“The Painter on the Terrace” by Kiana Mohammadi

Turpentine smells like kerosene, black ink markers, and death, but to him, it smelled only of sticky evenings of painting that stretched into the morning hours. It smelled like cleaning brushes and finally leaving the paint behind for a few hours of chain-smoking on the terrace. Although the paint followed him there too, a colorful array of rainbow connections creeping up the curve of his hands to his fingers and settling beneath his nails. He never washed them, the same way he never made his bed. His return, no matter how distant, was definite. Always, it was guaranteed. 

The wind tickled his mustache, which only revealed its true whites on the twisted edges reaching for his ears. Under his nose, smoke had settled for years and years, leaving him with a chimney sweep black above his lip. Or was it really black and white? One look in the mirror might’ve proven true colors but there were no mirrors in his small apartment at the edge of town. He looked out onto the street. Below, the cobblestones shimmered powder blue and cornsilk brown.

The neighboring house towered in treacherously similar colors, the blue hues too much so for his tired eyes. As for the brown, maybe it held less cornsilk and more bisque. With another drag from his cigarette, he imagined the elderly woman living across the street making French soup with lobster from the fish market down the block, and he smiled at the idea of bisque soup brewing inside, turning the house’s outside that very same warm shade of light brown.

He wondered what color his house was from her side of the street. Whether she would just call it white and gray or do him the honor of picking at the shy undertones underneath. Whether she wondered about his life. 

Once the brush hit the canvas and the oil ran thick, black and white began to fade from the world. A shadow in the trees lining the sidewalk, and the leaves deepened, not with a shade of black but red. They didn’t wither, after all. They blushed at the cold’s embrace and giggled at the tickle of its windy hands. So, he yearned to paint them just this way. His head in his neck now,
the clouds came into view, hanging high in the sky, where their lover looks upon them easiest.

Unlike the leaves, the clouds didn’t flush in the shade. Nonetheless, they were also unfamiliar with blacks and whites. When an inch of a cloud’s softness remained unkissed by the sun, it ached so badly that it bruised purple. Where the sun’s lips reached, a halo glowed with warm-toned arrogance. He saw that halo with its violet injuries. When he picked up his brush later, as he surely would, he’d paint it just this way. He put out the cigarette.

The world demanded another glance, however, and then another. She was his muse, always smiling her Mona Lisa smile and waiting for his definite return to the terrace.

ABOUT THIS PIECE

Aghaye Rostami is an Iranian painter currently residing in Germany. Although a painter by profession, he’s first and foremost an artist of all disciplines. Familiar with oil painting, acrylics, figure sketching, and ceramics, to name a few, he takes on different art trends and movements regularly to gain a better understanding of the world and himself. Art, as his preferred way of communication, has allowed him to connect with others by expressing more than words could capture in the stroke of his paintbrush. Sharing his work, however, isn’t half the pleasure of sharing his knowledge with his students.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kiana Mohammadi is a person of many homes and backgrounds. As a student at UCSB, she is working toward finishing her degree by the summer of 2022, after which she will finally begin working on that novel she’s been planning. If time will allow it, she will also return to oil painting, a passion first discovered in the living room of a lifelong painter and friend, who taught her everything she knows about the craft. If it wasn’t for him, her clouds would have remained in shades of black and white to this day.