Colourful Life

Red:
Red, in my opinion, is the symbol of evil. Most say black, but I disagree. What is the colour that leaks out of your body when you are hurt? Red. What is seen on all the symbols depicting communism and fascism? Red. Why people cannot see that, I do not know. Mars, the planet used in most movies to house most aliens, is said to be red. Ireland had the bloody Sunday, Red Sunday. The tanks that were used in the Tiannamen square massacre, killed rioters right in front of the flags of China, flags of Red. Red is everywhere. It spreads like a disease, infecting our society with evil. Ironic really. When people think of infections or diseases, they usually think of organs turned bright red, inflamed. Communism. Blood. Demons. Hell. Killing. Disease. Infection. Pain. Suffering. These things all point to one thing – red. Why, I do not know. This is what I am trying to find out. And yet, with every passing day, the pain of red grows stronger within me, choking me, from the inside out.

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I wake up, and look over to my bedside table, at my alarm clock. The digits on the LED screen flash red. I get up, removing the sheets from my body, rubbing my eyes. They are red from sleep and irritation from my hands trying to sooth the itchiness. Mum calls from downstairs, yelling breakfast is ready. I groggily get up and walk out of my room, looking at the painting on the wall facing my bedroom door. A painting of an old woman, holding a red rose, rocking back and forth on a rocking chair, in an empty room.

I slowly stagger in the hallway, like a drunk. The bathroom faces me. I open the door and step through. A mirror faces me above the basin. I take the toothbrush from the cup where the toothbrushes are kept, and squeeze the toothpaste onto the bristles. The toothpaste has streaks of red. I rub the toothbrush across my teeth, the gums a bright red, from gingivitis. The raw parts of my gum bleed, as I run the toothbrush roughly across them. I stop abruptly, fill up a cup of water and drown my mouth in it.

As I gargle, my right eye works its way over to the shampoo bottle sitting on the bathtub’s little soap rack. The big, bold red letters written upon the logo really stand out. Mum yells again, quickening my movements. I lurch forward, and the water empties onto the sink. The water being pulled into the plughole has little bits of red from my gums. I curse at the state of my teeth as I examine them in the mirror, before taking my clothes off and turning the red tap to start the shower.

The red hot water sprays out of the showerhead onto my back, and running down, dripping onto the bathtub. It feels pleasurable. This continues, my body growing numb from the heat of the water. Finally, it all comes to a stop, at the turn of my hand on the red tap. I step out of the bathtub, glancing over at the mirror, clouded with steam, and I can make out faintly the concentrated red marks from the hot jets of water.

I put my school uniform on, which has been laid out, on top of the washing basket the night before. I step over the red bathroom mat and turn the handle on the bathroom door. The hallway faces me again. I walk down the hallway, the painting staring at me again. I mount the stairs. My shoes make a muffled thump on each stair as I descend.

The front door looms at me, yet I do not approach it. I turn, and walk into the kitchen. Mum is shifting the frying pan in a circular motion. I watch the red strips of pork jiggle on the oily surface. Mum says something about the time, yet I am not listening. I take a seat on the swivelling stools, facing the kitchen table.

Mum slides my cereal across the table. I take the spoon, already in the breakfast, waiting for me. I use it to pat down the cereal, to let the milk seep through it, soaking the cereal, until it is weak enough for me to swallow the flakes whole. As I eat, I notice the red flowers mum keeps on the table; they all droop at my presence.

Mum says something and I mumble a reply. The silence deafens my ears. Only the soft sizzle of the frying pan breaks the ear-splitting sound. I finish the cereal, tipping the contents left into the sink. Mum takes the strips off the frying pan and slaps them on a plate in front of me. I stare into them, amused at the fact that these once were the insides of a pig.

Mum wonders at why I’m not eating; am I full? I mutter a no, and take one of the strips by hand. It proceeds to my open mouth. The strips are easily grinded; Mum has cooked them well. Mum asks me have I remembered everything. I give her the same old answer and take my bag, which is lying limp in the corner of the room.

