On Pink Earth

Perfect, perfect, perfect; that’s how every day of our lives is. In this world of pink, I am a humble member of the cast. I have the luck to wake up to it every morning. Everything appears in different hues of pink. That’s my favourite colour. It’s everyone’s favourite colour here. When the pink is pure, we know that all is well in our world. It’s like a barometer of what’s going on. Pink is perfection.

I get up every day and step out of my veiled bed. I walk across the plush carpet that feels like velvet beneath my feet. My nails are perfectly manicured, and I have a dressing table with everything laid out in a perfect kind of parallel symmetry. I go through my morning routine. It never becomes monotonous. I take my time over everything and there is nothing to worry about. Life is a holiday. I just make myself up, style my hair and get ready for the great day ahead. Breakfast awaits me on the table. No one has a servant because no one needs to work. Everything we need falls in front of us, as if by magic. When I arrive at the breakfast table, there is a stack of waffles or pancakes awaiting me. Freshly brewed coffee fills my favourite cup. It has steam that rises and forms a heart shape in the air, directly above the centre of the cup. I drink it at the speed I choose. I’m alone but that doesn’t matter. We are all alone in our little bubbles. When we step outside our front door, that’s when we interact with the rest of the people in our world. I have a dog called Sippy. He likes to accompany me on walks. He isn’t much work to look after. The machinations of our world take care of everyone and everything. He satisfies my need for companionship. It just works better being apart from others. We have visitors whenever we want – lovely little parties where we are all delighted to see each other.

I walk down the street with a bounce in my step, my ponytail dancing in the light breeze. The sunshine is predictably glorious, and there is only ever a soft breeze, so it never gets too hot. The park is filled with smiling citizens, and I am one with them. We are all in this together and there is a feeling of camaraderie that I couldn’t imagine existing in another world. I take Sippy for a walk around the park, and we greet everyone we pass. We all know each other on a first name basis, and we call each other friends. There aren’t too many of us, so nowhere is ever overcrowded. Waiting isn’t something we are ever forced to do. The trees are all the same shade of pink with bark that is smooth and lacks texture. No one could get a splinter if they tried to; in fact, injuries don’t exist here -- nothing unseemly does. I’ve never even had a crease in my clothing, and I never have to iron – unless I want to, of course. We only do the things that we feel the desire to do. There are special surprises around every corner. Predictability gets boring when there’s too much of it, so there is always plenty of novelty here.

A beautiful bunch of flowers awaited me whenever I got back to my house that day. There was a card attached to them. An admirer had sent them. I couldn’t think of a possible admirer of mine. I only knew people on a friendly basis, so I was truly perplexed by the flowers' arrival. The bouquet was an exotic mix. They weren’t pink, which was strange. They stood out in stark contrast against the pink backdrop. My eyes weren’t used to the sight of them, and the brightness almost stung them and activated my tear ducts. They were exciting in a way I’d never experienced before. I put them into a pink vase filled with pink water and they looked like they weren’t really at home there. They didn’t match anything in the house, but they intrigued me.

I’d been told tales of items that weren’t pink, of how they could enter from the outside world. I’d been warned not to get too close to them. There was poison behind the colourful exterior – or so they said. I didn’t know anyone personally that had seen anything that didn’t follow the rules of pink perfection, so there was no way to know for sure. I just knew that the multicoloured flowers had an allure I couldn’t deny. I wanted to know the source of them. It was just natural human curiosity. When things are perfect, we aren’t supposed to question them. It would be like being in the garden of Eden and tasting forbidden apples. I don’t put a lot of stock in cautionary tales though; especially whenever you can’t find a real example to back them up.

I touched the petals of the flowers and looked dreamily out the window at the beautiful scene outside. A pink waterfall ran over smooth baby pink rocks and pooled in a lake that was so still even the water’s movement didn’t disturb it. I’d been looking at all the shades of pink for a lifetime and I had never tired of it. I had no reason to look beyond it. I’d been told that we had the perfect world. No one outside it lived like we did. There were shades of colour that I was lucky not to have seen, or so I was told. It was hard to believe what anyone said when they acted informed but they hadn’t seen it for themselves.

