LJ Idol - Week 1 - Black Rainbow
When I stepped outside, into that dark, cold January night in 1999, little did I know that my life was about to change.
At the time, it just seemed a mildly interesting date, born from the not yet omnipresent world of the web.
The first thing I noticed - and still see sometimes in my dreams - was that flamboyant, purple shirt, and the indigo sheen it lent to your piercing black eyes.
Then, a winter coat in an impossibly bold shade of blue.
A woollen hat, psychedelically striped in yellow and green.
Your skin, brazenly orange under the sodium vapor lamps.
And that smile, that wild, wide smile of your blood red lips.
Hypnotised, I could only stare, then smile back, and let myself be caught in your net.
Your spicy smell, the heat emanating from your body even from several steps away, enhanced the colours, until my brain was swirling like a kaleidoscope.
We walked for a long time that night, along the streets of a town where I spied your glowing reflection in every window, every wet surface, every car that passed.
I do not remember our words. I only recall the overwhelming synaesthesia that made me feel drunk and drugged, dizzy and dyspnoeic.
The frantic aura of colours around you became even more powerful when, at the end of the night, we went to your place and made love.
The feverish heat of Infrared and the otherworldly sheen of Ultraviolet then added themselves to the already manic spectrum invading my body and brain.
Later, you sat down at the piano and sang, piercing my heart with yet another storm of sensual waves.
Then you cooked for me, bright yellow noodles in a blood red tomato sauce, sprinkled with deep green basil leaves. And while we ate, you talked about the impossibly blue skies of your Sicilian home.
I was silent and stunned, savouring every second and every bite, trying to ignore my foreboding of this wondrous high to crash, desperately desiring for it to last.
And for a while, it did. We became inseparable, riding those piercing sensory emotions right through one of the coldest late winters south of the Alps.
Then, slowly, the days grew longer, warmer, and brighter.
Strange enough, as the sun lit up the world again, your colours suddenly appeared to dim.
Imperceptibly at first, showing in just a slightly less vivid tone of voice, on a garment in muted blue or a dish not seasoned with liquid fire any more.
Soon I felt the anguishing need to keep the colours alive, to not allow them to seep out from our world.
I wanted to continue to lose myself, soaring up in your dramatic sheen.
As everything darkened and paled, you told me that I had been feasting on something not mine, without returning it in kind.
Absorbing your energy, allowing it to light up my own wasted shell, irradiating borrowed, no, stolen brilliance without a thought about if - when - it would end.
Mortified and ashamed, I desperately fought to unearth a source of spirit inside myself, until I found the strength and the will to push it forward, onto you, fanning the colours again.
I was not used to create this overwhelming beauty and joy on my own. Sometimes, I did burn bright but, oh so fast, extinguished myself again, lacking the energy to carry on.
Never before, anything had seemed worth such an effort to me.
But now, I had tasted those colours, those waves of inebriating radiance and light, and could not imagine my life without them anymore.
And so, I worked hard, on whatever I thought would please you, instil you again with the fuel that would produce what I thought I needed so much.
I applied myself to what I believed was dear to you and tried to become proficient in it.
Where before I had simply relied on my natural pitch and decent voice, now I studied, exercised, and rehearsed, to fill your place with beautiful sound.
I started to run, to eat more healthily and to keep decent hours of sleep, because I knew how you valued the harmony of a tonic body with beautiful skin.
Whenever your colours started to grow dim again, when you drew away from me even in the most imperceptible way, I doubled my efforts, cooking exquisite meals, showering you with gifts I could ill afford but that, I thought, would enhance your perfection even more.
I discovered many things about myself in those weeks and months. I matured more than in many years before, I realised my own limits and tried, successfully at times, to overcome them.
But it was never enough.
As I, myself, became more attentive, assiduous, and aware, I also began to perceive that so many of your colours were not true.
Under just a subtle layer of brilliant glow, often there sat just a miserable shade of dirty grey.
The more my own senses opened, the darker you became. To no avail, I tried to revive the splendour, with poetry, sensuality, and love.
There was no port where to pour it, you had shut them all down.
That vibrant rainbow I saw in you, it might just have fizzled out in time.
Instead, it became black.
Without my admiration, my desperate efforts to please and my enthusiastic joy, you felt betrayed, and anger rose in your soul.
All that had been fiery animation, now turned to hateful spite.
You became cruel, abusive, more violent every day.
I still continued to try, for a while, to change into whatever would be enough for you, even if this caused me pain and humiliation.
The first time you called me, contemptuously, “Zelig”, I finally realised that I was giving up on myself.
And so, I left.
I closed the door forever to the possibility of seeing those colours again.
Admitting this, allowing myself to detect the true blackness in every single shade you wore as a disguise, was one of the hardest things I have ever done.