The front door looms at me again. This time, I reach out and turn the handle. The door jerks outwards roughly. Mum ponders out loud whether we should get a man in to fix it. I walk down the stepping-stones, set into the grass, being careful, keeping my feet within the edges of the circular stepping-stones as I skip from one to the next.

The car’s blinkers flash, as Mum has pressed the button on her keys. I open the door. The leather seats take my weight. I lie back into them; allowing them to absorb me, engulf me. Mum sits in the driver’s seat next to me and turns the keys in the ignition. A red symbol lights up, along with the rest of the dashboard. The car reverses off the side of the road. Mum curses under her breath, looking at her watch. I do not care. I stare out of the window, looking into the same old scenery I see everyday.

The silence rings back from the back of my eardrums. It is unbearable. Mum simply sits there, upright, totally oblivious to my pain. How can she do that? I can sense the air thick with her stress. The tension between her and me is rising. The red symbol keeps blinking. Mum will not retain it much longer. Mum will vent her anger and frustration on me soon. I pretend not to notice and keep staring out the window. A red roof on a house is half built. A cat runs onto the road. The red symbol keeps blinking. Mum’s eyes snap open; their blood vessels a strained red as they creep like vines to her iris, as the car swerves off the road. Everything turns red.

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Black:
Black is the colour of fear. Do not ask me why, it just is. Bats, although harmless, people are still scared of them. Why? Black. Death walks amongst the darkness, the black. Black is within us, we can never fully eradicate it. When we go to bed one night, thinking only good thoughts about tomorrow, there is still that same black. It will never die away. You can never get rid of it. It is your shadow; following you, everywhere you go. He will always be there. Behind you! Poised with a dagger over your neck, yet when you turn around, he is gone.

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I wake up, and the first thing I see is the black of my watch, strapped to my arm, the black LED numbers stare back up at me. 7:00. I should have been up half an hour ago to finish my assignment on history. I get out of bed, walk to my wardrobe, and open the wardrobe door. Something suddenly flashes across my very eyes into the concealed part of the wardrobe. I open the door fully. Nothing is there. My eyes must be playing tricks; it is probably lack of sleep. I unhook my school uniform from the hangar and go out into the hallway. The painting stares at me from its place on the wall. The old woman’s black dress draws my eyes to her. I hold her gaze for only a few seconds, before continuing to the bathroom.

I walk over that same red bathroom mat and lock the door behind me. I undress, and get into the shower. I turn the red tap. The water sprays from the showerhead. It is too hot. I adjust, by turning the cold tap until the water is a nice warm. I let it wash over my body. I take the shampoo, glancing at the black text on how to best use as I apply the shampoo to my hair, massaging it right to my scalp. I then bow my head to the water jets, letting all my hair hang down. I shut my eyes tight as the shampoo runs down my face, to save my eyes from being irritated. The total blackness instantly vanishes as I open my eyes. I expect to hear Mum’s yell to get out of the shower. Nothing echoes up the stairs. Mum must be in a good mood today.

I get out of the shower and wrap a towel around myself. I gaze into the fogged up mirror. I observe my eyes have black under them, lack of sleep. I put my school uniform on; again the argument breaks out inside my thoughts about why the blazer is complete black. As I am about to unlock the bathroom door, my hand grasping the door handle, I turn around, knowing I have forgotten something. I scan the room to see if it will scream out to me to jog my memory. My eyes come to rest on the black bottle of spray deodorant. I walk back to the sink and my eyes spot another thing I have forgotten. My toothbrush. Hurriedly, I apply my deodorant in straight and diagonal lines all across my torso and under my arms; the sharp cold of the pressurised fragrance makes my skin recoil.

I then take my toothbrush and toothpaste sagging next to it. I squeeze the toothpaste across the bristles. I shove the toothbrush into my mouth, madly scrubbing away at my teeth, making them smooth and shine. Again, the red drops appear in the toothpaste as it flows freely down the sink into the darkness beneath.