I was satisfied with the way everything was, but I couldn’t completely silence my curiosity either. It ate away at me at night, when everything was still and I was lying with my head in the perfect dip of my pink pillows, fluffed up like two marshmallows.

I didn’t toss and turn for too long. That doesn’t happen in our world. Discomfort doesn’t exist, so it can’t, even whenever you have a head full of questions.

Morning came and I went through my breakfast routine. That day, I had a stack of fresh pancakes, strawberries, whipped cream and chocolate chips, and I would never gain a pound from it. I devoured it with relish and drank my coffee, looking at the straightness of the pictures on the walls. Nothing ever sat askew. I got myself up whenever I’d taken my repose and the dishes vanished from the table. There wasn’t a crumb to clean up; everything had always been that neat, but I never took it for granted for a second, because appreciation is also important in our perfect world.

I went for my morning shower, took my selected outfit from the rotating wardrobe and touched my cheeks to bring make-up to my face. I felt energised, like I did every single day. I couldn’t wait to see what lay ahead. Before I had time to run through my planner and see what fun activities awaited me, I heard a strange sound. I’d never heard the doorbell ring before – not unless I was expecting guests and it was their arrival time, (right on the dot.) I walked downstairs, unsure of how to approach the situation. It was a complete unknown.

Whenever I got closer to the door, I could see a tall figure’s silhouette behind the glass. Whenever I pulled the door ajar, there was a man standing in front of me. He was striking because he was dressed from head to foot in a colour I’d never seen before. It looked like it was all one shade, but I just knew it wasn’t pink. He winked at me and smiled. I opened the door wider, considering inviting him in. He looked pleasant, even though his clothing was foreign to me. I knew he wasn’t from our world, but I was curious about him.

“I sent you some flowers,” he said. “I was going to remain anonymous, but I wanted to talk to you.”

I could feel myself blushing, but I doubted it changed my complexion. I was as pink as could be, in different tones, but as pink as anything else around me. His face was a different hue, and his lips weren’t pink, but I didn’t know what to call the colour of them.

“Would you like to come in?” I asked. It felt like I was breaking every rule I’d ever been taught, but he seemed harmless too.

“How did you find me?” I asked, leaning towards him.

I thought of how lovely it would be to have afternoon tea to offer him and it was immediately before us – tiered cake-stand, and everything. He didn’t look surprised by it. He just took a cup and a plate like it was all completely natural to him. He winked at me again. I didn’t know where to begin to talk to him. I had no idea who he was and what he wanted from me; but I suddenly wanted to ask him a million questions.

“I saw you from afar,” he said. “I came here by mistake, but I couldn’t leave again. I had to get your attention, but then, I was worried you would avoid me because of everything you’ve been told.

“Where are you from?” I asked him.

“I’m from outside your world. You don’t want to know about mine.”

“Why not?”

“I’m sure you’d like to know what exists there, but once you know, you can’t regain your naivety.”

I looked at him confusedly. I had no idea what that meant. No one had ever said that word to me before.

“I really do want to know,” I said.

“The more I tell you, the more it affects your world.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t explain it to you – it’s just better if you stay with what you know now.”

“Tell me one thing about it,” I said, nearly spilling my tea in anticipation of what he’d tell me. I’d never done that before. Spillages weren’t something I’d ever seen occur. I didn’t make a mess, but he nodded at my hand.

“See,” he said, “Even my presence changes things.”

“Then why did you come here?”

“Because I was transfixed.”

“Transfixed by what?”

“Your strange beauty.”

“Why is it strange?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“But you have been in our world for a while?”

“Just for a few days.”

“You must have seen others like me.”

“No, it has nothing to do with the pinkness. It transcends that. I’ll tell you about how I got here.”

I looked at him. He was spellbinding. I’d never seen anything like his looks before. His facial expressions were completely different too. He had furrows in his brow and his lips fell whenever he looked serious. He didn’t look perpetually pleasant.

