She feels old even though shes not. Oh but she never knew what the weight of this position would be and now shes bent by it; crippled under a life she did not choose. In her head she feels trapped, her thoughts relentlessly pace behind iron bars like a lion in a circus and just like the lion in the circus, they must be ready for performance, lest she let her guard down. She must perform, she must pretend and if she were to let her own thoughts free, it would be like the lion letting his jaws crush savagely down on the head of the ringmaster. The ringmaster would die and the audience would be horrified. However the lion would be brutally shot and the show would go on regardless. The banners strung and bright lights switched back on. The facade would continue. A new audience would come, that worried her most, there would always be a new audience, sitting on the edge of their seats, trusting, listening, ready to believe. The lions death would be utterly fruitless.
She gripped the edges of the sink, knuckles paling to resemble the white of the ceramic bowl, they so forcibly clenched. The back of her throat burned and stung with the pain of stifled sobs and pent up emotion. Her whole physical frame drew together in an attempt to hold everything in. She willed herself to stay calm. The shrill noise of the bell suddenly cut through her thoughts followed by the sounds of dozens of small bustling bodies, the clatter of their shoes or scuff of their slippers. Giggles resounded on the corridor and somewhere a ball bounced. She let her hands fall to her side and her back straighten up. She exhaled a labored sigh and attempted to cast a look of defiance into the bathroom mirror. On the way back to the classroom, she tries to actually prepare, she needs to fit a role and face her audience again but memories and images crowd in on her mind.
They would discuss 'heroes' in her early college days. In bars resting on marble tables, places with blooming potted plants and green and red stained glass windows. Places filled with smoke and experimental jazz. Their table was full of energy, they would all lean together in earnest discussion. They considered real heroes, artists, writers, musicians; the immortals. They all thought they were going to be great of course, join the ranks of their heroes. The stream of ideas was constant and as the bar would grow fuller, the drinks would flow. Ural would sit beside her. He was doing a joint honors in politics and philosophy. He was always the most animated, most passionate, most prone to outbursts and eventual blind collapse on the table. He constantly evaded the present. 'The only reason that I'm in the present, that I'm living is to defy my own mortality, the only reason I'm living is so that I can live on' he would tell her with an intensity and seriousness. She never knew whether to laugh or not but somewhere she agreed, somewhere she could see that, that was how real heroes were made, that such was everlasting, unlike societies ever fluctuating concept of the term. However little did she know, how twisted and yet simple the creation of a hero was to become but that was still ahead then and the possibility was unimaginable in those good times. Now the bar was empty, the potted plants long withered and Ural was a faded memory. He became a disappeared man. O how dangerous youth and intellect is, she thinks.
She never thought it back then but if asked now, she would say her mother was a hero. She was a hero for what she didn't say rather than what she said. Every child will believe. She never understood the full malleability of youth until she found herself forced with words to feed them. Doing what your told to do is something imprinted and ingrained in you. The full implications of this simple premise, if not eradicated when need arises can prove disastrous. She was told to tell them to do what they're told so she told them. Every child will believe, that's why human nature is so dangerous because every person has the capacity to lie. Art can be like the telling of lies that are beautiful. Her mother would spin tales so detailed in their execution, she finds it hard to dismiss them as fiction even now. She would look closely at flowers, their fine veins were maps. The fine arterial lines running along their fragile petals could be interpreted and read she told her. When your able to read such a map, follow it and you will find a land full only of the beauty such is present in the heart of nature itself and devoid of the things humanity made to keep us constantly distracted. As a child full comprehension was lost but in her imagination she saw a land constantly festooned with the gaiety of the circus. She had not yet realized the pretense of the circus but perhaps that's what beauty is, everlasting pretense, an everlasting lie, everlasting art. So this is why she now saw her mother as a hero because she had come to realize that one with the capacity to tell such beautiful lies for no other purpose than their own sake could also have the ability to tell lies effectively for a purpose, for control but then these lies wouldn't be art for arts only purpose is in itself. Her mother wouldn't have been able to tell the lies she herself was telling but her mother had gone like Ural. Does a hero need to die?
Her home town was always grey but grey used only be a color. Now whenever she returns grey is the color of the sidewalks, the buildings and the expanse of sky but it is also the overbearing feeling weighing on a people. Her father was an artist but now its hard to know what to call him. Before his palette was limited in color, preferring to stick to charcoal and sketching pencils but now his palette is full of the colors of the rainbow. Red and white preferred for the slogans and the banners in the posters whereas the backgrounds shine of green fields and yellow sunshine. Her father is brilliant at his work and that is why even she too can feel transported by those commissioned works, plastered on every lampost, billboard and shop window but everyone else who looks at them do not know the man who painted them and the tears she over their very existence.
