MY OBSESSIONS WITH THE COLOR TURQUOISE

A caterpillar cannot stay a caterpillar forever. If it lives long enough, it's bound to go into its cocoon and emerge a butterfly. As a kid, I thought being a butterfly was beautiful. When I grow my wings, the world will never hold me back. 

But no one prepared me for the cocoon. The darkness. The darkness within the cocoon. The beautiful blue ocean of opportunity, dreams, and desires turned into a titan eager to consume me. In the belly of the beast, I was sinking, ready to drown. As luck would have it,  in my darkest despair, a hand reached to me. To date, I cannot tell if that hand was human or not. All I know is that the hand was turquoise.

When I met him, I was already obsessed with the color. Various experiences in my life had convinced me that within the color dwelled my spirit guides.  One such experience happened three years ago-

I went snorkeling for the first time. Mind you, I have always wanted to look like a seasoned pro even in my first- times. As a result many of those first- times ended up horribly; gym, running a marathon, sex, and many more. I slid on my flippers, adjusted my snorkel then tossed myself into the beautiful blue. I have seen videos of this, I’m good. I’m a good swimmer, what could go wrong? Without realizing it, I had swum quite a distance away from the boat. 

The water was crystal clear. In the belly of the beautiful blue, I saw a harmony of color and aquatic life. I had never seen a coral reef before. Intoxicated by the symphony, I decided to swim towards it. The closer I got, the further it seemed. I was running out of breath and I needed to surface. When I did, I realized I couldn’t breathe.

I had gotten water into my snorkel. I tried to stand but my feet could not touch the ground. I ditched the snorkel and began helplessly flapping about in the water.  A piercing pain arrested my left thigh. I could not move it. I had pulled it.  I looked over at the boat- I’m not going to make it, it’s too far. 

I gave up. I was sinking, ready to drown. I could feel the fight to stay alive leave my body.  I let go. I allowed the darkness. It’s my fault anyway.  My heart beat slower and slower. I was ready. But my spirit guides had other plans. In the darkness, I  saw a bright turquoise light.  I can’t let go. Not yet. 

My whole body exploded with an extraterrestrial burst of energy. I made it to the boat and acted as if nothing had happened. However, I was conspicuously missing my snorkel, which the instructor ardently ensured I paid for.

Therefore, I do not think it was a coincidence that the color came to me again when the depths of my cocoon were consuming me.  It was cosmic alignment, at a moment I desperately needed a sign.

It was several months after I had graduated from university. I was rotting away on my parents’ couch.  I wanted to be something. To do something that would leave an impact on my continent, if not the world. While I was younger, I fell in love with cinema. I fell in love with imagery. With spectacle. Suspense. Emotion. Swelling scores.  One day, I emerged instantly from a dream at 3 AM and it hit me.  This is how I’ll change the world, at twenty-four frames a second, or forty-eight if I want it in slow-mo. 

However, the only thing I was changing a year after graduation was the TV channels in my parents’ house. I had hit a wall. A wall in my cocoon.  A wall in my titan ocean. I  did not feel ready for the wings. Where would I fly? How high? How far? 

My parents were full of questions. My email was full of rejections. I had applied for everything I could apply for; Film workshops, residencies, grants, jobs, and internships. My life had been one big application form.  I became numb to the polite rejections. Numb to the nonchalant rejections. Numb to the no-response rejections. I sank further into that couch. Further into the cocoon. I sank into the belly of the beast. I was drowning. 

Gasping for air, I looked up and around for my family to cling to. I’m not going to make it. They’re too far. I could feel the fight to stay alive leave my body.  I allowed the darkness in. But this time,  there was no light. There was only a hand. A stranger’s hand. A hand that perhaps does not belong to a human.  A turquoise hand. That hand picked up a phone and dialed my number from across the country. My hands were shaking. I was alone at home.  It was a few minutes after dusk but it felt like later in the night. I was seated in the dark in my room. I was sobbing. I won’t live a failure-

 My phone ringing startled me. I was hesitant to answer. I let it ring. When the phone stopped ringing, I realized I was in darkness. As my hand probed the wall for the light switch, the phone rang again. The person was intent on speaking to me.

 After I eventually picked up the phone, we had a lengthy conversation about some of my previous short films. He said he had encountered my social media profiles by chance and something about my work stuck with him.  A color. A color that was consistent in my portfolio. I could not answer him as to why the color kept coming up. It wasn’t me, ask the spirits.

