Untangling Spool of Tangled Reds Part 1-2

[to avoid confusion, it's probably better to read part 1-1 here before you continue with this post. :)]

every life, breathed into a newborn is destined to end in death. so all mothers who gave birth to a child, inevitably also stipulated the demise of that child. as morbid as it might sound, that is just how the universe works. if you catch yourself wincing to what you've just read, then you probably have not fully understood the true meaning to life. i could go on about life and death, but that's not why i'm here. i'm here to because i have a story to tell, a story about a boy who understood the universe, arguably more so than anyone of us, albeit in his uncanny way.

it all started when my dad and i were building the tree house, and i wanted it to be painted red. dad wouldn't let me, he thought it was too much hassle, and unnecessary. after persistent pleading, and also the fact that Maya had gotten her doll house for our birthday but all i wanted was for at least one side of the tree house to be painted red, dad decided it was only fair to grant my birthday wish. so i earned myself a little sanctuary, where Maya wouldn't ever come near because she's a girly girl and she'd rather not climb up a tree if she could avoid so. which was fine by me. Mark however, always needed to be close to me, and i couldn't say no to him, so he was always around in the tree house whenever i was up there. it was weird, initially, because Mark would just sit in a corner and stare at what I was doing, like an out-of-place kid invited into a stranger's house. i tried getting him to do stuff with me, only to be met with blank expression and more staring, until one day i asked him if he wanted to draw. what happened next was unbelievable. he didn't use my crayons to draw; instead he opted for the tin of leftover red paint (for the wall) all the way at the other corner of the room and started making these abstract patterns that a five-year-old me couldn't comprehend but knew it was incredible art. imagine jackson pollock's abstract expressionist stuff. it was something like that, except it was in shades of red on white background. done by a 4 yr-old.

subsequent days flew by with a lot of anticipation on his part to make more art and excitement on my part to see what he'd come up with. Mark could work for hours without a break, while i didn't have the patience to be there the entire time he's making his art. so eventually i just left him with his activity and went about my own stuff. he started spending more time in the tree house than i did, which was fine; in fact it was great to see him engaging in something so zealously - until one day when i was up in the tree house to check on him. it was the smell that gave him away. i suppose most if not all autistic savants are oblivious to their surroundings, and the concepts of "right" and "wrong" drilled into us by our parents/caretakers at a very young age. they follow their impulse, and they only have their end goal in mind. what i saw next wasn't what i expected at all. but i guess i knew, then, that it was a glimpse of how things would end, a prologue of the beginning of an end. 

i will leave you with your imagination of what i saw that day, and a snippet of conversation i had with him years later. "why did you do it?" i asked. and he replied, in a most serious tone and a matter-of-fact way, "because." we sat there for what seemed like an eternity, and then he added, "every beginning has an end. i wasn't interfering the circle of life."

footnote: in case you're wondering, it's all fiction, inspired by a dream i had. and yes it was an intense and complicated dream. :/