A Night Without Color

Trigger Warning: The Story Contains What Some Readers May Interpret As The Abuse an Infant. Reader's Discretion is Advised.

What he feels right now, it has no color.

But it’s in The Wind tickling the hairs of his arms. It’s in the irregular vibration of his 1,990 cc engine. It’s in the lump perched on his throat, in the nasty taste of warm iron filling his mouth, and in the infinitesimal needles pricking the corners of his eyes.

The eyes,

thaw,

and the road ahead becomes a blur.

“Purple,” his Grandma would say, “Anger’s purple.”

“Not just any purple, midnight purple,” Ma argued. Because some purple is light and royal. Like jacaranda flowers. What he feels isn’t anger, therefore, because it has no ascribed pigment, unlike other emotions.

Lust, red.

Jealousy, green.

Sadness, Monday-blue.

What if, you know, what if she says no?

The smudge in front of him turns from lust-red to envy-green. Tires screech. Burning rubber permeates his nose. But he barely notices.

What if Bridgett says no?

There’s aggressive honking behind him. Before ——

But she might just say yes. One never knows if one doesn't ask.

——a truck digs its bombastic bumper into the hind quarters of his Hyundai.

The heck.

It happens a ton on Harare’s streets. Especially when it rains at night. The next thing, usually, is that the hit driver demands straight up cash—or else.

Not on a Monday-blue Friday that’s this one though. Because on the Monday-blue Friday that’s this one, the blue ice throbbing in his veins says to let dark situations slide. To such an extent that he even lets the perpetrator abuse the victim. “Green means go, you moron. You can't see?"

The audacity.

The bigger vehicle scoops rainwater from a baby Zambezi and throws some at the smaller one. For a brief moment, as he scrubs water off his dashboard, proverbial purple dyes his soul. The kind leaning towards midnight. The kind that should’ve propelled him out of the car, hands balled into fists, to pull a weed out of its seat on a yellower day.

The irony.

His mind is unshackled from the thought experiment by two phenomena wailing simultaneously.

One is a police siren, in which case, shit. Or is it just an ambulance? In which case, phew.

The other is —

The Thing.

#

It’s a Wind tickling hairs and sowing goosebumps.

A cold rush down spines which displaces the warm and fuzzy. An invisible hand squeezing sweat out of brows and temples. The mechanism a deer triggers before the net of headlights tightens around it. It’s a wind without the whistling, whirling and whimpering. Trees don’t dance to its tune. Windows don’t slam when it blows candles out. Its bony fingers, they’ve never picked dust and debris only to bury them under unfortunate eyes. No, this one only sows goosebumps, tremors, and the gnashing of teeth.

A laborer more diligent than Death wielding a brand new scythe too!

Tonight it’s already caused a woman to stare into the proverbial abyss, contemplating her mortality, peeling the scab of unrealized potential to uncover a putrid wound. Oozing black and scarlet. It went through a squeaky door an hour later, dragging a scorned lover along. She found her husband vigorously thrusting into her best friend. It froze them all in situ, in almost the same manner it traps deer.

This Wind floats like a strange cloud, hurtling toward undefended hearts on which its imaginary legs will stomp until they thump unbearably.

#

Gloria’s mouth dries up.

Her chest becomes too heavy to lift. Her stomach sprints laps. Her just-installed nails tap the chair’s handles involuntarily.

“Girl, you good?” says her hairstylist. She’s installing the final strands on the head of tomorrow morning’s bride.

Bride-to-be tries to speak but her tongue is tied.

She feels nauseated.

There’s a pit in that part of her gut which her stomach’s vacated.

She last had this feeling when her mother died. As her mother died. It was a lengthy wait to doomsday. She saw a chasm in Dad’s soul even as he desperately tried to convince the rest of the world that the sunset writ large on the canvas of his countenance was, plot twist, a sunrise after all. But you could smell the formless apparition from across the room; yes, it has that particular scent ——

Humid salt.

But Dad has been staunch ever since. He’s never again allowed himself to tremble. Never allowed himself to weep. His face never turns colorless. His fingers never shiver.

Maybe she should call him and confess her feelings. But she knows his response in advance.

It’s a demon, he'll say.

No.

If not, is she developing cold feet?

Not really, no more than normal at least.

Chicken feet?

No.

Fight or flight is the general human’s go-to response when confronted. Adrenalin is the juice The Gale induces when it visits. Of course, of course she’ll eventually tell him about the recurring nightmares.

