Chiaroscuro
Diocesan Girls’ School, Gigi Lam, Fiction: Group 3
W
hite is the cleanest color of them all. It is the color of milk, the color of new-fallen
snow. It is a warm blanket on a winter night, your mother’s first and last kiss to you.
For all his life, he has dwelled in the shadows of a white temple, clothed in
rough white robes, walking barefoot over polished white tiles, kneeling to men
with white hair and white beards.
White is the color of submission.
When his masters tell him he must leave on a pilgrimage, he bows his bald head reverently,
murmurs the traditional rites to the ancient gold sculpture, and departs into the neighboring oasis
with white bowl in hand. The sands blisters his feet and bakes his skin, but the disturbing thing is
the flood of color: the gold of the sun, the blue of the sky, the green of the date trees, the rainbow
of men’s clothes, the black of hair.
So much color, assaulting his eyes. No matter how far he seeks, he cannot find the white. So
he hides within himself, within the white a lifetime in the temple has accorded him, even as he
calls out in the streets of the oasis, “I come in the name of His Worship, the Lord of the Light,
bringing His benediction and His peace.”
White is the color of tolerance.
He stays amongst the folk, preaching the words of his order by memory. They shower him
with gifts, holding nothing back from a servant of the Lord of Light. He accepts nothing but their
food and their hospitality, as per protocol. On the last day before he is due to leave the oasis, he
stays in the house of a woman in black veils. She owns a flock of sheep and lives off the milk, and
that night she kills a lamb for their meal.
“I have woven a cape from its wool for you,” the woman says, showing him the dyed red and
blue cloth. “I would be honored if you might accept it.”
“I cannot. I serve the Lord of Light, I wear the white robes.”
“So you think.” The woman plays with a fold of his sleeve. “The lamb, too, was white before.
But underneath the wool, it was but flesh and blood. Clothes can be changed, and your robes are
no longer white.”
He looks down. It has been a moon’s turn since he left the temple, and his robes have grayed
from hard use. “Robes can be bleached.”
“The robes. Not you.” She straddles his legs, her fingers cupping his cheeks. “You’ve left the
temple, out into the grays and blacks of the real world. The moment white is touched by color,
there is no going back.”
White is the color of purity, so unsullied it is begging to be tarnished.
“My fate is to serve the Lord,” he protests.
“A cruel Lord. The fate of white is to be colored, else the world would forever be blank.” She
strokes the stubble growing on his head, her lips brushing against his. “Let me color you.”
He should resist. He knows this, yet he cannot. For all his white, for all her black, their passion
is the red of fire, of autumn leaves, of the rose that pricks your finger to invite a crimson partner.
She glows so brightly, like the embers of a dying fire.
Later that night, as they lie in the sands to watch the stars, he asks, “So have I defied my fate