A black shape appears on the mirror, reflecting in the corner. I turn, and nothing is there but mould. I frown. I then begin my usual descent down the stairs to breakfast. I approach the kitchen, to sob to Mum about how my history assignment is not completed. I walk into an empty room. Although Mum is not here, probably still getting ready, my breakfast sits patiently and silently in the middle of the table. The flowers towering over the breakfast are still red, yet there are three which are almost totally covered in little black dots, probably being eaten from an infection.

I sit, and move the cereal towards me, take the spoon in front of me and scoop the flakes. Some milk leaks spills from the spoon with the utensil breaking the milk ocean. The spoonful is lifted to my mouth, allowing my teeth to soak in the sugary milk and flakes. I ignore the fact that it will probably cause my teeth to turn an ash black and eventually the loss of my teeth. I keep chewing, my ravenous hunger taking over my movements.

I feel something swelling behind me, an invisible force. I twist around, the sensation stops instantly. I know something is there. No, that can’t be right. Nothing is there. My mind in deep thought, I continue to chew. I glance down at my black watch and wonder. Mum should be ready by now. Why is she taking so long? I chew, still thinking. The black flowers catch my eye again. I still chew. Keep chewing. Keep chewing…


People flow past in slow motion around me to their next class. I carry my things, my hands just stretching around the abnormally large folders. Out of my eye, a Goth makes her way through the masses, brushing past of the weary, blank colourless faces. Her black hair in sharp vertical spikes. Her lip, a ring protrudes and another across her nostrils. Yet, I come to realise, it suits her. She is truly herself, got nothing to hide. Not like the people around her, their masks fitted on tightly. It is not the colour that is attracted to those puppets. The colour is like an aurora around the Goth, her black clothing shines.

The stickers and little buttons depicting her favourite bands and sayings glow on her black bag, the strap swung around her shoulder. She quickly passes and I lose site of her. My eyes then float to the classroom where I am to be. I open the door and the rest of the class all turn and stare at me from their desks. The malicious looks thrown at me, all piercing my flesh, all perfectly aimed, quickly gathering a knot in my stomach.

The teacher’s scowl is the poison of the arrows. He looks at me, asks for an explanation as to my late arrival. His voice sounds distant, thinned and watered down by the foreign babbling going on in the background of my mind. Time somehow speeds up; as I am already at my desk, the glare of the teacher quickly passes over me to the boy behind like a spotlight in the exercise yard of a prison. Watching for a bad move. Almost waiting for a mistake from anyone. Somewhere to unload his anger from the worries of his life.

I reach down to get my books that are under my chair and the feeling comes back. Yet this time, it is not in me, it is on all the faces staring at me. The teacher and the class, all turned, staring at me. Then I see what is plainly written on their faces. All my troubles. All my pain. All my agony. All my fear. Black tears drip from their eyes. It runs down their cheeks. More tears appear. Their eyes blink in unison and all re-open bright burning red. The black tears drain the colours from their faces; making them all start to turn black from dried tears, wet tears creating fresh layers of black on the faces.

The tears keep flowing. I begin to tremble, shuddering in my chair, my muscles spasm uncontrollably. The black tears start to drain the colour of the wood of the desks. The teacher’s –his face now unrecognisable- black tears fall upon the floor starts to drain the colour in the carpet. The black tears now covered the wooden surface of the desks, now run down, running across the already black iron legs of the desks. The patting of the tears hitting becomes engraved in my mind. Ebbing away at my sanity.

The black now makes a pool at the foot of every desk, beginning to spread, across the carpet, running up the bookcase, up the walls, the cabinets containing specimens, the light flooding in from the windows is drained, as the black liquid runs up the windows. The tears now start working their way across the ceiling. Everything is now black, the only things distinguishable is the red eyes all trained on me. I close my eyes, and even in the pitch darkness of my eyelids, the red eyes still burn upon them.

I feel something at my feet. The not knowing of what it is almost tears my heart apart as the heart beats rapidly speed up to unimaginable levels. The beating echoes deafeningly loud in my ears. Then I realise what the feeling is. It is the black liquid. It is flooding the room, working its way from the floor upwards. Drowning me. The liquid is moving at an extremely slow rate, it is not even one hundredth of the way up my shoe. I simply sit, awaiting the black liquid to enter me. Time moves slowly. Hours pass.