To which he’ll respond, “Told you that boy’s a no-gooder.”

“I don’t know what to do, Daddy.”

“Say no instead of I do.”

SAY NO NOW? “Isn’t that too ——?”

“Better than getting hitched to a no-gooder.”

Cold feet then. This is all this is. We all have to reassure ourselves at some point. So cold feet it is.

And as if on cue, her stilettos shiver again.

Not only that but her phone buzzes and almost falls from the dresser in front of her. She panicks, jerks forward and causes the hairdresser to break a strand of the artificial hair or her long nails. Either way she cusses.

She picks the phone but won't—can't—pick up the call.

It's Dad. The Demon must've got to him too.

#

His phone rings.

“Yes?”

“Man, where you at?”

“I’m, you know, in town. What’s up?”

“I’ll tell you what’s up. Your girl been sniffing around. She just called. Looking for you."

“Well, I just thought, you know, I was at my bachelor’s party tonight or something.”

“She worried sick about you. And she ain’t the only one. You just up and left ——.”

It just showed up at his doorstep. There wasn’t any time to think things through, let alone say bye-bye. Fight-or-flight instinct compelled him to scoop the gift, jump into the car and drive. “Was gonna, um, something came up. Okay?”

“What you stammering about then; what’s up?”

“Steve, I’m coming. Okay?—Okay?”

“Okay.”

Call drops.

#

The wind blows. A slice of silver moon shines in the black sky. Crickets chirp, peeling fortification erected around thumping hearts, fortifications made out of eggshells.

Groom-to-be drinks, smokes and paces about the wooden porch.

“Soon-to-be Mother-of-the-rest-of-your-kids don’t sound too at ease,” Groom’s sister says.

“She doesn’t.”

She snatches the cigarette from him to light her own. “And you, are you happy with your grown self?”

Happiness is yellow, Grandma said. Like the coddling rays of a gentle sun. Like the daffodils dancing to the tune of a friendlier wind. So, nope. This feeling isn’t yellow one one bit. Life generally makes happiness elusive. “Uh-uh.”

She chuckles and opens another bottle of beer. “What you angry at yourself for then?”

“Who says I’m angry?”

“You shivering. You stammering. You here. There’s that.”

“But I ain’t angry. Okay?”

He pulls in smoke, she exhales. The wind tickles hairs and sows goosebumps. His bottle shivers, threatening to fall from his hands. But what he feels is decidedly colorless.

“So you scared, huh?”

“Who says I’m scared?”

She shrugs. “I’d be scared.”

A cloud covers the slice of moon. A commet stammers across the sky. “You ain’t me though. There’s that.”

“I’d say to see a therapist if your wedding wasn’t . . . tomorrow morning. Sometimes we don’t know what we feel until ——.”

His bottle explodes in a far corner of the yard. He stomps about the porch. Cussing. Throwing punches at thin air. Kicking rocks as colourless as . . . the spooky Wind.

“Okay, Bridgett, you win.”

“Yay.”

“I’m afraid. Petrified. Scared shitless. Okay? What else is there? Horror-struck? You bet I am. Happy now?”

She waits until his passion recedes a bit. “But do you know why?”

His hands land on his waist. He can't look at her, so he looks at tree silhouettes swaying in the wind, like the heads of erect serpents. “The A-word, huh?”

“Accountability. I have helped you a lot of times when you messed up. I'm tired. And I can’t help you, unless we start there.”

She’ll help still? Even after last time? Even with something like this?

“Well, picture you’re about to marry The Girl of your wildest dreams. Y’all enjoying your last free night with the boys when ——.”

“Bad influence.”

“——someone drops a Thing at your doorstep and a piece of paper alleging you fathered it. What, my friends are good influences. Didn’t bring no strippers.”

“You’ve slept with so many of girls you don’t even know which one this is?”

“A few too many maybe. But then again, I’ve the best sister in the world, don’t I?”

What if she says no? Think on the bright side mate, what if she says Yes?

A shrill cuts the otherwise calm night.

It’s coming from the Hyundai.

The Thing is still alive, and awake. Bridgett’s brother’s eyes look at hers; they kneel and beg. She shrugs and looks at him with eyes that insist she ain’t gonna help out with this one.

He’s totally screwed and utterly alone.

This is the reaction he’s been most afraid of all night.