Despair

He sits hunched over in a straight-backed chair, scarred hands and knuckles buried in his china blue eyes as if he never wanted the salty tears to flow. The course faded grey uniform is too loose against his already emaciated form. The metallic silver of the walls around him clang in argument while fellow mental patients chatter in cadence in a monotonous and incessant calm. He wants to let loose a thousand tears onto the hard floor; he wants to fling himself against the nearest exit to the outside world, and he wants to plunge a hand into his chest and tear out his frayed yet still beating heart. However, he cannot. The form beside him chants in a derisive falsetto, “the painter, oh the painter, the painter who cannot speak.” The ringing echo of these words leaps around the meticulously bleached room and he sinks deeper into his reverie. Like a dying flower among dandelions, he feels the effects of those surrounding him. They have no idea who he was, what he is capable of, for they only see him as another shapeless form crashing into oblivion. They are all the same here. The man’s chant continues to mock him as the unbearable irony descends upon him, and a shadow envelops the sun. He peers through his raw fingers down at his unlaced shoes, hoping to see the familiar brown boots he wears when he is home. Now, however, the sharp voices haltingly ring back into his head, reminding him of his intolerable internment. He traces his hands and bitten fingernails across his eyes to rub out any remnants of sorrow, refusing to give in to a feeling that would only lead to penetrating questions. He slowly rises, trudging past the embodiments of his agony, the mental patients. He moves past the unsympathetic, unloving, and uncomprehending doctors. Down the whitewashed hall is his cell, which the doctors call a “temporary home.” Here he finds no solace in sleep or isolation, as they only intensify his incomprehensible state of mind. Despite this fact, the cell is the only real place he can express all of his bound emotions; he can paint now. He can make light and shape come to life with pure emotion, yet “speaking” is not seen this way by anyone in this wretched place. It hardly matters what he feels, but rather to the doctors if is able to tell them the reasons why he was put in this institution. But for the moment he can blissfully forget all of this. He reaches down to pick up the washed brushes that have fallen and strokes them absentmindedly, already searching for something to paint. His mind whirls as he works, drowning out the calls and shrieks down the hall in other cells; thankful to be left quietly alone to his work, even if it is that of a madman. In this painting, he will represent the poignancy of his condition as he sees it, through himself. It will be called “The Threshold of Eternity,” he decides. The figure will sit in a stark room devoid of furniture or home comforts - save for a fireplace. He paints him sitting on a hard, practical chair not designed for comfort and his posture screams out for help. He will be hunched over, silently crying out, waiting for an eternity to cease. His hands will be in fists and clenched to his eyes as to prevent the world from entering his field of vision. The cold empty landscape of the room suggests the psychological mood of the painter himself, on the verge of falling. Again, the unbearable irony of his state of being sinks into the painter, he recalls his parting words to his brother Theo, “After all, we can only make our pictures speak.” Pondering these words, he looks up and searches the dark sky. He is troubled to see that he cannot find the comforting brightness of the moon. But the painting is complete.
A dusty road dissects endless fields of wheat flanked by distant trees. A black bird, startled by the rattling sound of an old paint box, darts into the sky and disappears out of sight. Tall grass and wild flowers sway in the warm breeze that penetrates the bright sunlight of a summer day in the French countryside. The sky is punctuated with wispy clouds that resemble floating brush strokes on a pale blue canvas. At his favorite painting site, Vincent van Gogh quietly sits before a partially finished canvas, dipping and stirring his brush into a rich palette of oils. Today appears not unlike any other day; the morning walk to the fields, painting the landscape before lunch and later capturing the warm afternoon light. However, on this day, Vincent Van Gogh would paint for the last time. It would be his final tribute to the world.