It is unbearable; the worst part is knowing my fate, having a known destiny. The black liquid finally is at my neck. I have been floated up out of my chair hours ago; I now tread water in the mass black liquid. It feels like acid against my skin. The people seem to have perished in the dark depths below, still frozen in their chairs and the teacher still rooted to the spot in front of the blackboard, his glare probably decomposing at a turtle like pace.

My strength is starting to fail me. My time has come. I know this is the end. With one last gasp of air, the black liquid pours down my throat, its tar-like texture expands in down my windpipe with every breath, choking me. The pain is beyond anything I have ever felt. I push my head under the black sea, and the black liquid pierces the skin of my heart, dissolving it instantly, reaching within to fill my soul with black. My screeching, high-pitched screams are mute as my both spiritual and physical body fails.

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White:
The colour of nothing. A speck on a long stretch of beach, yet white is the main colour in glass, assuming the glass remains untouched. In some whites we see everything, yet do not see the white itself, in others, we see nothing but the colour white, in all its power and shining glory. Although you never see it, when you bleed, most of the cells that come out are white cells. Only, because the white cells are regarded as “nothing”, they are drowned out by the bigger other cells, which actually do less in our blood stream. So we need white to survive, but we never do it justice or give it any real credit.

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The white surrounds me. It is all I see. Everything else seems distant, the unseen things, the sounds. I can hear it, the low babble. I hear the sound swell, perhaps climb a few decibels. I still see white. I try to wave my hand, and I think it moves; yet the white seems to restrict the feeling. I try to speak, but I find that the white has tied my lips together.

A red suddenly flashes over the white. Only once. Then I come to realise, it is my eyelids, the blinds rolling up, allowing reality to shine through, lighting all I see, hear, think, feel and smell. The low babble now sings its mellow tune at full pelt. People in white surround me. My bed sheets are white. The whole room is white, save for a vase with one red rose, wilted again at my sudden awakening.

One person in white comes and holds my wrist, as if to check my pulse. He nods and whispers something in another white’s ear. I look down, and find my skin is filled with red rips and tears, many of them foaming at the mouth with some sort of white liquid. There is a large gash I feel down the side of my face, fingering the jagged ravine with my fingers. Is it red? I do not know. I have no recollection of how any of this came to be. My mind only thinks in white. White. White. White.

Then my mind begins to think in red. RED! RED! RED! The red lashes out, stabbing at my thoughts, my nerves, everywhere. I scream out in agony. Three people in white suddenly rush in the room and hold me down; one has his hand over my mouth. The scream is instantly stifled. But not the red, oh, Lord no. It continues, amplifying within me. I squirm and struggle, but the holds on me stand firm. Another white makes its appearance, and holds a sort of thing you use in toy doctor sets. The one that scares me most.

A white liquid swishes around inside the needle. There seems to be something else attached to the end, a tiny thing, an elongated thing, a sharp thing. It pierces me, and my eyes suddenly show me red, then white, then black…then white again. My mind quickly reverts back to the old ways of only seeing white.


Finally, the white disperses, revealing to me the paradise of reality again. The people in white suits are gone. Now all that stands in someone in black. A strong black. I get the feeling she used to be someone else, someone else familiar to me. I tilt my head, ever so slightly, not on the side of the ravine but the other, facing away from the black figure. She speaks. Although I cannot hear the words, I can see her mouth moving. I quickly tilt my head back in an upright position on the white pillow.
Only one word I can just distinguish from the inaudible. One, short, life changing word. A dent in my perfect reality. I try to recoil, but it only encourages the red thoughts. The word that I once knew, one, which I cannot remember meant, but I remember it certainly meant something. The black woman had spoken the word “Mother” before collapsing to her knees at the side of my bed, repeating that same word over and over again, screaming it for all the world to hear.

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Blue:
The colour of hope and contentment. That is all my research has revealed to me. I may continue this entry when I have found more information.

