The Keeper

April 3, 2013



Let me take a picture of you before you fade away. Let me draw you, your image before my memory distorts what you are. Let me remember you as you are. I filled in the contours of her body with my charcoal pencil. The carbon lead filled in the crevices of the paper as I filled in her silhouette, picking her up from the surroundings, I filled in her soul, the probable emptiness, and her life as she filled mine. I drew her face, gently brushing my fingers over the details; the curve of her eye, the small spot on her left cheek, rundown kohl, her collar bones, the bodice strings gently resting on her chest, the lace a bit worn out around her waist, the slight impression of fat, the impression of her breast, long lashes, her toes and “an island in her arms, the country in her eyes”. I rubbed the lead over and over again, over the parts I loved the most, adding darkness over the cream cartridge sheet. Her muscles, her bones, her petite body, her face, her lips, her eyes, all of them laughed as though I tickled those features with the nib of my ebony pen. The pictures were always black and white, with huge amounts of grey to fill in; just like life. This was some 5 years ago. Or maybe 10, I don’t know. I remember drawing the picture over coffee and some conversation. I remember feeling like being a sculptor, sculpting his masterpiece. It was a beautiful picture attached with some rancid memories, some clear thoughts, some candid thoughts, some dirty thoughts. It was a beautiful picture in the hindsight, but she was not that pretty as I made her out to be.  She was average looking, but my memories made her prettier, rosier than her actual self. I had wanted her to be remembered always in my life, like that; beautiful and pensive, I wanted to remember her like that, ‘perfect’ in that moment when I used to love her, no matter what came up between us later. Like that. I made my memory inert of any hatred, distance and light-years between us now. Timelessly. The glow of her face, the reflection of me in her eyes. And every time I looked at that picture, I fell in love with that memory all over again