintry morning, standing before my third workplace in the past one year, I neatly folded the paper, tucked it back into my pocket and sighed. Some people never change. Dramatic till the last word.

I never saw or heard from him again. Occasionally I’d buy random art magazines hoping to find him occupying the center spread but of course he was never there. I knew he never would be.

There are still days when I swirl the coffee around in my cup, stare at the grey sky and wonder - why? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a fool. I was never blinded by your sweet words dripping insipidity. I always knew what you were underneath that mask. Because my love, you had cracks like everyone else. And I wish you’d have allowed them to get wider instead of patching them up because that’s how the light gets in. Because those tiny glimpses of you had somehow convinced me then that maybe - just maybe - we were built to last after all. But you couldn't clear your mess up. You didn’t even want to because - don’t deny it - you reveled in it. You made it your identity.

Perhaps you were brave, for living out the fantasy you wanted. And for a few blissful months, I thought I too could lose myself in your make believe world as long as you were by my side. But reality intervened and I couldn’t afford to be blind anymore. I couldn’t continue our charade, so I’m glad you left - because adjusting to earth is so much more difficult when you’ve had a glimpse of heaven - and I have to begin sooner or later.

The seasons changed and spring came again and again and again until I didn’t have to change jobs anymore - until I forgot why I had ever held the season so dear to me. But on one spring morning as dull as my barely lit new apartment, it came with a gift. It was a small white package addressed to me without a return address. They say you can never separate an artist from his broken pastels. The entire package was filled with his broken pastels and a dim Polaroid of him standing at the altar with someone, dressed in a pure white suit, his hair neatly matted. Perhaps she’ll finally save him.

But some things… look better in black.