Thing Number 4: Watercolors

The insistent bang of the screen door slamming shut pulled me abruptly from my nightmarish reverie. My head, which had been resting on the back of my chair, eyes shut tightly, snapped up at the sound, adrenaline tensing my muscles before the knowledge that it was merely Marie returning home soothed my anxiety.

I suppose I was on edge because of my occupation at the time: the dreaded journal. Marie told me to write down everything I could remember about Treadstone to try and put the pieces together, but the more I grasped at the threads the farther from my reach they retreated. My body wanted something tangible to deal with, but it was powerless in the twisted game of hide-and-seek my past was playing with me. The term 'mind games' had never taken on a more literal meaning than in my case.

"Jason? I'm back!"

I let out the breath I had held in unconsciously, allowing my head to drop back to its resting place. I wiped the beads of sweat from my brow, struggling to banish the latest broken image from my mind's eye, sounds I couldn't place and didn't want to hear echoing in my head. I groaned softly, closing my eyes again. I could feel a headache coming on.

"Jas-!" Marie stuck her head through the door, her shout cut off mid-name. "Oh, hey. I wondered where you were." She saw my flushed cheeks, the cold sweat on my face, and instantly knew something was wrong. "What is it?"

I lifted my unusually heavy eyelids and glanced at her blankly. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it." My voice was the harsh monotone of the killer Treadstone had created. I slumped forward in the chair, head in my hands, and moaned, realizing I'd probably never be able to escape what they'd done to me.

Marie was at my side in a second, her cool hands on my face, preventing me from drifting away in my anguish. "Jason?" I could hear the concern, and, to a lesser extent, the terror in her voice. She knelt in front of me, her eyes searching out mine. "What's wrong? Please, look at me."

I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands, shaking my head. "I'm fine; it's nothing."

"It's not nothing, Jason." Her voice was quiet but firm.

I blinked slowly, reluctantly lifting my gaze to meet hers. Her dark eyes were calm on the surface, but beneath the quiet hues of brown lurked something darker, something that years of living in the cruel world had put there, something I had put there.

"Please tell me. If there's anything I can do…"

She didn't have to finish the sentence. I looked away, shaking my head almost imperceptibly. "It's just-I have this picture in my head; I can't get it to go away, and I have no idea what it has to do with me…"

"Was it part of Treadstone?"

"That's the thing! I don't know! I think it has something to do with one of my jobs, but I can't be sure, and I don't know how."

Marie was silent for a long minute, as if she was absorbing my words and trying to decided what to do next. She finally leaned forward and kissed my cheek. "I'm sorry…it'll come to you eventually, I know it will. You just have to keep trying."

I regarded her for a moment, then sighed. "I have tried…I'm just so afraid I'll keep learning things I don't want to know."

She was silent again, rising to her feet and tilting me chin up with a finger. "Everyone makes mistakes, Jason. Humans are human. And so are 30 million dollar government projects. I don't care what Conklin says, I don't care what Treadstone made you do, and I don't care what you've done. All that matters now is what you do. I remember this quote I read once, from Maria Robinson, I think: 'nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.' What's done is done. But where you end up is entirely up to you. You have a choice, Jason. You'll be whomever you choose to be, regardless of who you were before. Remember that. Don't let anyone take that away from you."

I gazed up at her, speechless. What had I ever done to deserve her, I wondered vaguely.

Marie smiled, obviously sick of the tension in the room, and produced a bag from behind her back.

"Oh, no…" the corners of my mouth curled up in a half-smile. "What is that?"

"This," Marie carefully closed the notebook, mindful not to look at the pages and invade my privacy, and moved it aside, "is today's 'thing 'o' the day.'"

I hung my head, laughing. "And what would that be, exactly?"

She dropped the bag on the table, lifting out of it a set of watercolor paints and several brushes. "Voila! Painting! I figured Jason Bourne should get in touch with his artistic side."

I leaned back in my chair, flinching. "Artistic?" I grinned. "I don't think I'm very artistic…"

"We'll see about that."

Marie cracked open the box of paints, dumping out 6 tubes of paint, all brightly colored and brand new. She set next to them a pad of watercolor paper and a plastic palette divided into 4 sections. She held out a brush and I took it reluctantly, studying it as though it were a threat.

"We're going to be poor if you keep spending our funds like this…how much did these all cost?"

"Not much," Marie winked. Besides, it's all for 'Operation 101 Things Jason Bourne Has Never Done.' I'd say it's worth it."

I laughed, shaking my head once more. "Whatever you say…"

"I'll go get some water. Be right back."

"Okay." I stared at the paints in front of me thoughtfully before reaching out and squeezing a small dot of each onto the palette. It was hard to believe I could make any color I wanted from 6.

"Got it." Marie plopped the water down in front of me, some of it sloshing over the lip onto the desk. She waved a hand at it absently. "It's a cruddy desk anyways…"

I smiled. "I guess that's a good thing, too, considering how much you care for cleanliness…"

Marie shot me a look. "Yeah, we're not all like you, who arranges pots according to size…a little clutter can be beneficial for the soul."

My smile widened. "Where'd you hear that one?"

Marie rolled her eyes. "That one? That one I made up. Now, paint!"

I sighed, gaze fixed on the blank paper that seemed to yawn back at me. Its pureness intimidated me, and I was hesitant to mar it with my paints. Eventually the picture resurfaced, however, and instead of banging my head into the wall, which would have been my first choice under normal circumstances, I smeared my brush through the paint and poured the guilt and sticky anxiety the picture brought me onto the page before me. The colors transformed themselves gradually and became the tangible thing I had been searching for him. I still didn't have my answer, but at least, when I finally set the brush down and sagged against the chair's back, I was able to face the memory head-on instead of fighting my own mind.

"It's great, Jason!" Marie stared at it, thoroughly surprised. "You said you weren't any good at art!"

"I didn't think I was…" I smiled grimly, staring along with her. A collie gazed unblinkingly back from a sun-drenched field, blue skies completing the tranquil scene.

I'd seen the collie before.

I'd seen the painting before.

It had hung in the house of one of my targets.

All I know is that it must have been painted by his son-

The same son I may have killed…