 Because of that pattern, he believed that I was the right person to make a movie about him.  Like me, he was attached to the color.  I did not need much convincing. I desperately needed to breathe.  I had never made a documentary before but the prospect of examining a life through a viewfinder again returned blood to my veins.  Everything else was a bonus.  He offered me a flight ticket to the Coast to meet him within the week. Beautiful blue titan,  please be kind this time. 

At the airport, I ran into a former classmate. She was dragging a much larger suitcase than mine. I noticed that she did not want me to notice her.  But when she noticed that I did, she gave in to courtesy and stopped to greet me. We stole a few minutes to catch up and exchanged information about our respective destinations. Her final destination was Leeds. Her father wanted her to have a better chance, and he could afford to buy it for her. More space to spread her wings. He did not want her to return after her Master’s Degree. She did not want to go, but she understood his point. I envied the position she was in.  Perhaps the nectar is sweeter in Leeds. Can my wings carry me all the way to Leeds?

A taxi driver was holding up my name on a placard at the airport where I landed. For the first time in a year, time had stopped. Somebody had waited for me. Nobody ever waited.  Nothing ever waited. The driver was enthusiastic. I could not see his face clearly because he wore his cap low. But I felt his enthusiasm. It was infectious.  His complexion didn’t seem natural. I did not want to stare but I wanted to study his face. He cracked a  joke about the heat as he picked up my bags. The funny bit was that he was wearing a turtleneck.

The heat. It must have been the heat that set off the kinetic energy of his tongue. He opened up. He vented. He was doing well in mid-management. His job had benefits that allowed him to save most of his salary and he was paid quite well. Having no family meant that he was able to spend most of his money on himself.  He was due a promotion. He got a letter from the company and he was excited that his efforts were finally being appreciated. 

However, the company was notifying its employees that it had hit a cash flow crisis and had to close down. His lifestyle soon turned into a liability the more he dug into his savings.  He had to sell his car for a cheaper one, the taxi I was in. His narration turned into a political vent. Do we follow the right butterflies? Do we have to follow at all?

His passionate outpouring was the perfect soundtrack to the passing palm trees. Do trees wish they could move?  He glanced at me through the rearview mirror. “How are you?” It must have been the heat. My mind began spinning. How am I? What am I chasing? Can this story put me somewhere?  Attached to turquoise? What even is the story? 

I told the driver I was trying to be something. I spoke my truth. The only truth I knew.  He must have thought I was rude.  His tongue remained still the rest of the way. 

We got to a fancy part of town and he drove into a gated community. One of those with uniform housing and poster families. It reminded me of a film I had seen, Vivarium. The film completely unsettled me. Should all butterflies desire the same nectar? Should all butterflies be the same color? 

He parked by a certain house. I expected him to be on his way once he had helped me offload my luggage but he led me to the door and retrieved a key. As he turned the key, I had a closer look at his face. Is he wearing makeup?  He invited me in. 

Up until that moment, I had thought Mr Azu to be the taxi driver sent by the client. When he told me to take a seat in the living room, I realized that I was in his house. He took off his cap and I confirmed that he was indeed wearing makeup.  He turned on the AC before disappearing into a corridor that seemed too dark for that time of day. The cooling wind from the air conditioner vanquished the sweat off my face.  With the heat gone, the sweat gone, a smirk found space on my face. Mr. Azu has to be the man attached to turquoise.

That realization fascinated me. That he did not divulge immediately who he was had revealed an interesting edge of mystery to him. As a filmmaker, it was my duty to dig for the story rather than have it all in sight. I paid closer attention to the details. There was barely any turquoise in his living room. There was barely any color at all.  Butterflies need color. And, where is the turquoise?

I did not have to mull over it for too long. He re-emerged.  My question was answered explicitly. I did not expect it to be that. I thought he was being metaphorical about his attachment to the color.  I was unhinged. I scanned for the exit but he calmed me down.  He reassured me that he was harmless.  He had changed into a vest and a pair of shorts. He had cleaned his face. He said I was staring at the story. He didn’t want to tell but rather show.  Hence, he kept it under wraps until we were away from the public eye. What am I looking at?  An extraterrestrial?  A spirit? A genie?

