On the Edge of a Rainbow

There was once a girl. She was in her teens. She liked to draw. She also liked graffiti a lot. She always had doodles in her mind and in her notebook. She’d draw Disney characters or comic book characters. Sometimes she would draw herself, either standing or sitting, surrounded by graffiti lettering.

The girl lived in a small town on the outskirts of New Jersey. The town boasted a library, a medicine shop, a small cafe and a bookstore. The girl used to go to the local community school there. Whenever she got a chance, she would graffiti in her school. She used felt tip markers to doodle, so they were removable. The entire building was her canvas, and bit by bit, her art got better and better.

She started to move out of the school building and paint on the walls of the bookstore. She would draw Hemingway, or a scene from a Batman comic or she would use bright colors to initial the walls.

Our artist had soon painted the entire town with some graffiti or the other. Her drawings ranged from lettering, to pictures of the President and scenes from movies were also thrown in for good measure.

In this way, the teenaged girl passed out of high school and went on to study art in Chicago. Seven years passed. Four years of college and three years at an art gallery. She didn’t think of going back. Until one day, her father sent her an email saying that her mother had fallen sick. She took the first train out.

Upon seeing her, her mother was overwhelmed and insisted on talking with her about her new life and how college was. Slowly bit by bit and brick by brick, her mother got better.

Meanwhile, the girl carried on doodling in an exercise book. One day she went out. She went to the bookstore. On her way out, she saw the graffiti she had painted still on the wall she had painted it on. It seemed to have been cared for. It had not faded or been blemished. It had lasted seven years.

The girl felt immensely happy that the town had kept these graffiti decoration she had drawn so well. She also felt at home again in her little town. It was like a trip down memory lane. She was the girl standing on the edge of the rainbow once again; just as she had drawn herself seven years ago.

The Bilge Master