5. Living in the fog (part 2)
Peter Lake had been a thief.
This, he remembered, his first real memory, fully-formed and returned to him.
Because one day he found color and, without skipping a beat, took it in his hands and colored into the white.
I was a thief, once.
In his boundless wandering through the mist, the color red nearly blinded him, despite the insignificant size of the object that brandished the hue.
He found a new lightness in his step. A familiar rush whistling in his clothes.
And he remembered running.
He remembered flying, too. Though the memory of that wasn't as dense. It weighed less.
Flight had belonged to him for a very short while, he knew. But he'd lived on the run.
Ba-dum, ba-dum…
Echoes of a lost heart, among the clouds.
The booming of his feet on the damp concrete.
And he fell to his knees on the ground, white billowing around him, and grabbed the chalk.
That single swing of his arm, the soundlessness with which he'd swept this conspicuous object away from the colorless fog, and made it seem like nothing had ever been there, let alone disturbed, in the first place...
It was then he realized he'd been a thief.
He remembered the feel of stealing. A bittersweet elegance to it, the genuine pleasure he'd found in its practice.
That had been three memories, fully recovered. In the span of a single sprint.
It seems he'd wisened up a little, living in the fog.
I was a runner. I was a thief. Remember, remember...
Cause overtime, Peter Lake had learned to jump to small conclusions quickly, rather than linger on capturing a larger picture and unraveling into madness once again.
This practice, in itself, was a multi-layered theft. A calculated reconquest of fragments of a veiled-up reality.
Peter Lake had been a thief. Not only that, he'd been an excellent thief.
I'm a thief… and I'm a damn good one-
He'd said this once. To whom? He'd know later.
Like his name. Like the cause of his death. Like 'the warmth.' He'd know, one whisper at a time.
Not now. Later. He couldn't become too greedy.
One day, perhaps he'd be proven wrong about some of his conclusions. But for the time being, he wanted to spare himself as much additional suffering as possible.
As soon as he caught the beginnings of a whisper, he'd whisk it off the breeze and weave it into his battered jacket, braid it into the elongating tangles of dirty black hair.
He'd not let any more whispers float away. He'd not be a rock in this sea.
He'd reform into a dam and capture water in his belly. All of winter, molten, and trapped, and his history with it.
I'm still a thief. A damn good one.
Today he'd captured the color red.
Peter Lake could have burst into tearful laughter at the discovery, the first of many aimless searches for names and places, but instead he owlishly stared down at the piece of red chalk as it lay in his ash-colored palms.
Looked down, the way the hue dusted off the lines on his palms, forming paths, maps to forgotten places.
It ached to know that he contained a guide to himself in his very hand, and he didn't know how to read it.
My hands...
And the image of the red on his flesh stung, like a needle, pricking his fingertip.
My hands are dirty.
A new whisper, taken in midair. Spoken by a voice he no longer raised.
He'd been a bad man, he knew then too.
He'd done terrible things and then he'd run from them.
My hands are dirty…
The piece of red chalk, with its dusty composition and shameless smearing, rolled up and down the curve of his palm as he contemplated the evidence now lain before him.
It wasn't the color of 'the warmth.' Otherwise he could have recognized it immediately.
…'s hair is not…
He tried, but this whisper was slippery. Too short, too quick.
And it went away.
It would return. He'd net it clean off the fog, next time around.
Because when Peter lifted his head, the fog had greyed slightly. He smelled cold rain, the drip of water, fizzling, crackling. The sound of water congealing and becoming solid.
He took the piece of chalk between his fingers. Bent his body, casting a shadow over the freezing pavement, shielding all that the darkness grazed from the rain and the snow.
And for the first time, in both his lives, he tried to draw.
Author's Note: To anyone who is here today, thank you for reading.
Peter found some chalk :333 So, time to let the artist in me take over and dive into why he draws, or who he's trying to draw. In the movie, he obviously draws the redhaired girl (cough, Abby, cough), which is the symbol of his destiny that both he and Pearly are privy to. But he is clearly trying to replicate Beverly, too, if not subconsciously. Because to him, that is the miracle he failed to deliver. The person he failed to save. The woman he loves...
In my case, "the warmth". I make sure that in my stories Peter is aware of the separation between the girl he dreams of, the redhaired girl, and Beverly herself. Which is why the vision annoys him, and will continue annoying him. Because that is not the woman he wanted to save. I definitely have overdue plans on that regard, trust me.
But for now, that is all for this chapter. I love being melancholic and dramatic with Peter's thoughts, oh I missed this :3 Here's your hug, see you again soon! *hug*