Mood Piece January 16 2016

He remembered her in fragments, like pieces of a broken stained glass window. Each moment distinct, separate, colored with its own particular light; yet somehow each fit into a greater whole, some overarching picture. If only he could figure out how the edges all lined up.

There she was, laughing in the afternoon sun, her face flushed slightly as the breeze stole the sweat from her skin. Her eyes lit up like the sky would be, later that night. This memory was green, bathed in the virescent hues of her happiness. Here she was, deepest blue, staring silently into a book she was not reading. Her eyes stubbornly still above the page; only the small twitches around the corner of her mouth betraying the twisting paths her mind followed. Quiet awareness that she was no longer alone brought her eyes to his, casting the edges of the indigo memory in a pale silver glow. The day she didn’t look at him pulsed a pale yellow, bathed in his growing sense of distance, of loss, of his total inability to push through that sickly wall. And on and on they went, every scene a sparkling jagged fragment in his hands.

He worked each over in his mind, ceaselessly running his fingers over the smooth lines and sharp borders of every piece. It was tempting to simply sort them, to build some new mosaic from the colors he loved. But trying always left so many pieces unused, lying threatening on the ground ready to punish a careless step. Besides, what came of it was never truly beautiful. It would catch the eye for a moment before he noticed the lack of contrast, the obvious spaces between many of the pieces, the lackluster vision of it all. It felt impossible, but he knew he had to find its original shape if he were to ever be free of it. Try as he would though, he could never seem to fit all the pieces together fully. No matter how well he thought he had grasped the pattern, there would be some small shard there to prick him and put the lie to his imaginings; some subtle disharmony in the composition he could not ignore. It would be easier, perhaps, if he had seen it being made, had known its logic when it was whole. He supposed I made little difference now.

Again he combed over a piece, warm and orange though glowing pinker as the he shifted it in the light. Gently he pressed it into place, hopping quietly that something blue was soon to come.