“I was playing around with some voodoo stuff at a friend’s house. It was a game that sends you to different realms, but we thought it was just a laugh. We were playing it together and my friend got creeped out and left the room. I decided to keep going. As it turns out, curiosity does kill the cat.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. It made perfect sense linguistically, but there were so many concepts I didn’t understand. I’d never heard of someone being “creeped out” or of curiosity killing pets.

I crossed over here, and I thought I was dreaming at first – one of those lucid dreams where you can’t differentiate between being awake and asleep, but now I know that game somehow brought me here.

“Will you leave again?”

“I don’t know how to, but I don’t want to now either. It’s a beautiful place. Lacking in colour – but it’s lacking a lot of other bad things we have too.

“What like?”

“Crime, unkindness, poverty.”

“I don’t know what those are.”

“That’s what’s so beautiful – that naivety.”

I shook my head at him – letting him know I didn’t understand again, but he didn’t seem to mind, and he smiled at me. His smile was warm, but it lacked something the other smiles I’d seen in my life had. There was something hanging behind it that I couldn’t express in words.

“What’s your name?” he asked me.

“It’s Serenity.”

“Of course it is,” he smiled.

“I’m Chris… Can I stay here with you?”

“I don’t see why not,” I said. “It’s just me and my dog, Sippy. I haven’t lived with anyone since I moved out of my family home.”

“Not with anyone?”

“No, we don’t live with anyone – unless we decide to get married.”

“I wonder why. Does no one ever break up?”

“Do you mean leave each other? No, I’ve never heard of it. Everyone that gets married is happy together. They’re happy when they’re on their own too. They’re happy in general.”

“That’s what’s so interesting about here.”

“I want to know about what else there is outside.”

“Trust me, you don’t,” he said. 

He offered to sleep on the sofa. I didn’t know sofas were for sleeping on, but he didn’t seem to mind. There mustn’t have been real comfort where he came from. I didn’t know what his world was like, but I knew there was a huge amount of information I didn’t know. I went to sleep, but I had a bad dream. I woke up with a feeling I’d never had before. I saw colours I had never seen before. My body was violently shaking.

When I got out of bed and went to complete my usual routine, Chris was there. The breakfast table was messy but there was still food on it. It just wasn’t how it usually looked. I took a waffle and offered some more to Chris. He had finished eating and he waved his hand at me, like he was telling me he was busy. He was rolling something I hadn’t seen before. He put some straggly bits into a piece of paper and rolled it up. Then he lit it. It smelled strongly and it made me cough. He exhaled and I asked what he was doing.

“Smoking – I’m addicted, sadly.”

“Is it a bad thing?”

“It can kill you.”

“Why does anyone do it?”

“Stress, probably – and other reasons.”

“I don’t know what stress is.”

“Aren’t you lucky?” he said with a smile that didn’t look completely well-wishing.

As I looked at him, I noticed that something strange was happening to my eyesight. The pristine pink furniture looked like it was covered in dark blotches. I rubbed my eyes, but whenever I removed my hands, it had spread even more. The pink was changing to a different tone. It didn’t look perfect anymore. I saw my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t either; I had stains on my skin. Chris didn’t say anything. He didn’t appear to see it. I didn’t feel good, but I didn’t know why. There was a new feeling spreading all over my body and I wanted to lie down.

A sharp sound came at the door. The wood of it cracked; the glass window shattering into tiny shards. I jumped. Some people barged through the door wielding a weapon. They were wearing a lot of heavy armour. I couldn’t see their faces. They were still dressed from head to toe in pink. They seized Chris by the arm and pulled him onto his feet, twisting his arm behind his back. They put some metal rings on his wrists and snapped them shut.

“What’s happening?” I managed to whisper. I got a feeling I’d never experienced before. It felt like my stomach was suddenly sitting in my throat.

“They found the portal – thanks to him,” someone said. “Everything has been contaminated.”

I didn’t know who “they” were, but I just saw a look of disappointment spreading over Chris’ face. The room was changing colour. The pink was all but gone. The colours looked ugly to me. They didn’t resemble the exotic flowers he’d given me one bit.

“I guess we won’t get our happily ever after, after all,” said Chris.

Then, they roughly led him out the door.

I stood in the dim toned room, feeling strange to be alone. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know what on Pink Earth to do with myself.