#aka Vasya's dad/uncle :)

[radioactiveshitstorm]

Sunflowers

The first time Vasya sees van Gogh's "Sunflowers", he is six years old.

The yellow calls out to him, bright and sunny, from the poster on the classroom wall. He stands in front of it and stares, young mind captivated by how warm it makes him feel, even as he lacks the words to describe the feeling. Silent until his teacher comes to find him, and he works up the courage to point and ask: who painted that?

She tells him the story of a suffering artist, a man consumed by pain and misery, who painted in yellow because it made him happy, and ate the yellow paint because he wanted that happiness inside of him. Vasya drinks up the story like someone dying of thirst and, when the teacher finally persuades him to come outside with the rest of the children, the painting sticks in his mind.

It stays there for a long time. Bright yellow. Warm yellow. Happy yellow. Yellow crayons and coloured-pencils used up long before any other colour. Sunflowers in the margins of his workbooks. Sunflowers on scraps of paper hidden in his room. Sunflowers in his mind when his father gets loud, when the basement door slams shut, when his mother tells him that crying will get him nowhere.

He thinks of the man who ate yellow paint because he wanted to be happy, and considers following in his footsteps.

Years pass. He grows up, switches schools. In the posters absence, the sunflowers fade.

Vasya finds them again when he's 14, being lead around the Kolorit exhibition in Mayakovskoho Square, Rustem's hand comforting and solid in his. A flash of warm, sunny yellow in the corner of his eye. He's a child again. Still hopeful. Still dreaming. It's as beautiful as he remembers.

The woman at the stall smiles at him, warm like the sun and the sunflowers and his best friend's hand. Asks if he likes the picture, draws a shy nod from him. Asks if he knows the story behind it, and he nods again. Drags up the energy to talk about the sad man who painted it, the yellow he consumed... and is shocked when the woman shakes he head.

No no, she says. Van Gogh didn't paint the sunflowers because he was sad - he painted them because he was happy. Vasya listens as she describes a man who was sad and hurting, yes, but also loved and cherished. A man who ate paint because he was unwell, not because he thought it would make him happy. A man with family and friends who wrote to and visited and helped him, for whom he painted the sunflowers in gratitude.

Once again, Vasya absorbs this story. When he returns to his parents' house, the people in question absent as usual, he stashes a postcard copy of the Sunflowers under his pillow. Temporarily, of course. He decides he'll find a better place for it tomorrow.

That night, his dreams are full of bright warm yellow.

The next morning, his parents are back early. His father's hands drag him out of bed ("Do you have any fucking idea what time it is?"), sheets pulled into disarray. The postcards hiding place revealed in the blink of an eye. He owns it for less than a full day. It turns to ash in front of him, in the main room fireplace. His father makes him watch until there's nothing left. This time, he doesn't have the strength to cry.

More years. No more sunflowers. What point is there in holding onto them, when the world seems hell-bent on tearing them away?

And then.

And then he's 18. Stood in an art supply store in Moscow, shaking like an autumn leaf. A big grey dog on one side, a small grey man on the other. "Pick anything you'd like, Vasyenka", his uncle says, meaning every word. "Anything at all." A far cry from what he's used to. Filled with uncertainty as he walks down the aisles, wide grey eyes scanning over everything until he's overwhelmed by the choice. It threatens to get too much, until two things happen in perfect tandem.

One: Rosie, bless her, presses her cold wet nose into his hand, bringing him back down to earth Two: a familiar glint of warm, sunny yellow catches the corner of his eye.

That evening, he slips a postcard under his pillow, and fastens a poster to his new wall. Surrounded by the Sunflowers he loves, and the people who love him, he sleeps.

At last, his dreams are filled with yellow, and this time it doesn't fade.