Jordan. #2
Breathing deeply through my nose, I let my eyes fall shut. And I listened to the sounds of The Pueblo.
Murmurs of students exchanging pleasantries or questions. Lilly talking softly to someone when they had a question or observation. The swish swish swish tap tap tap clink clink clink of brushes being rinsed in jars and tapped dry. Soles of shoes scraping against well-worn stone.
A smile came to my face as a breeze whistled down from the skylight in the dome, carrying the sound of birdsong with it.
If I really concentrated, I could almost hear the gurgling of Susurrus Creek.
Even though The Pueblo was a good one hundred yards from the creek, the breeze still managed to help it deliver its message.
Next door, Starbuck had made blueberry muffins.
Along with the sounds of the birds and the creek, the breeze carried the scent of Possibly.
Soft and cakey, light, yet dense and filling where it mattered, gooey and sticky from all of the berries.
Crunchy and crumbly on top from the sugar and cinnamon crumble topping.
Down, through the center of the softball sized muffins, was that sweet cream cheese icing filling.
Almost like cheesecake, but softer. Crunchy, gooey, cakey.
My mouth watered thinking of the muffins.
It dawned on me why Possibilians would enjoy having The Pueblo as their “church.” It had all the sights, sounds, and smells of their happy, quirky, little town.
It was an oasis. It was safe. Going to high school in The Pueblo didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
To do my studies while listening to the sounds of Possibly, while smelling Starbuck’s creations each day, would be heaven.
I opened my eyes.
The room wasn’t brown.
Copper.
Bronze.
Dark amber.
It wasn’t brown.
It was the color of a golden park statue, well-worn, dulled, and smoothed by fingers that had loved it over its lifetime. Because it had seen life. It had life.
The circle of emerald shavings at the center of the room proved it.
I didn’t know how to make those colors with the dozen or so different colors of acrylic Lilly had squirted onto my palette, but I’d have fun figuring it out.
I gripped my brush. Maybe, even if I couldn’t paint the room in a way that would be representative of the room itself, I could at least express how I saw the room.
Just as Lilly had instructed. I’d do that.
Hours ticked by and the coppers and bronzes and dark ambers took on new dimension.
I did my best. Other students finished their work and left in a daze of contentment.
Or they moved on to other art projects. Lilly continued moving about the room, checking in on this student here, checking in on that student there.
She mostly gave me a wide berth, but a few times she stopped by to check my progress, saying nothing as she did so. I took that to mean that whatever I was doing was okay by her, even if it wasn’t what she would have done.
I only knew when afternoon arrived from the way the sun shone down into the atrium.
Lilly had a group of students come in and start working on molding wires into sculptures.
It hadn’t gotten my attention when Auggie showed up at The Pueblo for class, until I happened to catch him out of the corner of my eye, standing a few feet away, watching me work.
He was looking at me blankly, as if he didn’t know me. I didn’t stop painting.
After a while, he joined the students working on the wire sculptures, and I continued painting.
Another hour or two ticked by, though I wasn’t certain, and my painting was only half done.
But I was zapped for the day. My wrist ached, my eyes were nearly crossed from staring at the canvas all day, and my hands and forearms were speckled with every shade of the rainbow.
I had barely finished rinsing my brush out in the murky mason jar, and was tapping it dry, when Auggie approached me again.
Through hazy eyes, I looked up at him, then glanced over to see that his class was dispersing as well.
He smiled at me and held his hand out to me.
A small wire figure, maybe four inches tall, laid upon his palm.
“For you,” he said. “I, uh, made it for you.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I reached out and took the small figure from him with a smile and examined it.
It was a caterpillar.
Made of what looked like copper wire. Then again, I doubted Lilly had copper wire on hand for students to use to create their art.
“It’s amaz—”
Auggie was gone.
I frowned to myself and looked back down at the caterpillar sculpture in my hand.
Weird spikes and antennae came out of its head, back, and sides.
It was an odd-looking caterpillar, like an undiscovered species hiding deep in the Amazonian rainforest. As though perching on its belly with its head raised grandly, its tail mirroring its head, it was cute.
It gleamed in the beam of Possibilian sun as I turned it in my fingers.
I continued turning it every which way, admiring its gleam and intricacy until I turned it just so and froze.
It was a caterpillar.
Unless you turned it to look from the side at just the right angle.
Then it was a butterfly.
Wings and all.