I had to scrutinize the phenomenon. He let me get closer and take a keener glimpse. He urged me to try and peel it off. I tried to scrape it off with my thumb. He had not painted himself.  I was witnessing his actual skin.  His actual complexion. He reminded me of James Cameron’s Avatar. He was turquoise. In color. I remembered the light I saw in the belly of the titan. It immediately dawned on me how profoundly impactful the story would be. This is how I’ll announce I’m finally a butterfly.  Even the greatest griots can’t conjure such fiction.  

What made the story even more lucrative was the fact that it wasn’t fiction. I was eager to decipher more. I was so focused on what the story meant for me that I forgot to contemplate what the story meant for him.  He noticed this with the swarm of initial questions I hurled at him out of excitement. To quell my horses, he presented me with a contract that meticulously spelled out his terms.

He was going to provide everything necessary to get the project over the line. He was ready to pay my daily rate. Surprisingly, he insisted that at no point in the process should I consider him special. He didn’t consider himself special and was repulsed by the idea of other people considering him special by the merit of his complexion. In as much as his skin was unique, he thought of his condition as just skin deep.  He wanted to own the rights and financial proceeds of the project. He also wanted me to be more of an observer rather than actively steer the story a particular way. 

His motivations for doing the project were purely financial. He was falling behind on his mortgage and the bank was on his neck.  His makeup was also leaving a heavy dent in his budget. He needed to take a calculated risk if he was to keep affording his lifestyle. The film was a calculated risk he was willing to take. He seemed quite adamant that he would get a good buyer. He was ready to reveal himself because his anonymity and comfort were under threat.  I found his approach to anonymity quite strange. All I could think of was, Why reveal himself to conceal himself? 

I agreed to the terms without much push and pull. I would have done the film for free anyway. The story already convinced me.  I was excited to answer the pertinent questions in my mind. There was a lot to figure out about Mr. Azu.  Everything else was a bonus.  After I signed the contract, he said he would divulge more information once we began filming. It was absolutely important for him that the film felt organic rather than rehearsed. For a being who had never made a film before, he knew plenty about what would make the film great. 

Before I flew back home to gather equipment and necessary tools for the job, I decided to spend a day on the beach. Mentally, I drifted alongside the waves relentlessly crashing onto the shore. I was watching the beautiful blue rhythm. For billions of years, a perpetual rhythm. A ceaseless ode.  I was watching the revelers enjoy the company of the titan. Everybody seemed well put together. Butterflies, basking in the glory of their colors.  In the glory of their wings. Their wings,  allowing them to thrive.  Further in, an enchanting young lady, roughly my age, effortlessly surfed a giant wave. In sync with the vibrations of the blue.  I envied her. I saw something I hadn’t seen in a while.  Harmony.  Will I thrive or will I survive?  Is this story my pass to thrive? 

The more I thought about what lay ahead, the more I kept thinking about Mr. Azu. How has he kept this hidden all this while? Why has he been hiding it? I kept thinking about the story. About what I was taught makes a good story. About the conflict in focus.  I could see a being wrestling with his own nature. A butterfly clip off his unique wings? In my limited experience as a filmmaker, I have always had to impose my voice on my creations. For the first time, I was going to be an observer. So, I decided to let the waves guide me. Whether or not I got the answers I sought, did not matter much. I knew the wind would lead me to some amazing nectar. I wish as a caterpillar I was told.  Do not wrestle the wind.

When I returned to the Coast, the wind felt stronger. Mr. Azu was more enthusiastic. He had the face of a being realizing freedom. What freedom feels like. He said there had been an interesting new development in his condition.  A development that could increase the value of the film. I could see a new glint in his eyes. A glint that I had not seen before. A glint that signified something new. From our previous interactions with Mr Azu, he had seemed like he cared more about the financial harvest of the film. However, for the first time, it seemed like he cared a bit about the story. 

The more I asked about the development, the more he teased it.  He was a master of suspense. He made a joke about ‘show don’t tell’. I did not laugh, I chuckled.  The eagerness sparked a flame in my solar plexus. I was burning to know what it was. My confidence in the project was expanding. He told me that it was crucial that I be ready to film at 3 AM. He said that whatever he wanted me to see only happened at that particular time. 

When we got to his house, I noticed that he had bought a new painting. It was a large abstract piece that made his living room look smaller.  It took away the emptiness of the space. There was more color. He showed me to an empty room with nothing but a yoga mat in the middle. He said he bought the mat after the new development. The room used to be empty. He never knew what to use it for.  That would be the room where we would shoot at 3 AM. 

