A Leap of Faith

Day One

It made me realise how at ease I felt around Jessie. Normally I would be one of the girls timidly walking out trying to hide my body, but Jessie made me feel so relaxed, and judging by her body language she felt comfortable too. We walked into a room that had a large piece of flat canvas covering the majority of the floor, the only space it didn’t cover was a small strip around the edges but that was filled up with paint pots and paint bombs. “Eva… Care to explain yet?” Jessie asked, now looking half confused and half excited. Yet again the man from earlier spoke before I had chance to, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m glad you could make it. There are 20 of you here, and you will have thirty minutes to spend in this room. As you can see there are lots of bright coloured paints and paint bombs around the room. You will be using them in whichever way you wish. This is body painting – you will be painting this canvas with your feet, your legs, your face, and whatever else you can use. At the end you can choose a small section of the canvas you would like to take home as a souvenir, and the remaining canvas will be shown in a London gallery next month. You may begin.”

Some people eagerly ran to the paint and began throwing paint bombs at their friends, and I turned to Jessie to see what she thought of it all. “This is the best thing ever!” she said as we headed over to a paint pot. Jessie stuck her hand into a bright pink pot before placing her hand on my stomach and laughing at the handprint that she left behind. Soon we had paint on our feet and were running across the canvas, but the best part was yet to come. The paint seemed to be of an endless supply, so after using it all conservatively at the beginning, eventually everyone began to use as much as they wanted. There were smaller paint pots that you could pick up with your hands, and Jessie screamed when I threw a bright blue paint all over her. “You’re so gonna pay for that!” she squealed as she picked up a purple pot and threw it over me. The paint that spilled onto the canvas made it hard to walk on, and I slipped before grabbing onto Jessie’s arm and almost bringing her down with me. Luckily we remained standing, but it was almost impossible to move. Jessie and I were laughing so hard, which didn’t exactly help matters when we tried to walk across the canvas. After a few near misses of falling down Jessie put one arm around my waist in an attempt to keep me upright, but it didn’t seem to have any effect.

Four people came running in our direction; each holding two different coloured paint pots, but they didn’t managed to stop before bashing into Jessie and me, sending all of us falling to the ground and the paint pots flying through the air and covering us all in a mixture of reds and greens and pinks and blues. I had landed on top of Jessie, but neither of us seemed to mind as we couldn’t talk for laughing. Eventually I managed to stand up and I held out a hand to help Jessie up. “Are you okay?” I managed to say through laughing. “I have honestly never been better!” Jessie replied. I looked down at her stomach and saw that the first lot of blue and purple paint we had previously thrown at each other had now merged together creating a colourful pattern on our skin. The rest of our bodies were now covered in the rainbow that had been spilt over us as we fell.

Soon the canvas was covered in a beautiful multitude of colours, and we were given a warning that we had five minutes left. Jessie ran over to a section of the canvas that had pale colours spread over it, and she picked up a small pot of a deep purple paint. “Come here,” she said as she put her finger in the paint. I came closer and I felt Jessie’s finger run across my lips as she began painting them purple. I then did the same for her, and we leant down and kissed the canvas. Our lip prints stood out against the pale yellows and pinks, and we stood the admiring it all until the man came through the door one final time followed by lots of other staff. “Thank you everyone for your participation in this event! There are staff who will come around to you now and ask you what section of the canvas you would like, and once you have chosen you may go to the showers and changing rooms whilst we frame the piece for you.”

A man came over to me and Jessie with a square grid about 30cm wide and said, “This is how much of the canvas you are allowed, if you would like to choose?” Jessie and I looked at each other as if we already knew what the other one was thinking. We selected what section we wanted, then headed off to the showers. “How much did this cost?” Jessie asked.

“It didn’t cost anything. It’s an art project that’s supposed to be genuinely all about fun, and if the incentive of money was involved then people would just do it for the wrong reasons.”

“That makes sense I guess.”

Still wearing our bikinis, we stepped into the showers and tried to make ourselves the right colour again whilst Jessie continued, “My mum and dad are working all day so my house is free. We can’t exactly go back to school today, so do you just want to come over mine for a bit?”

“Sure why not,” I replied with a smile.

We headed back to the changing rooms and got changed, and then on the way out we picked up our now framed memory of the day. My section of the canvas was a pale pink and yellow background with Jessie’s purple lips on top, and Jessie’s was the same but with my purple lips. It was the perfect souvenir for the day – we had become close friends and it was only the first day of the pact. As we were walking home Jessie said, “By the way, I have an idea for what to do tomorrow as long as you’re free after school?”

“I’m free,” I said with a smile as I looked Jessie in the eyes. Of course I was free. For the rest of my life, Jessie was the only plans I had. After all, it was only thirteen days left of living.