Follow your heart

The late afternoon sun poured through the window and fell on the varnished wooden floor in narrow strips. Colouring books and crayons lay across the dusty pink rug where he was propped up on his elbows with his tiny chin resting in his hands, eyes gazing intently at the outlines of farm animal illustrations on the pages. He picked up a crayon and started colouring, first, inside the lines, and then, outside.  

She looked up from her coffee mug at the untidy mess he had made using the colours of his choice. With reckless abandon, he had painted the trees purple, elephants green, and skies pink. He didn’t follow the rules, neither did he bother to stay inside the lines. Yet, this act of his wasn’t a protest or an expression of anger against the set norms. His creative little mind directed him to colour the outlined pictures the way he imagines them and not how he sees them in real life.

But an adult’s mind works differently, she pondered. We rarely follow our heart, we spend our entire lives grudging, complaining about not being able to do the things we wanted to do. Truth is, we are never brave enough to go outside the lines.

Written for https://sundayphotofictioner.wordpress.com/2019/01/19/sunday-photo-fiction-january-20-2019/

Photo Credit: Susan Spaulding