Creative Writing | Thomas Cherié, the French Painter

    It was a sweltering summer day. My brother and I were trying to cool ourselves down in our pool. We both had popsicles in our hands. My brother was spraying everything he possibly could with his 7-year-old, barely-breathing water gun. I, on the other hand, was admiring the five beautiful, vibrant colors of the Seychelles flag present on the popsicle covered in my saliva. Our parents were at work– or at least that’s what we thought when we stole two ice-cold cans of root beer from our neighbor's backyard (they were having an open house).

    Suddenly, our mom ran out of the house and stood right in front of the pool with a huge canvas in her hands. She is an artist– always wearing canvas or beige colored clothes, always barefoot, always covered head to toe in picturesque colors or clay– so it wasn’t unusual to see her in this state. She turned the canvas around, confused.

    “Is this your new painting?” My brother said. He is uneducated and illiterate, purely by choice. 
    “Nope.”
    The painting she was holding showed the beautiful scenery of an ancient ecosystem. There was a Tibetan Tiger in the right-hand corner. It had a vibrantly colored shadow, igniting with the beautiful contrast of evergreen and blue violet. One could argue this was the tiger’s soul.
    “So… did you buy it?” My brother asked in a most uninterested voice.
    “Nope. I just stumbled upon it in my studio...”
    “Oh, mom! Look at the signature. Does it say ‘Thomas Cherié’?”
    “Yup.”
    “Then that’s a gift from our new neighbor. Look over the fence. They’re having a party,” I said.
    I sounded convincing. Convincing enough that my mom believed me. She jumped up and down to have a look over the fence and seemed genuinely convinced. These people were not new to our neighborhood. The painting wasn’t new, either, nor was Thomas Cherié famous. I was Thomas Cherié.
 
    Even though I loved my mom and loved spending time with her, I’d often refuse to participate in any artistic activity when asked. The thing is, absolutely everyone was too liberal and spiritual (not in a good way) to ever really see the things I created or meet the person I really was.
    There were no hidden meanings in my paintings. None. There were no spiritual hints or undertones. My paintings were meaningless. They were random doodles, created over a multitude of hours. They were the work of the most complex ecosystems that are constantly all around us, repeating in a fractal-like pattern. They were a demonstration of the quantum entanglement of apples and dogs, of bananas and red pandas. Never mind– they were meaningless. If they did have a meaning, that would be it. I’d much rather them be hollow layers of paint than have meaning. 
    That’s why I’d always paint in secret. That’s why I hadn’t told anyone about the secret room I’d found in our house, which now stored my paintings. That’s why no one ever met the actual me. I was just a strategic mastermind manipulator hiding under the mask of a people pleaser.
    I didn’t exist either. I would much rather have no self than have a hollow, stupid, self-sacrificing, and superficial one. 
    Have you met these people?

    Maybe you’re one of them yourself. Maybe all you think about are useless social norms. Maybe you yourself don’t exist because of how much you’ve sacrificed yourself to get everybody else’s approval. 

    Maybe you yourself are a liar. 

    ‘Maybe,’ the word of lies. It doesn’t mean yes. It doesn’t mean no. It means maybe. It means doubt. If you’re uncertain and you say maybe, then maybe you’re lying as well. Maybe. Or maybe not. 
    
    If you assume I’m lying when I’m not lying, and I assure you I’m not, does that mean I’m lying about lying in your mind, and not lying about not lying in mine? That’s a tongue twister. A bad tongue twister. 

    If we stand face to face, one in a mask, one in a blindfold, which one of us is lying about seeing the other?

    Maybe I hide away my creations since I see too much of myself in them– maybe I’ve lied to others about who I am so much that I’ve forgotten myself. Or maybe it’s because I hate my actual self, because it reminds me of someone. Maybe I’m scared that I have no self. Maybe I’m scared to admit that my chest is empty and I’m nothing but a ghost inside.

    If my real self exists in the reality perceivable by every human being (even though there is no one reality perceivable by everyone– but we’ll assume there is– maybe there is– maybe– or maybe not) and every other self I’ve ever had was a fictional creation, does that mean I’m an imaginative creature? Imaginative in the sense that I was ‘imagined’? If so, then I might be cooler than I thought. Is that why I love science fiction? Since it’s surreal, imaginative, and filled with complex interconnected systems? 

     Too many questions? Now you see the tiniest nanopercentage of what it’s like to be in my head. Except, there are only fascinating questions in there. In there, there’s nothing and everything at the same time. In there, it’s real.

So that would mean fiction is the normal reality. But that’s not true, either. If the truth is what’s real, then it’s in my mind. So reality is fiction, and surreality is the truth? (It’s not the truth– but logically, it does make sense.) 

    I guess I really am stuck between truth and fiction. 

In the dark void called space,
There once was a time 
When stars appeared, 
And gave life a face. 
Though it had no face. 
The first theory we’d stumbled upon, 
Omnipotent, was shown;
“Flowers are rivers, 
Petals are tears, 
Smiles are somber, 
Nights are awake, 
Chirpings are swooshes and hope. 
Chemical compounds are fractally dispersed leaves, 
Thoughts are trees,
And trees are dreams,
Wings are the wind,
And fire is love,
Light is life
And so is the dark,
Nothing doesn’t exist
As everything that exists
Is nothing in its turn, 
Your empty chest will one day bloom with flowers,
Your swollen heart will one day heal in love, 
Your fragile, glass tears will shatter no more,
Every droplet will turn into diamond pearls,
Your empty thoughts will fractalize,
And turn into snowflakes too soft, too fragile, but strong
Your smile will one day come from your soul
Your green and violet shadow will glimmer once more
And you’ll see that there are meanings in tears, 
Though dull, though unseen, 
They one day will become flowers
Of our very own dreams,
Brightened by beautiful, picturesque beams,
And that day you’ll find
Love was the remedy
Of every silent melody. 

    My mom, or anyone for that matter, never found out I was Thomas Cherié. But I’d found something better. I’d found the meaning of life.