AN: This is a work of pure fiction inspired by the diary extracts of Vincent Van Gogh and originally written as part of my English A Level course. Please Read and Review and check out my other stories.
Sunrise. And out to work once again. I sometimes wonder is it just my curse that I should not go by a single day without thinking of anything other than my creations? I remember a time, once, when God was my life. I think perhaps dedicating ones life to God would be less of a challenge than dedicating it to art. With a life of religion there is a hope at the end…a promise of perfection in heaven, but with art there is nothing except the feeble faint fancy that one day…perhaps not until the day I die…the piece I make will be the greatest I can ever achieve…that I will have perfected my skill and that will be my reward.
The last few weeks I have been painting in the fields with the farmers as they tend to the wheat. The sun at midday shines like an orb in the gorgeous blue sky, showering the landscape with warmth and light and the most glorious gold colour I have ever seen in all my thirty seven years ripples through the crops like the waves upon the shore of a pearly white beach. I sometimes wonder if God and the sun are not one and the same? After all the Ancient Egyptians worshipped the sun as a god did they not? They realised the connection between life on Earth and the coin in the sky.
I wish Theo could see the countryside in the summer. Paris bustles and bursts with colour and culture but it is nothing compared to the endless expanse of soft blue sky above the rolling hills and soaring clouds. The cypress trees sway in the wind like the tall spires of churches, pointing towards the heavens and making the fundamental connection between nature and the divine unknown. The stars at night are something to behold, sparkling and blinking like candle light reflected in a lake. The sleepy town of Rhone is silent at night while above, the sky swirls with the light from millions upon millions of stars, all of them like windows to another Universe where anything is possible. I wonder if the mystery of the heavens above will ever be known to us? And there it is again…that sudden reminder of my mortality. It is the tragedy of us all.
I wonder, as the day dies down and the sky is stained with crimson, when darkness will finally consume me. As the days go by and the nights grow longer and longer, the shadows which at first were just short bursts of chaotic madness, have begun to creep in at the edges of my being, clouding parts of my mind with their demonic presence. I wonder, for how much longer can I fight off this force which seems to want my soul so badly?