A few minutes to the witching hour. I had locked the camera on a tripod. The microphone was set. I was in the process of setting up the LED lights I had acquired when Mr. Azu emerged. He was wearing his true skin after cleaning off the makeup. He was in his customary shorts, the difference being, that he was shirtless this time.  He seemed more comfortable with me exposed to his true nature. His complexion still had me transfixed. There was a glint in his eyes. The glint of a being who was about to bedazzle me.  The glint of a being realizing freedom. He told me that I did not need the lights. He said that the scene would not require any light. I was confused. I presented him a professionally-backed argument on the necessity of light but he insisted that I trust him. So I did. I chose to follow the wind. If he wants to make a podcast, we’ll make a podcast. 

As the clock drew to within seconds, he turned off the lights. The silence was deafening. The calm before the storm.  However, my mind was anything but silent. The storm before the storm.  The silence made me nervous. What is about to happen? Will he turn into a titan and consume me? I had no idea what I was recording. I reminded myself to be light, for the sake of the wind. When the clock finally struck 3 AM,  a bright light emerged from the darkness. A bright turquoise light.  My pupils were so perplexed that I was temporarily blind.   A shrill scream was a few decibels away from tearing my ear drum. The new development revealed itself to me in its full glory.  What am I looking at?  An extraterrestrial?  A spirit? A genie? A deity?

His complexion was just the trailer,  I was witnessing a compelling sequence.  His skin was glowing. Not the skincare-routine-kind- of- glow but rather a luminous kind of glow that soaked the entire room in its light. A turquoise glow.  For the seven minutes that he was glowing, he subconsciously laughed, cried, screamed, and rolled on the floor.  For those minutes, it felt like there was an extra presence in the room. A presence that only he could perceive.

When his skin stopped glowing, there was some brief silence then I heard him sniffling. I kept the camera rolling, remembering that he wanted the film to feel organic. I turned on the light. He was curled up on the mat, his knees tucked underneath his chin. I was concerned about him but I also did not want to interfere with the moment. It was unpleasant to watch him like that, but I read that cinema should not always be pleasant. 

After a few moments, he composed himself and sat upright. He looked straight into the camera and smiled. He said that he had initially thought the film would head in a different direction.  He hadn’t foreseen the recent developments. It started soon after we met and agreed on the film. He was grateful to me because he believed that my presence was ‘unlocking something new’. I was grateful to him because he was presenting me with cinematic gold. ( I did not say that out loud. )

When I asked what made him laugh, cry, scream, and roll on the floor, he replied that he needed to keep the energy in flow. He needed to balance the flow of energy lest it consumed him. Every time his skin glowed, he gained access to a grand energy. An energy that was as abstract as the new painting he had bought. An energy that took him to higher states of consciousness. An energy that showed him all the secrets he had hidden from himself. An energy that left him with an afterglow. I envied him.  Is this energy only reserved for turquoise butterflies? 

I was strolling through town the next day and came across a procession of elated youth heading for a festival. It was a color festival. Their bodies were painted in various colors. Butterflies basking in the glory of their colors. Basking in the glory of their wings. Only one color stood out to me.  Mr. Azu’s poison, another’s yearning.   I felt compelled to find the vendor of the body paints. I wanted to feel like him, even if for a second.

I found the woman selling the paints. She already knew what I wanted. She delivered the paint as if handing me an ancient secret. An ancient potion. She was shrouded in a mystic aura. Her neck, an assembly of the finest beads. Her hair, sealed away in a  kitenge wrap. Her eyes penetrated my soul and reflected something back to me. She had lived enough years to hear with her eyes. They had seen plenty. She whispered to me something to do with essence.  I missed it. The essence of it, gone with the wind. She refused to repeat. I let it go. Her tone was advice bordering on concern. She refused to accept my money and let me go with the paint for free. As I walked back to Mr. Azu’s, I  kept thinking about her.  Did she see through my cocoon?

When I got to the guest room, I stripped down to my trunks and applied the paint eagerly. Once I was done, I sat and basked in it.  Strangely, it felt stale and anticlimactic. It felt like the color did not exist in the paint. The paint felt like a mirage.  All I felt was a sensation of my skin being stretched by it. I stepped in front of the mirror. A stranger gazed into my eyes. We silently looked at each other but we spoke. The paint did not make me feel like him.  But the paint made me meet the stranger in the mirror. It offered fuel to our blazing conversation.  An overdue conversation. We came to mutual realizations. About paint that doesn't have color.  About color.  About essence.   About the wind. About surfing. About butterflies emerging from cocoons. About caterpillars.  About growing wings. 

