And Lady Macbeth, she scrubbed until she bled
I am certain that there are purists amongst our number who will tell me, authoritatively and with an enviable certainty in their unwavering voice, that white is not a colour. As such, not a colour.
Whatever it may be then, the perfection of it irks me, annoys me, makes me shift uncomfortably in my blotchy, pasty, pink European skin. Which only the outdated curiosities of this language call white, too.
It’s that alleged purity. Stripped white bodies, stripped white bones, stripped white walls, even stripped white saints, reclothed in brilliant white robes and lying prostrate on crisp white sheets awaiting eternal salvation. The white light is the closest they get. It’s not quite heaven, but they let their spirit ooze with droplets of white as they edge ever closer to ecstasy, via temporary damnation.
Ironically, I don’t like the purity. I don’t follow the purists. I rarely wear white unless I am sure that I have scrubbed myself as religiously clean as an agnostic can ever be. For me, a white sky begs to be daubed with smashed clouds and vapour trails, splattered with storm fronts and tumultuous greys. Whites of eyes make me nervous, and the white of spittle foaming at the mouth makes me retch. Even off-white - the off-white of those curtains fluttering in the longed-for breeze, the off-white walls that tell of hurried decoration by get-rich-quick landlords - just makes me wish it could finally achieve the unsullied virgin state it so desires, so nearly reaches.
Even this white page is sullied. I have been attacking it with every substance, every cleanser, every detergent, every active agent within reach, and yet it’s still blackened with specks of filth, grime and depravity untold.
We are all off-white here. We can’t go back to the white shell, the white of the egg, the white stains on the bedclothes. We might want to return to the once upon a time, to where we began, to whatever we were before the dirty reality of discolouration and overuse set in, but nothing washes whiter than white except in advertisements.