Yellow

Trigger Warning: self harm.

Ludo lived in color. From the purple lights of the club to blue vodka to the pinks and greens of psychedelic pills, he drunk up life like ambrosia. He worshipped the city, with its LED lights flashing in electronic billboards and the checkerboard of windows that lit up with a honeyed glow. He was alive. Ludo lived in between of real life and fantasy. It was a world he’d built for himself during the worst times. He carefully cultivated the thoughts he was allowed to think and, when things slipped away, he grounded himself again with color. It a trick he’d learned while watching blood swirl down the drain in the bathroom sink: don’t focus on the slipperiness of the red coating your hands, instead focus on the green-yellow pattern of the shower curtain. 

Over the years, his mind had become a machine. Dark thoughts were taken in, processed, then pushed away before they could gum up the works. And that kept his fantasy safe. And that was good for he lived in world where he danced to electronic music from dusk to dawn, painted flowers on the walls of his apartment, and ate peanut butter straight out of the jar at 3am. He had no time for aftershocks. For sadness. 

He loved being alive. But there had been a time when that wasn’t the case. Sometimes, lying in bed during the early hours of the morning, he’d rub the scars on his wrists and forearms. He’d touch the raised tissue carefully, as if checking to make sure it was still there, and watch the light spilling through the windows move slowly across the wall. Maybe he would cry. He found great comfort in shedding tears. If the tears did not help, if things began to spiral, he would turn to listing colors.  

(My eyes are brown, almost black.) 

(My bedroom walls are yellow.) 

(Last night, the sky was purple.) 

(The blanket at my feet...) 

In the morning, he’d wake up happy again, mood only slightly jarred by the taut feeling of dried tears on his cheeks. 

It is late at night. Ludo sits on the on his bathroom floor with the girl he’s in love with. She secures a needle to the side of a pencil by wrapping them together with thread then flicks a lighter and holds it to the tip of the needle. The fire reflects in her eyes.  

“I’m ready,” says the girl. Her name is Ophelia, and she is more beautiful than the stars hidden by the city’s smog. “Are you?” 

“Yes,” he says. He kneels down on the black and white tiles, lifting his shirt to expose his ribcage. His skin is very pale and looks greenish in the florescent lights, like an alien. He feels like an alien. Like he doesn’t really belong in his own home.

Ophelia uncaps a sharpie and sits down beside him. Her left knee touches his right and electricity tingles up Ludo’s spine. He knots his hands in his lap and tries not to think about how all he can think about is how the skin between her eyes and mouth is dusted with freckles. Like constellations. She carefully draws a five-point star on his hip. The wet tip of the Sharpie feels cold. 

“Stop scrunching up your nose,” she says. “There’s no need to be nervous.”  

Ludo unscrunches his nose, and tilts his head, an embarrassed flush coloring his cheeks. Ophelia grasps the pencil and dips the end with the needle into a bottle of India Ink. Ludo watches as a drip of ink falls to its death upon the tiles. He is unable to look as she drives the needle into his skin, tracing the over star. 

Maybe it will bleed.  

He crosses his arms across his chest, digs his elbows into his stomach, and bites his lips. It hurts but he doesn’t make a sound. He has felt much worse pain before. 

(Press the razor blade to your wrist. That’s all. Go on, you coward. It can’t hurt any worse.) 

His head snaps up, bleached bangs swinging, as he shakes away the memory and fixes his eyes upon a brown flower of water damage on the ceiling, unable to look down at the needle flashing in and out of his skin. The girl he’s in love with falls into a sort of rhythm: four pokes with the needle, dip it in the ink, dab the star with a wad of toilet paper, and the cycle begins again. 

“How are you holding up?” asks Ophelia after a long silence. 

“Fine,” says Ludo, face still turned away from her. His hip stings and he’s afraid that if he looks down, he will see blood. If he sees his blood, his well-oiled machine of a mind will malfunction. If he sees his blood, he will be unable to suppress those thoughts.

(The cut is so clean, at first, it doesn’t hurt. Then when it does hurt, it feels good. He’s so close to the point of no return.) 

“Are you almost finished?” asks Ludo, voice tight. 

“The outline is finished, but if you want me to fill it in, it will take longer. Maybe another hour. Are you okay with sitting here for that long?” 

“Yeah.” He swallows. “It’s, uh, not bleeding, is it?” 

She dips the needle and presses the toilet paper to his skin again. “It is, but I’ve been wiping away.” Suddenly Ludo can feel the blood running over his stomach, even though he’s sure he’s imagining it. He looks down and sees a toilet paper curled on the floor dotted with red. Red is the color that hurts him. 

(The razor blade clatters to the sink, and he looks down, terrified by what he’s done to himself. There is so much blood and now he doesn’t want to die anymore.) 

This is too much. Too much. Ludo sucks in a breath, panic tightening in his chest, and fans out his left hand, palm up. There is a little swatch of color on the first joint of each slender finger. Green for on his pinkie. Then blue on his ring finger. Violet. Then yellow. Then, on his thumb, orange. There is no rhyme or reason to their order other than the fact that it calms him. He painted the colors himself, running the smallest brush over his pallet with one quick stroke before spreading the paint as thin and fine as possible, hoping it would dry quicker. The colors calm him. Just seeing them is enough. If he can balance out the sight, or thought, or the red of blood with another color, he will be alright. The machine will cough, stick for a second, then continue chugging along. 

(Scars raised and a runny red. Red as roses-)  

No, no, no. Green, blue, violet, yellow, orange. Green, blue, violet, yellow, orange. His quickened breathing slows and the memories fade. Just like that, he is happy again. Ophelia is here drawing a star into his hip while the constellations on her cheeks move as she hums softly. Time passes, treading lightly past the bathroom door. 

“Finished.” Ophelia looks down at the work, smiling. “If there are gaps in the ink, I can come by next week and fill them in.” 

“Thank you.” Ludo doesn’t look at the tattoo, but he knows it is perfect. He lets Ophelia cover it with a bandage.  

“Why do you only have SpongeBob bandages?” 

(Yellow is the most calming color. If I can counterbalance the blood...)

“Nostalgia?” He interrupts his thoughts. 

They walk together through his apartment. Ludo has painted the walls with thousands of flowers. It’s like walking for through a meadow, save for the scent of cannabis wafting through the open window. 

He leans against the doorframe as she stoops to put on her shoes. He doesn’t know why he says it, but he does. 

She looks up, one shoe on, one off. Confusion crinkles her forehead. “What?”  

Ludo's mouth goes dry, but he repeats himself. “Can I kiss you?” 

Confusion softens to an apologetic smile. “I have a boyfriend.” 

“I know.” 

He can’t stand to look at her, but he can’t stand to look away. 

“Maybe later.” Ophelia leaves with that (promise?).

Ludo watches her hair swinging behind her as she walks down the hall with a punch-drunk smile on his face. The smile quickly fades. 

It is past three in the morning, and he has class tomorrow, but he gets out his pallet. Dipping the brush into a smear of green, he begins to add to the meadows on his wall. He let his mind get away tonight. He was vulnerable and the blood set him off. His hip stings dully. 

As he paints the curved stem of a daisy, he promises himself he won’t let that happen again.