Black Chalk by Albert Alla Read Free Book Online Page A

eyes. ‘She told me to tell you that it’s okay, you tried.’ My mother sighed, letting go of my arm. ‘You know she would have liked to tell you herself. It’s okay, you tried. Will you remember?’
    â€˜I’ll remember.’
    She rose, wiped something off her brow, and turned towards the window.
    â€˜We can’t forget it. It’s what she wanted you to feel,’ she said.
    In the ensuing silence, I tried to change the conversation and asked my mother where my father was. Her answer washed over me: part of my mind made sense of what she answered, while the rest left my ward and its tedious reality. Tiredness took over from sadness. It made sense, it all made sense. I felt old, omniscient, omnipotent. The world was clay waiting to be shaped and undone. And yet I had no desire to test my newfound powers. I wanted nothing. The world was as it was and I was content with it.
    In that half-awake state, I started thinking about the sheets against my skin, and they were soft and comfortable, just as I wished them. I heard my mother moving away from me, and out of the ward, and I told myself that this was exactly as it should be. I smiled inside at the thought of how right everything was. Yes, I told myself, even what my mother just told me made sense. I had to struggle to remember what that was.
    When it came back to my mind, it threatened to throw me out of my pleasant, knowing state. Anna was on the operating table, her hair darkened by damp, her pink skin gone grey. Behind Anna’s drained cheeks, I could glimpse a host of other faces, basking in horror. Tensing up, I forced my mind back to my earlier image: the world was made of clay and her death was right. Yes, there was nothing sad about it. She was floating forever in the peaceful glow that I was merely touching. And the other faces weren’t horrible but blissful. Ha, I laughed, there’s such a thin line between beauty and horror.
    From that thought came a burst of resolve: I was on the brink of something special, which I shouldn’t forget, but which I couldn’t remember either. I understood how dangerous the sort of thoughts I’d almost had were. My resolve was to Not, I told myself. I would not think such thoughts, and already they were out of my grasp, so that I didn’t know exactly what I should not think. It didn’t matter: I’d been so close that that one moment of truth could never leave me. Picturing the word ‘Don’t’, I set it aflame and let its burning shape engrave itself in my mind.
    ***
    Later that day, my mother brought me the ingredients of a forgotten pastime. An A4 drawing pad, four graphite pencils, four charcoal pencils, a soft black pencil, a blending stump, a vinyl eraser, and a sharpener. She’d assembled the different items inside a wooden case which she’d lined with a fleur-de-lys fabric. I brushed the paper, feeling its grain on the tip of my fingers.
    I sat up, took the soft black pencil and drew three lines. My eyes following the swell of the curves, I reached for an object, an idea, leaving my hand to its own bidding. I revelled in the freedom of an uncorked imagination, the privacy of the page, the simplicity of pencil on paper.
    I’d spent hours, days, even years drawing as a child. The walls of our house had been covered with my pictures, with the ones I’d copied and the ones I’d composed. My matchbox houses and green pastures had gone on the fridge door. As my drawings improved, they spread from the kitchen into other rooms. My parents would make a ceremony of the moment they hung them. At first, I spent a long time on each, but soon I started craving the pomp and attention, and I started to speed through the page. I still remember the day my mother told me a picture wasn’t good enough to go on the wall. I ran outside, cried, and swore off drawing. But two days later I was back at it, working on a single drawing until I thought it