Ivan the Terrible — I hate orange

I hate the color orange. Hating. I've never been one to hate much, but orange, I deeply hate. It reminds me of the orange room where I was forbidden to ever speak my mother's language again. In the corner right beside the stairs, in the most orange point (since it was the wall nearest to the chandelier), there stood a painting. An exact copy of Ilya Repin's Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan

Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on November 16, 1581 by Ilya Repin, 1885

Ever since I moved to my uncle's home, I wondered how such a terrible picture could hang on a wall, and this adds to my ludicrous hatred for the color orange. But now I understand. It was perfectly coherent for a father who murdered his own son in cold blood to feel empathy with Ivan.

My father married an American girl when he was but twenty-one years old. His youth, all but limiting, helped him perfect his wife's language. By the time they were thirty, they had their second child: me. I carry my mother's name, to the shame of my father's proud Venezuelan family. If the stars aligned and pigs learned to fly, he would have received his fair share of my grandfather's inheritance and I would not be trapped where I am after my father's tragic demise under the hands of my uncle's poisonous helpers.

I tell you this right now because I'm hiding in that same room right now, hiding from my uncle. If you read this, I'm probably dead, as I would have burnt this page had I gotten out. I can hear his fury. I would say "I should not have stolen his truck", but I would be lying. I had to and I did it. So many would have died had I not, but now I can hear his seething fury, his burning rage, exploding little by little as it always does, in his rhythmic breathing. This sound always scared me. It ended in the deaths of many, and in unimaginable punishments for myself.

As soon as he decides to look for his jacket, I will die.

The page is over. I wish I could write more, to tell you my story, but there's no more space. XOXO