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I lay in the sea of flowers, staring up at the sky. No clouds today. All is…all is… I cannot remember. There was a colour to describe what I saw, but it is missing. Slipped, fell, through the cracks in between my fingers. A butterfly flutters past my vision, also this colour. I smile. The smile feels foreign to my lips, pulling them back in such a grotesque way.

I turn my head in the sea of flowers, and see a girl running towards me. My mind whispers something in my ear, but I dismiss it. She smiles too, a bigger smile than mine. She makes sounds as if she is laughing, laughing happily at my presence. My sick presence. The curse upon the world. The world would be perfect, if only I wasn’t there.

A sort of warm feeling comes into my stomach, like a bubbling cauldron, somehow making me sustain the smile. I grapple at my gut, trying to choke this feeling out. It does not leave. I even try rolling on the grass with my stomach. The feeling still does not leave.

I turn back to the girl; my head getting a sense of giddiness as it lightly brushes the grass bristles. She keeps laughing, her lips pulled back in that grotesque way, her white teeth glistening in the burning sun. Burning sun of death, a hell, posted to eventually kill us, in the sky.

That colour I see around the girl in the sky is on the tip of my tongue. Yet it still will not come out. She approaches; suddenly the phrase “spring in her step” comes into my memory. She takes something out of the black purse slung over her shoulder.

A box. A red symbol is carved upon it, an out-of-proportion oval shape, with a weird indent in the top of the symbol. Below is written “LOVE”. I have no recollection of ever seeing that word, or hearing of it. I wonder at its meaning…

Suddenly the girl takes up all my vision, her arms wrap around me like huge vines. Trying to kill me. Trying to squeeze the life out of me. Life? What silly word is that!

I push her away, and the smile suddenly leaves her. Her mouth makes an O, and she turns and runs the way she came. Suddenly the sky turns black. A great force causes all the sea of flowers to bend back on their stems, all facing away from me. They turn red, a burning red.

The sun turns a black, along with the sky. An aura suddenly appears in my hands, a thought quickly crosses my mind that it maybe my salvation. But it is not. Only that stupid colour I cannot remember.

I stand, and brush the aura off, onto the flowers. The flowers my hands have touched all return to their normal colours, and stop bending back. I squish them; they do not follow the rest.

Why did I have that colour on my hands? That colour I do not like. Suddenly the force takes me, stripping me of my skin. All that is left of me are bones, pale white bones, and they fall to the burning flowers. The skin turns to dust, burning up high in the sky where I cannot see it.

I wake up; black faces me on all sides. I am hyperventilating. The only thing I can see through the black is the little tiny blue next to the TV’s “power” button, high in the corner of my room.

Luckily I have not attracted the attention of the men in white suits with my hysterics. My mind goes to its usual rhythm of white, and I lose consciousness.

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Yellow:
The colour of the sick. The vile. Green is only used in cartoons; yellow is the true colour of the sick. You can feel your sick, coursing through your veins with every breath. The strange stink and feel of snot that hangs in your mouth after a hard cough. Yellow lumps of pus, you can see it. Running down your leg, from some big infected wound. It is the best and worst feeling. You lick it. It tastes like nothing. You eat the yellow lumpy liquid off your scars and lick your wounds clean, knowing it will only make you sicker. It would be seen as disgusting, were it not your yellow. Your own individual sick colour. Your own sickness. Your own yellow.

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I wake, and find the woman who had screamed the word “mother” at me by my bedside. She has a box in her hands, with little stalks, and big yellow bits on the end. She puts them on the table next to me. I look at them and I vomit yellow. Yellow, all down the side of my bed. It drips to the floor. I smile, the yellow coating still upon my lips and down my chin.

The woman takes out a white flimsy substance and cleans the floor and part of her dress. She then looks at me, and turns away quickly, and holds the white substance to her mouth, and tenses. Nothing happens, and she removes the white from her mouth. Her lips have red on them.

