Jack

            Jack stands in the courtyard quite alone. He feels resistance: under his fingernails, in the air, between the dry bristles and the canvas, between his feet and the cool granite. His loss is complete. How could he hope to build a relationship with Sam on a foundation of grief and guilt. Still he felt the lingering touch of his friend's lips at his neck. Was it merely a mirage: that feeling that there had been more than fraternal love in that touch? When he came to the East he had desired a chance to be free, to flirt with the mystic arts and uncover the unplumbed depths of his own longing, but even here society would dictate what colour could be shown on his canvas.

           As a child he had been loved, within the socially acceptable constraints of the time: at arms length, seen and not heard and he had longed to be free, to be wild, untweeded. 

Fear of the unknown is what tethered him: fear of losing the chance to examine the tremor of his own desire, his own happiness, the flutter of anticipation as his blood pulsed hard through his wrist, but his father’s words always kept him in check.

          “Your life has been paid for. You know nothing of value.” 

            Was it true? He had been given a destiny without taking a journey, robbed of the need to find value and purpose in his life.

          Lifting the brush with sweating palms he loaded it with pigment and surprised himself as he slashed a black line across the canvas full of hostility.