It was mid-summer when I arrived to the hostel. I was supposed to keep going for a few more days, but the building looked too tempting. Besides, the weather was too hot to continue; I could end up dehydrated within a few hours. The inside of the hostel smelled of old wood and it was incredibly packed with people. The heat of all the bodies made the place feel suffocating. I was beginning to think it had been a bad idea to stop here, until I saw you.

Seconds turned into days, where we never really talked and I never knew your name, or your voice. Everything you did was silent and unperceived. Our communication consisted of a sporadic exchange of glances. Through them, I felt like I began to know you more everyday. When the heat became too unbearable and my blood transformed into fire, your presence used to calm me down. You carried a refreshing aura with you wherever you went, it made me forget it was summer with the force of the sun’s penetrating rays. I remember that I loved your scarf; it was unlike any I had seen before. It looked so smooth and beautiful that my fingers almost couldn’t resist the temptation of touching it. I never did, I never could.

I couldn’t figure out what was it about you that had taken me. I began noticing changes within myself. My mind had once wandered freely through my thoughts. Now, I couldn’t find any that didn’t lead me to you. I had once dreamed of wandering through new, unknown places. Now, you made me stagnant, in a place that had too many closed doors. Yet it felt right, then. And safe.

It happened the day I decided to look for you. My last morning. It was time for me to make the first move. I had to see you, but more closely and intimately. The hostel had too many halls; searching for you felt like meandering through an infinite labyrinth. I first saw the skirt of your dress. My gaze then travelled up your body, through the smooth curves of your hips up to your neck. Everything about you was so ethereally beautiful. Your hands were moving through the scarf on your head. Then it dropped.

I had never thought about what I could find underneath the fabrics of your scarf. It had always made me wonder. I can’t explain what I saw, but what I can say is that it revealed something about you that surely was not meant to be seen. I was cursed then, because my curiosity had led me to a truth, which had to remain unknown. You had the power of making people believe something about you. You played with their minds so that they ended up with an illusion. I was just another of your victims.

Now that I am here I realize that everything I thought you were came from a creation from my own mind. I can see here the world differently, and it looks much clearer. Things are never what they seem; they are a skillful creation of our imagination.

I painted this portrait so that I could show how in your vague and ambiguous expression the world is depicted. People might come across this painting and think about your beauty, about how innocent and pure you look. But the truth, the truth is that I will never know anything about you and neither will them. When people come across this painting they will create from you a world that will live in their minds. And from you, thousands of worlds will be created. Each will be distinct from the other, adapting to the minds of the creators. But they will never have you completely.

My hands did not make you, they just painted. There is beauty, real beauty in this painting. And it comes from what is unknown and uncertain. Where I am makes me able to realize that the world is beautiful. But whatever it is, it can be terrifying too.