Nihr approached the stage with confidence. He was certain that his story was going to be a hit. The colors he choose were few; several sacks of black and white colored sands and powders as his main colors. And a couple of blood red sand filled sacks, and yellow almost orange colors. It is clear that the story he is about to tell would be a dark one. Nihr bows before the judges and names his story, "The Black Cat."
Nihr started by tipping over all the sacks filled with black sand. The black poured everywhere, on the cobbled stones like a stormy ocean, in the air like heavy clouds, in between the crowds feet like slithering snakes and crawling ants. Black everywhere! When the blackness swirled about, he tipped over the white. The white sands and powders joined the blackness at its center, mingling and forming the beginning of the story…
Upon a white background emerged the black and white silhouettes of a man and woman who appeared to be dressed in the style of Koschei. The white smiles upon their dark faces show that they are happy and the white bands around their finger, show they are married. Nihr grabbed a couple of hands full of red sand and tossed it into the painting one by one. All around the couple red poofs gave birth to images of their beloved pets, also in black silhouettes.
By the wife's side suddenly stood a cage with a couple of birds. In the husband's arms appeared a white fish bowl with a single fish. Then by her feet a couple of adorable rabbits, upon her shoulder next to her husband appeared a monkey from another red cloud. Then beside the man appeared a loyal dog, and then a cat.
The black and white painting began to zoom into the cat. An adorable little thing it was, with bright white eyes. The cat was the man's favorite as shown by the red heart that stood between the man and the black cat. The swirl of black and white sands showed the relationship between the two, petting the cat, having the critter follow its master everywhere he went, being fed only by him, and sleeping peacefully and content on the bed by the master's feet.
Nihr tosses a lot of red sand, the audience watches as the red starts to engulf this peaceful image of master and loyal pet. As the red disappears again, the paintings shows a different side of the man. A darker side, a man whose mood swings drives his beloved pet further away from him. His wife crying at his violent outbursts, not even the other pets were spared of his abuse as his rage grew with time. Again the image is blurred with redness before a new scene is shown.
It shows a bottle of strong liquor with a red, sniveling demon cackling and clutching the bottle before disappearing in a red poof. The cause for his mood swings was now revealed. The image pans to a drunken husband who stumbles through the streets, his hair a mess, his clothes a mess. The couple was happy no more… The man came home, drunk and agitated. Inflicting his abuse upon his wife and their pets as usual. But upon seeing his beloved cat he put aside the bottle and approached the cat to pet it, only the cat would have none of it. With a swift swipe of her claw she scratched the man's hand. Red scratches bled through the black hand. The cat jumped away and hid under the bed.
His cat scratched him? How dare the beast! Red sands began to frame the painting, befitting the following mood. In a fit of rage the man grabbed a knife and searched for the beast. Finding it hiding underneath the bed he grabbed it by its scruff and lifted it in the air. The knife moving swiftly as it took out an eye of the beast. Redness oozed out of the empty eye socket before the cat fell down and ran to hide again. The man did not realize the deed he had done and took to nursing his bottle again. The red cloud engulfs the painting again before revealing the next scene…
The man had slept it off in his bed, an empty bottle by his bed. Upon waking up and seeing the bloodied knife in his lap he suddenly realized what he had done the night before! Had he truly blinded his pet in a drunken rage? He immediately got up and searched for her. Finally he found it but the cat cowered and curled itself in a ball, fearing for another attack. The man crumbled to his knees, shame and sorrow washed over him as he saw what he had done to his friend.
The following scene showed how the man was plagues by guilt. In the background a large and almost transparent image of a one-eyed cat kept haunting the man. And every time he tried to approach the cat it ran away in fear. One night when he came home from a night of drowning a way his guilt he attempted once more to pet the cat, again the critter ran away. Right into his wife's arms. The swirling colors became still. Slowly the story showed how the man went to bed, but he could not sleep. His eyes were white dots devoid of any emotion, no smile to be seen. Transparent images floated around his head of the cat. The cat fearing him, the cat loving him, the cat in pain, the cat with one eye, the cat leaping in his wife's arms.
He couldn't take it anymore!! As the images plagued the man the sands began to vibrate with energy and redness flooded the painting but one could still see the silhouettes though. The man jumped out of his bed and went quietly into the kitchen where the cat slept. He grabbed the cat and took it outside to a tree, once there he took the rope by the foot of the tree and tied it around the cat's neck. He then tossed the other end of the rope over a branch and hung the cat…
Panting, the redness slowly faded and the man returned to bed. Nihr then quickly tossed in lots of yellow and orange to the painting to represent flames. A fire suddenly engulfed the home. The house slowly crumbling in on itself, the pets perished by the flames. The man woke up coughing and panicking but he managed to save his wife. Outside the couple watched how their home, their pets, and their possessions get claimed by fire.
The redness wiped the image again and showed a new scene. The aftermath… The couple now lived in a basement, living in poverty. The man still a drunk… But one day after visiting the ruins of his old home he found a small kitten. She resembled a lot like his old pet, pitch black fur except for a white patch of fur on its chest. Funnily enough it also missed an eye. The man decided to take it home and introduced it to his wife. The woman fell in love instantly and the kitten grew up to become her favorite.
The man of course didn't like it, and the red sands just reinforced that as his jealousy grew. This was supposed to be his cat! not his wife's, so one day when the cat decided to ignore him once too often he snapped. He took an axe nearby and swung for the critter, but just before the blade struck it his wife stopped him allowing her cat to escape. In a fit of rage and frustration he released his arm and swung the axe towards her instead, splitting her skull…Red sands oozing from the wound as she fell.
The red sands faded again but the scene continued to play. This time the man showed no remorse, no guilt, no madness. He simply pondered on how to dispose of the body. Thought balloons appear above his head explaining his ideas. He couldn't just transport her outside without the neighbors knowing, so perhaps he should just chop her into little pieces and then burn her remains in the fireplace? No… Perhaps he should bury her underneath the floorboard? No…Toss her into the well in the garden? No…Perhaps he should just stuff her into a box and mail her to somewhere far, far away? No…
He had a better idea…He would bury her behind the wall, like the mutated lower class would in Tarishitar. The scene showed how the man placed his dead wife in the fireplace before he buried her in, brick by brick closing up the old fireplace so that it became a smooth wall again. For days the man looked for the cat but could not find it and it brought him joy! No longer was he going to be plagued by that fiend…
The red sands show the final scene, neighbors and guards began to questions the woman's disappearance, the man was running out of excuses. So the guards insisted upon ransacking his home to find her. But the man was confident as was shown by the grin on his dark face. The guards were about to leave when suddenly pulsating red clouds appeared where the hidden fireplace was. It was small at first but the noises grew, like an infant crying. No… like a wail of a haunted spirit…Wait…no, it was more like…A cat?
The guards pinpointed the source of the cries and began to dig through the wall revealing the decomposing corpse of the man's late wife and a cat perched on top her head. mewling. The man had accidentally buried the cat with his wife…
The black sands engulfed the entire painting slowly as the story came to an end. And slowly the sands retreated back into the sacks. Nihr took another bow and walked off the stage with the bags of sand.
