Trinity
Three legs create stability; Three strands make a rope; Three things right in a mass of wrongness.
Wrong, wrong…
Everything's wrong without rhyme nor reason. Not obviously, but like a note of discord in a well-known song, something is off. The paintings I see as the scenes around me are all the same as before…yet they mock me—dance around me like a memory you just can't pin down.
There is no joy in sex or the thrill of a fight. Fighting itself has taken on more of a mechanical tone—merely a job to do, but something that otherwise diverts from a set objective.
Only three things remain to me. One is new, but all three I feel within me, binding like three strands of a braid and stronger than my hold on existence itself…
There's dried paint on my fingers, but it's an unnecessary, alien feeling. Painting gives me the clarity of mind to see rather than feel, but it no longer gives me feeling on its own. Details give manifestation to my visions which in turn give me peace and directive where the act of painting itself no longer does. It is simply a means to an end. My end, I think. Yes. That feels right.
The paint on my trigger finger is black. I use it to pull at a section of hair beside my face. The color, still slightly wet, locks itself onto my frayed golden hair, staining a few strands. No matter. It's acrylic—it'll come out when I get my next shower…whenever that'll be.
It's my mission to lead my people through the darkness of space. That is my one true directive and purpose. It is the sole reason I exist. Harbinger of death? Perhaps. But death in all its beauty is as black as space itself, and I will lead them through it. There is a lifeline from Earth that pulls me, and I will carry the others along in my wake through this empty sea. My boat? Just my old Viper…who looks cleaner and happier now than I think she ever has. She'll see me through to the end.
The grayish-white on my middle finger reminds me of her. I always squeeze the throttle most with my middle finger. Can't say why—it makes no physical sense, but it gave me an excuse to tell people to frak off after a CAP. Not that I ever needed one, but still. A stiff middle finger is useful after losing your voice screaming at nuggets for several hours at a time.
But I haven't had either desire in a very long time. I remember all of that…but it seems so long ago…. It's different now. I'm different now, but my love for flying seems to remain the same. Somewhere in me I know that at the end of this, I will be spending eternity flying among the stars with my trusty grey-white Viper both within and around me, watching them rise over the horizons of great blue gas giants and rock planets alike.
Blue.
Blue…
I snort as I realize my ring finger is blue and wonder how that occurred. I had been painting a black and white portrait of a girl I once saw in my dreams, so where did the blue come from?
I look up at my work and realize that I had painted her eyes a bright, piercing blue that I have only ever seen on two people, but never once in my grayscale dream.
My daughter. I began to dream of her only since my return from the dead. I know who her eyes belong to, but that's a dream I abandoned in a storm…
A dream that I felt come alive for a few precious moments inside a jail cell, saying goodbye to my only real flying partner.
The kiss… The physical sensation itself was distant and distorted. But the need there…the love, the apologies, the heartbreak…and most of all the understanding… That is one thing in my life that I feel I chose for myself to keep. Unlike missions and the taste for flying, it has no flavor of fate.
Black and white can apply to alter any pigment to any shade. But that blue… It applies itself solely to me, like that daughter who will never be.