Maddie's Tattoo by Katie Kacvinsky

Author:Katie Kacvinsky [Kacvinsky, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Katie Kacvinsky
Published: 2013-12-24T20:00:00+00:00

~GROW~

A few days later I took a break from DS calculus homework to check my messages. The chameleon popped up. I warily accepted his message.

I think you would appreciate this. It’s a gallery website of my artwork. I use real paint, so the online pictures are never as good, but you’ll get the idea. You said you wanted to see something real. Well, I never lie.

I clicked on the link he attached and each of my blank wallscreens filled with bright color. I stood up with surprise and turned in a circle. My body instantly became light, as if I just grew ten feet. From the angle the paintings were drawn, I felt like I floating in the sky, looking down. One of the walls showed the Three Sisters, a famous triplet set of mountain peaks that cut through Central Oregon. Two wallscreens showed a panoramic view of the Columbia River Gorge, cutting through a deep valley of tree studded hills between Washington and Oregon. The last wall depicted an aerial view of Mt. Hood, the tallest mountain in the state. Its sharp peak pierced through a mass of circular clouds like a giant tooth trying to devour the sky.

At the bottom of the screen was the artist’s name, the yellow chameleon: Jax Viviani.

I felt hot and cold, frozen and thawing, alive and asleep. I was slipping down a slope, between two worlds. This was real? I had seen digital photos of all of these places, but I had never seen them with my own eyes. I looked at the name of Jax’s gallery: My Eyes.

The pictures around my room made me want to climb, move, fly. The images brought words to my head. I used my hand to write words along the top of each wallscreen. Flight. Freedom. Fearless. Future. I liked combining words with the art. I looked around and admired my new world. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was inside a place I belonged.

I knew I could trust Jax. I knew he was real.

The door suddenly knocked open and I turned around, panicked. My mom walked inside and her smile washed away, like water over dusty chalk.

She looked at the murals and at the words floating along the top. Her eyes found mine. She wasn’t angry, but it was worse. She looked sad, as if she just walked in on a funeral, celebrating a life we would never get back.

“Don’t be mad,” I whispered.

“Did you do this?”

I shook my head. “A friend drew it.” The word friend slipped out too easily. I sucked my lips between my teeth and my mom raised her eyebrows. I usually called my online friends ‘contacts.’ Friend was too familiar.

“They’re beautiful pictures,” she admitted.

“It’s beautiful out there,” I said. “I know it is.” She didn’t answer me. “Mom, I want to know. I want to see it for myself.”

“There’s nothing to see, Maddie. The world I talked about doesn’t exist anymore,” she told me.

I looked at my gorgeous walls.

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