Colors

An idea that's been percolating ...

 It’s summer again.

A pair of sandals follows a big, floppy sun hat. One after another, the images of warmth and leisure spill from the black opening. He hates this time of year. He hates to imagine the figures sprawled on the beach, tanning and talking and tasting summertime delicacies, wearing these sandals and that hat. So instead, he pictures the overwhelming claustrophobia of tunnels and meandering conveyer belts that these items must navigate to reach this, the final stage of the factory process. He envisions the benign objects engulfed in the colorless, lightless maze, out of place and meaningless.

He has never seen a beach. He never will. He only sees the things, the accessories of a different life, which adorn and color the world outside.

And in turn, he colors the things themselves. 

He glances up, as he always does whenever he gets the chance, staring beadily at the rays of dusty light streaming through the high windows of the factory. These same rays could paint an ocean with blue-green-silver diamonds, or sweep brush strokes of pale pink and beige over long prairies. And yet they stab harshly through these lofty windows, cold and grey and lifeless, taunting with the possibility of warmth and illumination. Somehow, they don’t brighten a thing.

In the cavernous room, everything is sharply visible. The single conveyer belt knifing its way sharply down the very center of the floor, the cold grey chairs spaced evenly along its length. One other figure shares the room with him, at the very end. He can’t exactly make her out. The swing of her hair blurs her features. She works diligently, her eyes clearly on the objects in front of her. Fingers reach out, deftly tweak, prod, change, perfect. She caresses the objects. She loves them, loves her part in their process of becoming. She knows that, in a way, her job is the most important. She gives these common items their being, their identity, their individuality. Their color.

He can’t feel her love for the work. To him, it’s mocking. The only brightness in the room comes from the things as they leave his practiced hand – and are carried away, to be enjoyed by someone else. While he stays, isolated in this grey room with its grey light, dressed in grey clothes and made to stare, with grey eyes, at his cold grey hands as they perform their routine. His memory, his imagination, his emotions – all varying shades of grey. He longs for the color he bestows on these worthless items. 

He tries to picture himself with red hair, fiery and crackling with energy. And blue eyes, full of depth and shades and salty personality. But he can’t imagine anything except for that monotone grey. He sees colors every day – he sees the red, the blue – but his mind refuses to recall them. 

He doesn’t want to pick up the faceted perfume bottles now drifting towards him.She’ll take care of it. He wants to languish in his misery.

Another shape drifts towards him. Like the others, it’s colorless and grey. It’s waiting to be brightened and given a name through color. It catches his attention, and takes him by surprise. He had forgotten – it’s summer, that’s right, of course. 

Picking it up, he can feel its heft, its solidarity, its firmness. He sees its curves and sweeps and resolutions, takes in the lighter specks and the visible sheen on its surface as the light glints off of it. He remembers this object, from all the other years, all the other summers. And he suddenly remembers why it’s different from the others. 

He doesn’t picture beaches when he looks at it. He doesn’t think plastic, superficial, happiness I can’t have. This is natural, real, beautiful because it comes from someplace organic. Because it’s not something to use. It’s something to feel. To experience and savor. Because it doesn’t last forever. And suddenly the colors burst into his memory: Ecstatic, joyful red; jubilant green; and the specks of still white, winking with familiarity. 

He picks up his tools, and gently guides a microscopic wire into the object. The skin of the thing bends and curves as the wire pierces its molecules, separating and delving into them. With a deft and practiced hand, he sifts and feels with the wire through layers of atoms, looking for the anatomical switch that only he can find. And then it’s there – that solid feeling among the particles. With a tiny upward flick, the precise biological levers are tweaked, and he pulls the wire gently from the shifting elements. The object resolves itself, once again solid. But something has changed. A key has been turned in the padlock of physics.

He knows it’s a scientific trick. He knows that the reason he sees the red, the green, the black, is because the object now reflects those light patterns back instead of absorbing them. It’s science, not magic, nothing spiritual or holy or miraculous. But that knowledge doesn’t stop his small, private smile.

The strawberry moves along the conveyer belt. It didn’t have a name before, when it was still grey and unfinished. But he’s given it life, not just color. Now it’s not just an image of a strawberry – it is one.

He thinks of the faceless person who will sink their teeth into this little marvel. He doesn’t envy them, nor does he hate them. He’s experienced the joy of this thing, and not only that, he’s given it that joy. That person who eats the strawberry will first marvel at its brightness, its boldness. It’s not just a piece of fruit. It’s a piece of nature. Of science. Of art.

His eyes trace the berry as it disappears into the next opening. He doesn’t quite know where it will go next, but it doesn’t exactly matter to him. He gazes up at the windows again. The light doesn’t depress him anymore, it illuminates. It shows him the potential in everything – the possibility of color in the grey stitches of his clothes; the spectrum just waiting to be revealed in the pale walls and floor.

He looks up and meets the gaze of the girl at the far end of the room. She is smiling, and her eyes glisten blue.

Author's Note

I haven't done any revisions yet ...

Reviews

[Eleanor Drake]

I really liked this - you really get a sense of the setting. Very effective, and quietly compelling - it resonated with me long after I read it.