And it might just have saved my life.
At the time, it just seemed a mildly interesting date, born from the not yet omnipresent world of the web.
The first thing I noticed - and still see sometimes in my dreams - was that flamboyant, purple shirt, and the indigo sheen it lent to your piercing black eyes.
Then, a winter coat in an impossibly bold shade of blue.
A woollen hat, psychedelically striped in yellow and green.
Your skin, brazenly orange under the sodium vapor lamps.
And that smile, that wild, wide smile of your blood red lips.
Hypnotised, I could only stare, then smile back, and let myself be caught in your net.
Your spicy smell, the heat emanating from your body even from several steps away, enhanced the colours, until my brain was swirling like a kaleidoscope.
We walked for a long time that night, along the streets of a town where I spied your glowing reflection in every window, every wet surface, every car that passed.
I do not remember our words. I only recall the overwhelming synaesthesia that made me feel drunk and drugged, dizzy and dyspnoeic.
The frantic aura of colours around you became even more powerful when, at the end of the night, we went to your place and made love.
The feverish heat of Infrared and the otherworldly sheen of Ultraviolet then added themselves to the already manic spectrum invading my body and brain.
Later, you sat down at the piano and sang, piercing my heart with yet another storm of sensual waves.
Then you cooked for me, bright yellow noodles in a blood red tomato sauce, sprinkled with deep green basil leaves. And while we ate, you talked about the impossibly blue skies of your Sicilian home.
I was silent and stunned, savouring every second and every bite, trying to ignore my foreboding of this wondrous high to crash, desperately desiring for it to last.
And for a while, it did. We became inseparable, riding those piercing sensory emotions right through one of the coldest late winters south of the Alps.
Then, slowly, the days grew longer, warmer, and brighter.
Strange enough, as the sun lit up the world again, your colours suddenly appeared to dim.
Imperceptibly at first, showing in just a slightly less vivid tone of voice, on a garment in muted blue or a dish not seasoned with liquid fire any more.
Soon I felt the anguishing need to keep the colours alive, to not allow them to seep out from our world.
I wanted to continue to lose myself, soaring up in your dramatic sheen.
As everything darkened and paled, you told me that I had been feasting on something not mine, without returning it in kind.
Absorbing your energy, allowing it to light up my own wasted shell, irradiating borrowed, no, stolen brilliance without a thought about if - when - it would end.
Mortified and ashamed, I desperately fought to unearth a source of spirit inside myself, until I found the strength and the will to push it forward, onto you, fanning the colours again.
I was not used to create this overwhelming beauty and joy on my own. Sometimes, I did burn bright but, oh so fast, extinguished myself again, lacking the energy to carry on.
Never before, anything had seemed worth such an effort to me.
But now, I had tasted those colours, those waves of inebriating radiance and light, and could not imagine my life without them anymore.
And so, I worked hard, on whatever I thought would please you, instil you again with the fuel that would produce what I thought I needed so much.
I applied myself to what I believed was dear to you and tried to become proficient in it.
Where before I had simply relied on my natural pitch and decent voice, now I studied, exercised, and rehearsed, to fill your place with beautiful sound.
I started to run, to eat more healthily and to keep decent hours of sleep, because I knew how you valued the harmony of a tonic body with beautiful skin.
Whenever your colours started to grow dim again, when you drew away from me even in the most imperceptible way, I doubled my efforts, cooking exquisite meals, showering you with gifts I could ill afford but that, I thought, would enhance your perfection even more.
I discovered many things about myself in those weeks and months. I matured more than in many years before, I realised my own limits and tried, successfully at times, to overcome them.
But it was never enough.
As I, myself, became more attentive, assiduous, and aware, I also began to perceive that so many of your colours were not true.
Under just a subtle layer of brilliant glow, often there sat just a miserable shade of dirty grey.
The more my own senses opened, the darker you became. To no avail, I tried to revive the splendour, with poetry, sensuality, and love.
There was no port where to pour it, you had shut them all down.
That vibrant rainbow I saw in you, it might just have fizzled out in time.
Instead, it became black.
Without my admiration, my desperate efforts to please and my enthusiastic joy, you felt betrayed, and anger rose in your soul.
All that had been fiery animation, now turned to hateful spite.
You became cruel, abusive, more violent every day.
I still continued to try, for a while, to change into whatever would be enough for you, even if this caused me pain and humiliation.
The first time you called me, contemptuously, “Zelig”, I finally realised that I was giving up on myself.
And so, I left.
I closed the door forever to the possibility of seeing those colours again.
Admitting this, allowing myself to detect the true blackness in every single shade you wore as a disguise, was one of the hardest things I have ever done.
And it might just have saved my life.