Sun-painting
“Maybe I am not very human - what I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.”
—Edward Hopper
Big brother where are you going I say because I can see him going and becoming small very small but not small like me and he shouts back I’m going to the sea.
Now there is something in his voice that makes me think that he does not want me to follow but I do not know what else to do but follow especially since Daddy went. Because now he is I think my Daddy even though when I said this once he screwed up his nose and walked away.
He walks away from me more and more. He has long legs and they are getting hairy too. Thick dark hairs like little whips on them. Hundreds and hundreds or maybe even millions. He walks off his legs kind of flashing in the sunlight and he looks so bright and I look up and I see a bird flying and catching the sun and it seems to glow like a fireball or like a tiny little sun so it seems like there are two suns in the sky.
Wait for me Big brother I shout and my voice sounds very small like it is being squashed by all the sand around us. The sand is white and hot and rippling and some of it is in like hills that go up and down like white waves that have been stopped in time.
Our house was very white. Not this house and not the holiday house which is not really a house at all but the house we used to live in. The one with Daddy’s big car in the drive. Every morning in the summer holidays the sun would slice into my room and be on the wall opposite my bed and it would be like the sun had visited me and repainted my room just for me. Just for a little while. And I told Big brother this and he said I was being silly. Big brother’s voice was getting deep and wavy and I did not like it like his old voice which was like mine high and happy like bouncing or sky or birds. And I would go outside to the side of the house and the sun would paint that for me too all big and bright just for me. I would sit and look at that big white wall for a long time.
When we did painting at school I painted my house with that big white wall and my teacher said it was too simple. She said where is the detail. I did not know what to tell her. I said that this is all there is. Just wall and sun making wall very white and that it made me happy. She made a sound and walked away. I did not paint the house again.
Big brother wait please wait.
I see him look round but then he turns and keeps going. So I run as fast as I can but the sand makes it hard to do.
He disappears behind the sandy hill. I have lost him. I push my legs as hard as they will go.
I reach the top. The sand stretches out in front of me. It is so white like the white of the side of our house when the sun painted it. And now the sun paints the sand and it is doing it just for me. And I look further out see Big brother. He is far off.
And in front of him is the sea. The sea. The sea is so blue and so full of light. I watch him take his clothes off and swim in it. The water is very blue and it sparkles in the sun. I watch it wash Big brother’s brown skin. I hope it will wash him back to me.
I've written this in response to a challenge in my writing Discord group. The challenge was to write using only full stops as punctuation.
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