Felicity – A Philosophical Fable [Chapter 18]
Sunny stood before the white wall but did not see it. Instead she saw her next painting, as vivid in her mind as if it were already completed. It was a joyful vision. She was ready to begin. She lingered only to relish the inspiration. The irresistible urge to transform feeling into color.
She was aware of Mimi sitting behind her on a sofa. She could sense Mimi’s presence. She always could. It didn’t matter if she could see her. Mimi’s nearness was enough to fill Sunny with bliss. None of the others seemed to be affected in this way.
Tripp thought Mimi was smart because she was responsive to poetry and because she could read. Wave thought Tripp was just seeing what he wanted to see. They each had an idea about how much Mimi knew. But it did not matter to Sunny what Mimi knew. What mattered to Sunny was what Mimi was. She was a Felicity. A mysterious being, transcendental and sublime.
What truths lay within her? What depths? What profundities beyond the scope of the intellect? Sunny didn’t know. But she knew that Mimi was the source of her bliss.
Sunny lifted her hand as high as she could and swept it across the white wall. Where her hand had been the wall was as blue as the blue in her mind. A beautiful blue like the sky. Vast and cool and clear. It expanded under her touch. It spread across the wall.
Sunny’s movements were swift and natural. She gave form to her vision as never before. She reached down towards the floor and drew her hand upward with a flourish, leaving a trail of green. Then again and again, the vital green sprang from her fingertips, rising through the blue.
It was a fuller expression of feeling than she had ever created before and she knew it. She knew it in the same way she knew when Mimi was near. She sensed it.
On and on she painted. She painted without pause. Blue and green, light and life. The colors coming into being through the motions of her hands. Form and color in perfect harmony.
Mimi liked the painting. Sunny could tell. She never turned around to look at Mimi. Not once. But she knew Mimi liked the painting.
And on Sunny painted, inspired, enthralled. The expanse of blue above, peaceful and pure, radiating in every direction. The green below, growing, proliferating, striving upward. Ever upward. And the place where they touched, where the green and blue met, bliss transformed into color.