All the Colors of the Dark

by Chris Whitaker

He preached theirs was not a vengeful god, and Saint fought the urge to ask why the fuck not.

A girl who looked to books for answers to questions that would never be asked of her. Weighed questions that had nothing to do with fashion or baking or making a goddamn motherfucking home.

To her he was an exotic creature she would do well not to grasp too tightly for fear of scaring him off.

“You think I’m beautiful?” He nodded. “Entirely and absolutely.”

“Why does your grandmother sit outside during storms?” he whispered. “There was a storm the day my grandfather died.”

“I’m just tired, I guess.” “Tired of what?” “Of being me.”

And you, well you don’t need to change much at all. Because, I was thinking, to me you’re kind of perfect.

“I just wanted to show you that sometimes things survive despite the harshest of odds.”

Saint wanted to ask what it was like, to lose the thing that defined you. But perhaps she knew: it left you someone else. A stranger you had no choice but to tolerate, and see each day and feel and fear.

“If you ever get the chance to make someone smile, or better yet, make someone laugh, then you take it. Each and every time,” Norma said.

At ten years old he realized that people were born whole, and that the bad things peeled layers from the person you once were, thinning compassion and empathy and the ability to construct a future. At thirteen he knew those layers could sometimes be rebuilt when people loved you. When you loved.

He did not believe in God, just in Saint and her grandmother, and sometimes his mother.

“She’s…the best of me,” he said.

“We don’t cry anymore,” she said, and wiped his eye. “He doesn’t get our tears. No one does.”

“Okay is the preserve of the uninspired, Patchwork. I’d rather live and die at the extremes than exist in the middle.”

Saint looked up at her. “God started the fire. And now he wants the credit for putting it out.”

“Is this cutlery real silver?” he said. “Yes.” He made a mental note to feign choking and slip it into his pocket.

And I wonder what exactly a mistake is. A thing we should not have done, right? But if learning is built on trial and error there can be no mistakes, only rungs on a ladder to someplace better.”

He did not know the delicacy of contouring, to divide what was light from what was dark until dimensions were eked out.

He would be a small scratch in the record of her life, no longer deep enough to alter the perfect rhythm.

If you learn from the times you go wrong, you can revel in the times you don’t.”

“Women teach men how to be men?” Saint said. “Of course. How else do you think they learn?”

“When it comes to marriage, love is merely a visitor over a lifetime. Respect and kindness, they are the true foundations.

Outside a strong wind blew and broke the petiole of russet leaves till they freed and fell, and Saint wondered if anything died a more beautiful death.

“It’s sad,” Norma said. “It isn’t. It’s for the lovers and the dreamers.”

“The bad are the few, but often they shout louder than the many. Don’t mistake silence for weakness.”

From Heathcliff and lost love to Holden Caulfield and his rail against phonies.

“I also know that a group of ladybirds is called a loveliness. I like how some things are just perfect, you know.”

“Time changes our ability to view the things that hurt us.” “But not the pain.”

“You’ve written Colorado’s Kingdom,” Saint said, and squinted at the girl’s scrawl. “Old name for Breckenridge. I like it better.”

“I mean, it’s not what I’d choose, but perhaps I could pawn it one day. Keep me from doing actual porn.” “It’s all I ask.”

“I want to be left alone. I don’t want to talk when people ask me to talk. Or paint. Or share goddamn feelings I don’t even have. I don’t want my ass grabbed. If I want to rage, I’ll rage.”

On his way back he handed a copy of The Color Purple to Howie Goucher in cell two. He would keep it for a month, telling Patch of the glorious Celie.

Saint stepped into the embrace. Right then it was all she had. It was all that kept her standing.

We fell in love and it was like…you know when all of a sudden there’s meaning. Actual true meaning and purpose.” “Like color in the dark,” Patch said.

“A smile. Doesn’t sound much, but when it was aimed at me, I knew for sure it was the only one I ever needed.”

“You knew the man on the screen,” Blackjack said.

“Consider it settled. I’d have paid it a hundred times over, just for the honor of knowing you.”

Patch had spent the better part of his life seeking, so she had little doubt he’d learned a thing or two about hiding.

And then, on the shelf, placed haphazardly, as if it would be discovered by chance on some distant date, she saw a single letter. And on the envelope, her name.

“There’s shutters at the windows, and a balcony that runs around the entire building. There’s a staircase that winds its way from the yard to the bedroom, and in winter you can see it because the praying trees shed leaves till the house emerges like a snowflake on a summer day.”

To love and be loved was more than could ever be expected, more than enough for a thousand ordinary lifetimes.