Oxygen


The dim glow of the lamp illuminates Ennie’s face. A face with furrowed brows, tongue between the teeth, concentrating eyes on one thing—her paper. Her hand is red from gripping the pencil so tight, frozen in midair, midsentence, now distracted by a faint but distinct noise outside of her room. Her ears are invisibly perked up to the noise, ready to pick out noises from beyond the dull and consistent whirring of the air conditioning.
All the same, when Ed comes in, she is startled, and drops her pencil on the desk.
“What are you doing, En? It’s two in the morning!” Ed rubs his eyes and walks over.
“No, stop—” Ennie covers her drawing feebly, secretly hoping he would look.
“What are you doing?”
“I—”
On the desk, is a wide piece of paper—no, another world. Monochrome does not change the life of the picture; every stroke and line gives a breeze in the trees, the rustling of a girl’s hair, her little skirt billowing in the wind, her fingers delicately wrapped around flowers—daisies, perhaps. The lines connect and twist and interlock and the desk now harbors not a drawing, but a new world.
Ed is mesmerized for a minute by the simple, pure beauty of the midnight sketch, coming more and more alive with each delicate stroke of Ennie’s pencil.
“But—” shaking his head, he remembers the situation. “You’re not supposed to be drawing!”
He thinks about his own detainment. His heart sinks into a pool of despair; the memory itself is excruciating.
“But—last time when I couldn’t carve, I didn’t! I had to go all those days without carving! That’s not fair, En! Nor is it reasonable. It’s a punishment, En. You can’t take it lightly.”
Ennie shakes her head and puts down her pencil gingerly on the wooden surface of the desk, letting it roll a little on top of the girl holding her flowers. She looks up at Ed’s face, twisted in anger, bewildered, confused, and worried. When will he ever know?
“No, Ed.” She turns her chair so that her back is to the desk. She takes his hand and places it in hers, and looks up at him desperately. Will you ever understand?
“There is never a punishment. There is always a lesson. Not drawing is ridiculous. I have to draw.”
“I felt that too, when I was punished, but—”
“It’s a lesson, Ed. You’re letting them get to you. Who are they to tell you when you should or shouldn’t draw? Or carve? If you have the true passion, Ed, if you do, you see through their words and achieve the lesson, Ed. You draw anyway. Because it is your burning passion, your every intake of oxygen and exhale of carbon dioxide. It is your very meaning. So when they tell you not to, they can’t really stop you. They are just telling you. You do the doing. And I am doing. I am drawing. It doesn’t matter what they say.” Please.
He pushes her hand away and looks at her in despair.
“But—but, you can’t just draw in liberty!”
“I can, but I don’t have so much passion as to draw right under their noses. That is absolute burning, annihilating passion. I do not have that level of passion, not yet. Right now, I know only to draw. Not just draw, but realize and know how important drawing is, it lets me truly think and appreciate it and put that into my work.”
“If they find out, your punishment will get longer and longer!”
“You don’t have passion, Ed. You only have talent.”
“En, I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m going to tell them. For the best of your future.”
“No, Ed, when will you ever know?”
“Good-bye, En.”
He turns around and leaves.