The Man with Fingers of Rose

You've heard of the Midas touch? There once was a man with fingers of Rose. Everything he touched turned a beautiful shade of pink.

He first noticed when he was growing up. He was a shy child, with a halo of beautiful blonde hair.

His eyes were gleaming and blue.

And everything he touched, from the ground to the blankets, to his books, to his mother's arms, turned a wonderful shade of rose gold.

But it wasn't just that the change was into metal, it was also a certain loving energy, that came from his touch. Everything he touched turned into a sort of amulet of rose gold.

As he got older, the touch began to respond more heavily to emotions. He learned to control his Midas touch, but only so long as he could control himself.

This led to several issues at school. If the boy (whose name by now we must disclose was Robert), had a crush, he turned everything in the hallway, anything on his clothes, anything that could possibly come near him the most brilliant shade of gold.

If he had a bad day at work, (he worked at a local convenient store),

he turned every bathroom, every single page of the worker's manual a horrible shade of green/gold, as if the gold had been touched by a weathered storm.

His mother was a former show girl in the 80's. Although she had re branded herself as a pious housewife, (with blue jean aprons and socks with frills) she had a special room in the back of their tudor-style cottage with mannequins donned with costumes of every shade and color. They were adorned with lustrous sequins, and beautiful long feathers in rainbow shades.

Some of the costumes had a sort of faded gold trim, which looked a little bit like the gold which came from Robert's fingertips.

Robert ran his hands over the sequins with admiration sometimes. Where had the gold come from after all?

He liked to sit in his mother's sewing room and practice stitching, or just imagining new worlds, worlds with Lions, worlds with ostrich's with long pink legs and knobbly knees. Worlds with big whales puffing silver water from their spouts.

Robert was always dreaming. Dreaming helped the day go by, and took him away from the problem he had in a more immediate sense.

His problem with the golden touch.

At school only one person could calm Robert's stormy waters. His best friend Dylan, whose hair was gray and fell in a lazy shag over his green, wry eyes, which belied a very very kind, compassionate soul.

Although Dylan smoked weed and skateboarded and had a more relaxed attitude towards life, he found solace in his friendship with Robert, and vice versa.

Last May Robert and Dylan went to New York together to visit Robert's aunt Felicia, who was an editor in New York.

She lived in a gorgeous black brownstone in Queens. The inside of her house was gold and black. The floors were a black and white marbled checkerboard that delighted the senses. She had a office with white columns and black striped wallpaper where she drank cup after cup of black coffee and read manuscripts. She kept a single red rose in a glass vase. She replaced the rose everyday. The roses came from her garden and she chilled them in the fridge. A maid came every Sunday to clean the house. (his aunt didn't exactly have a mind for functional side of life). She was more the brilliant, stoic, sometimes depleted and dysfunctional, but brilliant, borderline genius type of person.

The sometimes depleted side of Aunt Felicia came out more than the happy/bubbly side. It was then that Robert's Mother (her sister) would sent Robert and a friend to "stay' with aunt Felicia for a while.

In fact it was Roberts mother's way of making sure that Felicia kept in contact with people she knew while she was recovering from one of her "episodes". Later on, much too late, it would be discovered that Felicia had something like bipolar.

The episodes came and went for a while. In fact they came and went many years, before this revelation was made. Roberts problem was barely noticeable under Felicia's wing. She was so heavily absorbed in her work that nothing could shake her resolve.

Robert's midas touch was affected by one other thing. The moon. When the moon was blue, Roberts fingers when crazy.

When the moon was gold. Roberts fingers went crazy. Anything in sight turned the gorgeous shade of gold.

One night, while Robert was at Felicia's house on a hot summer day, after his mother had sent him to stay with her. He turned everything in the foyer gold. Felicia woke up from one of her depleted stupors and flowered down the stairs.

She took one look at the gold stairway. It was a strawberry moon. Robert's gold had taken on an especially shade of pink. Felicia's face was pale and heart shaped. She had little red lips and deep black curly hair. Her Eye lashes were long and white, since she was a natural blonde.

She had yet to put on makeup that day, but she took one look at the strawberry moon, then back to the gold railings. Robert was around the corner, and if there was any certain recognition of what had happened to the stairs or Robert's relationship to all that had happened-she failed to show it.

She instead poured herself a martini and went back up to bed in a black satin nightgown.

Robert could smell the Marlbro lights from his room, but he didn't dare ask Aunt Felicia if she cared or noticed the gold.

Dylan came around the corner, as he had come with Robert to "visit" aunt Felicia as well. They both leapt at the chance to visit New york city, even if it was under the guise of caring for poor depleted Felicia.

If you liked this story give it a like.

#young adult #short story # midas touch # short read

#flash fiction