All I want is for her to leave. She should cover herself in red and leave. That would be a fitting end. Not just on her lips, which are red, raw, from the lies she speaks. Her whole body. I lift my arm, and find that the rips are coated in yellow too. Like a breaking wave, the little different yellow on the top.

I feel the jagged ravine on the side of my face. It now feels squelchy, all down the jagged cliff, and my finger comes away covered in yellow. I wipe it on the bed sheet, and then put my finger back. It comes away covered in red. What is this yellow? It seems to have covered me.

I feel yellow in my stomach. Its building. Churning. My body seems to make it. That woman is still in the room. I picture her red. It does not make her go. She sits in the chair next to my bedside table, little bits of water going down her face. She tries to cover it with both her hands. It looks strange, unnatural.

If I had the strength to speak, I would tell her to leave. I lie back, and allow my eyes to close. Red. Red. Red. White.

I find myself before a pool of yellow. I look at the pool, wondering whether I should jump into it. I decide I do. The pool is not liquid, it is somewhat semi-liquid, with that weird stuff that had already been on my body in some other life. This thought comes to me as I gladly swim in this yellow. People surround the pool, all with their teeth pulled back, and little yellow liquid in their glasses. They raise their glasses and watch me as I swim.

I plunge my head under the yellow, and it seeps into my hair. The feeling is indescribable. Little lumps of yellow I feel stick to my hair. I take a mouthful of the yellow. It tastes so filling. So tasteless. It’s what every food should taste like. Tasteless. That must be why so many people drink water.

I lift my head above the waves of yellow, and see all the people’s faces are twisted. Some have eyes missing. One has a worm poking out of a hole in his cheek. Their faces are no longer strong and vibrant, they are now all white. What eyes they do have are red-coloured. They all vomit black out of their mouths. Black comes out of their eyes, down their faces.

I seem to have a sensation that I remember this from somewhere before. Their glasses turn yellow, and ooze through their fingers, making little piles of slop at their feet. The white-faced people all begin to melt, their suddenly liquid selves turning red as they do so. They all turn into red water, and trickle in little streams into the pool. Before they all stood on rocks. Now all that was left was little pools of red, trickling into the pool. The pool’s yellow slowly turns red.

I feel something happening to me. I look down, and stare as my body in the murky yellow depths begins to flake. White little squares of my body just flake away. I try to stop it, and hold my legs, but this just submerges my whole body. I feel my face flaking. It feels like acid. I lift my head out of the red, gasping for breath, and find I am now faced with my bathroom mirror.

My face is deformed. Part of my mouth is missing. One eye sags, as half of the eye socket has turned into a lumpy yellow. A large patch of my hair is missing, and in its place is red, leaking red down my face. I open the half of my mouth, and the tail of a fish pokes out, it feels slimy on my lips. I feel the fish suddenly appearing, sliding up my throat. My throat convulses and I let it all come out into the sink. The fish lands in the sink with a slap. A whole fish, dead of course. I look down at it strangely.

Where could it have come from? The dead fish begins to puff itself up, and then implode into a big lot of lumpy yellow. I pick it up with my hands and gleefully put it back into my mouth. The slimy texture of all the yellow as it slides back down my throat is heaven.

I wake up quickly, sweating, panting for breath. My mouth quickly cuts short the pant to vomit more yellow onto my bed sheets. The woman has gone. I begin to laugh weakly, almost like coughing, before the yellow covers it all again in my mouth, and pours onto my sheets.

It is black outside of the window. The room itself is black too, except for little tiny blue next to the TV’s “power” button. It seems a less strong light blue now, a darker blue. I spy a pale white coat man sitting in the corner of my room, in the guest’s chair. I sit up in my bed and look at him. He stares back. He raises a hand; the hand bends from side to side. Then I thought I saw him wink. I blink and when I open my eyes again he is gone, all that is left is pitch black and the outline of the chair.

Somewhere far off I hear faint laughing. However, it may have just been my mind, my mind playing tricks. Maybe it was all the yellow I ate, it has clogged my head. I can feel it gathering in my ears anyway. Seems I will have a lot to eat for the next few weeks. I close my eyes again. Black.