When the door flew open, I realized that what I had thought to be a silent conversation, had in contrast been a very loud one. Mr. Azu scanned around the room, curious who I was talking to. He had been calling me and knocking on the door. He noticed that I did not want him to notice me. I noticed his face when he noticed me. He was not angry, nor disgusted, nor sad. Worse, he was disappointed. He told me to clean up. He needed to think. 

After cleaning up, I sat on the bed shaking. I have ruined the film.  It felt like my wings were almost ready, yet I chose to stay in the cocoon. It felt like I had blown the opportunity Mr Azu had given me. When he called out to me from the living room, I was like a fugitive,  ready for my sentencing. It is my fault anyway.

When I got to the courtroom, I did not see a judge, I saw a vulnerable being. Mr. Azu was shrunk on his velvet couch. He was as shrunk as I ever saw him. He told me that after thinking he decided that the film would no longer be a financial pursuit. He wanted to express that which he had suppressed his entire life, himself. When he saw me painted, he was not disappointed in me. He was disappointed in himself.  I was like a mirror, reflecting something to him.  Something to do with essence. He wailed. A wail of a butterfly accepting its wings, emerging from its cocoon, many years late.  When I tried to get closer to console him,  he told me to get the equipment and film.

The record button on the camera was like the play button on a remote.  I was making a film while watching it. His condition began when he was a teenager. All the doctors his parents took him to could not find anything wrong with him. They said he must be a mutant. His parents took him to various religious and spiritual figures citing a possible hex. They too with their rituals, prayers, and offerings could not find a solution to the condition. When all efforts proved futile, they turned to makeup and disguises. They told him he should not scare ordinary people. For what people do not understand, they fear. They hate. They destroy. 

The more he disguised himself, the more reasons he found to hate his ‘mutant’ skin. Before the hate, he absolutely  adored his skin. Before the hate, he thought he was special and beautiful. But he grew comfortable with the disguises no matter how heavy they were. No matter how costly they were. Suddenly, he froze as he was talking to me. His eyes were lost in the space between us.

I tried calling him but he did not respond. He was in a trance, murmuring and whispering in a language I had not heard before or ever since. He let out a familiar shriek and his skin glowed. He laughed. He cried. He screamed.  He rolled on the floor. With his skin glowing, he looked straight into the camera and said that he did not want to do the movie anymore. He had come to the revelation that people would contest the realism of the film. So he figured that the best way to express himself would be personally.  

Before I could understand what he meant, he took off his clothes and headed for the door. He was bare to the bone. He could no longer perceive me. He could no longer perceive anything but his intentions.  His skin was so bright that it was impossible to look without shielding my eyes. He exited the house. Even though he had declared the film null,  the turquoise glow told me the best part was yet to come. I could feel my cocoon cracking.

I followed him outside the house as I filmed. A crowd of awestruck neighbors had gathered. The larger the crowd got, the brighter he glowed. I could no longer expose the shot properly. I could no longer find a good angle. The curious crowd squeezed and pushed me around. The camera was getting blurry glimpses of the action. My camera competed with their smartphones as more people rushed out of their houses. They all wanted a picture with him. They wanted to feel his skin. They wanted to understand.

He became brighter than Sirius. Nobody could look at him directly. Then, a new development happened. His body started rising from the ground. Everybody took a step back. There was a unanimous gasp. Then scattered murmurs. Then silence. The higher up he rose, the brighter he became.  When he rose above the cypress trees adorning the estate, I got a clear vantage. As he approached the clouds, he was no longer a being, he was just color. He was just light. His body had dissolved into color and light. I had the perfect third act. What am I looking at? A spirit? A genie?  An extraterrestrial? A deity?

In one final explosion of light and color, he vanished into the atmosphere. Everyone’s head was silently tilted  to the space he had occupied. As I stared into that space through my viewfinder, I was grateful. I was grateful to have been an observer. As I stared into that space, I felt the energy that made him cry, laugh, scream, and roll on the floor. As I stared into that space, my eyes were soaking with ecstatic tears. I felt ready to break out of the cocoon. I felt ready for my wings. I felt ready for my color.  I felt ready to face the beautiful blue titan. I am ready to be a butterfly.