The melting man

The art gallery

I do not remember much about my first encounter of the unknown, but I know what I have tried to forget.

It was so long ago it felt like a dream. School excursions was never my thing. I was in grade twelve, the last grade of my school career. Life was easy then. Especially if your life motto was to just go with the flow you know keep your head low and blend in the background. I think that is why I was so attracted it. The way the paint flowed into the background. I was lost when I thought I found it but I know better now that it found me. We stared at each other for hours at least he said was hours time moved differently in the unknown. For the longest time I believed it was a day dream.

Because when I was pulled back I had only been gone for less then five minutes. For almost five minutes I was alone and everyone else was faded into the background. I was staring into the deep, fiery smokey eyes of him. Eyes that was made of bitterness and I just stood there feet rooted to the ground. I was scared, the hair on my body was upright. He stayed there not moving not even blinking. I watched him closely like he was a snake ready to strike at any moment. His curly hair never moved as mine moved towards his face. I closed my eyes in that moment scared to see what might happen.

I felt the weight of my hair falling down to my shoulders again and opened my eyes and that's the moment it all started. His was still there the same like before my hair whipped at his face and my heart felt stationary as his pale lips pulled in a tight line. I felt like reaching out touch his lips with my fingertips. This mouth stayed that way and I have never seen it smile or make any other expression. But his eyes had words needed to express the feeling he felt that moment.

And it said harshly you need to leave. And I really wanted to leave but my feet was still rooted to the ground like they have been inseparable for years. I took a deep breath but the words that were stuck never left with the air that flowed out my mouth. I wanted to cry but my eyes blinked tears away. I never cry infront of anyone. He took a step forward and it was like a spell broke and I knew I was able to move again so I turned on my heels and ran a few steps into an adjacent wall hard. I turned back around just in time to see it happen right in front of my eyes. Purple and grey flowed from his figures. The most beautiful man know to the world had colours flowing out of him. As the world come into focus.

He was melting. The world unmute and the sound come back to my ears. I was still backed against the adjacent wall and I walk back slowly to where the man stood I turned to face the wall to the left of me and there he stood still as he has ever been in the frame where he had always been. Black coffee eyes and curly hair with the melting purple and grey sky. I always was attracted to the painting of the melting man, he was both alive and dead in the multiple strokes of the starving artist. Dr Robin Rose Van Wyk had King Midas touch every painting of hers made her richer but she still died of malnutrition. Her eating disorder killed her.

I had dreamt of the man my entire life and on that school excursion I would finally see the real thing. The melting man is a big deal in South Africa. It was at the back of every textbook including mathematics and science. Dr Van Wyk was an inspiration to all South Africans, she had always captured the essence of our country. The country mourned her death like the death of Tata Madeba. She was what dreams where made of there was always something magical about her work and I had just experienced a glimpse of it of the day of that excursion. Of course I never told a soul of what happened that day. You know how Cape Coloured's can get. Everything is a joke to them.

I did not want to believe what had happened in that art gallery that day and I had already convinced myself that that was just a stupid dream. A painting coming to life was just suppose to mean a figure of speech. There was no way that I would have believed that any of those those things that occurred was anything more then my overactive imagination. How wrong had I been, if I was not obsessed with that particular painting I would have long time forget about the damn moment I had that day. But I have had a crush on the melting man since they replaced the CAPS curriculum.

The man in the painting had what we call " 'n af kop". Which is hair that looks nice when you don't use a brush, the best natural messy curls, we get it from the Khoisan. Eye's were so warm you could take a bath in them on the coldest days of July. They could keep you warm on the wettest day in the rainy season. Eye's like a campfire, it had this bright glow to it that looked like the candle described the the poem " Ek het 'n huisie by die sea". All the Lord's hope in it, and all the grim reaper's despite in it. Eye's not like any other it truly was "uit die depter van ons sea". That man stood for South Africa, He stood for Kaapstaad.

Pride of Cape Town. The melting man.