Green vs. Red

A light pink or a light blue dress was in the bag I was holding, a confirmation of my assumption by the tag. I had seen it on the mannequin and made an impulsive purchase. I was walking down a busy sidewalk. I passed by green trees and yellow road signs. Although I wanted to leave the shop with the dress on, it was hardly the attire for a casual day at the library.

I wanted to read about the disappearance again. Books that were once the prized possessions have now become the precious children of a few, whom people deem obsessed. Today, I skipped over all the ones that talked about the day and after and walked straight to the section of the world before.

We all listened to them, if not read, willingly or not, stories about a world that offered so much. A world where you opened your eyes and got attacked by—by—

This is where they all stopped, our grandparents who first heard them from their own, word to word. They say color was inexplainable even back then. Many tried to describe it to a blind person and failed miserably. I remember my grandmother saying what hers said once, ‘When I first tried to describe the blueness of the sky to a kid with a perfect vision, I understood the beauty we had and we lost.’

The closest anyone has ever come to it, the one people shared quotations from everywhere, was the work of a writer who had known color and five months after the day, right before ending his life, described it ‘perfectly’.

‘Everything, everything around you had such richness. They all had a unique touch to them and they were only there when you looked for it. They all gave birth to something in you. When you saw yellow, you would feel warmth. Not the warmth of a mid-June, the warmth of a freezing December. In a country with no sea, the air is so dry, you drink water like the first time, the wind so powerful, it leaves ‘red’ cuts on your hands. You’re outside with a hundred layers on you, shivering, trying to reach the fake warmth of a heater inside, but as you’re pacing on the sidewalk, you get under a single ray of sunlight. For one moment, it’s spring. You feel it on your skin. You can close your eyes and see the shine on your face. That was yellow.’

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it. Tried to picture it, to feel it. Impossible.

I could sometimes tell yellow when I saw it. A very light shade of gray. I looked at all of them for so long, so often, that I could differentiate them from each other. But even for someone with a trained eye, someone ‘obsessed’ as my mother says, it’s impossible to do it fully. Many other colors appear the same shade as a ‘sun yellow’.

…

The next day was my birthday. The most awaited day of the year for my entire family, the only time my mom could spare the money to bake an apple pie. It wasn’t just us who missed colors terribly. So did many animals, including flowers’ loyal lover: bees. Imagine being able to eat apples every day! And apparently they were much tastier than the ones RoboBees made. In the first few years, the world economy had a massive decline and so many lives were ruined. Farmers had to shift to foods that didn’t need bees or colors. I guess the rich didn’t think that was acceptable, hence the fake apples we get to eat once a year.

Scientists, doctors and all sorts of engineers have worked for decades even after finding out that the sudden change wasn’t with our eyes but with the physical essence of the world. Some lost all sense of reality, deeming it impossible; some held on to their science with calloused hands, trying to make sense of it all. The latter spent countless, sleepless nights to understand it, to, hopefully, fix it. Their numbers grew smaller by the year. Eventually their eternal enthusiasm and governments’ limited budget were directed in other areas. Mostly to ones that deprived us of even more life.

The entire thing made people furious. For many reasons. Some you could blame the men in suits for and some you just couldn’t. No one knew, no one could tell the why or how of what happened. It was just there, and somehow, that made it worse. It made us feel small. Weak. At the mercy of something. It certainly created a lot of believers out of thin air.

I wore my new dress for the special occasion of eating apple pie and hoped it was pink and not blue, as if it would make a difference.

‘Pink was so sweet. So sweet. The color of the lips of your first love and the color your cheeks got when you kissed them. So many flowers were pink. Looking out into a garden of a hundred shades of it, you would lay a cloth on the grass, bring out a desert from a picnic basket to share, gathering flowers for them, making a crown. The most precious. The most innocent love. The love between kids.’

My birthday present was a framed painting of a landscape. I could instantly tell that the artist made it with the intention of showing colors and not contrast, unlike most contemporary artists. In our lives, the main focus has shifted to contrast. That’s how we express ourselves, show beauty, understand the world. Our eyes can pick up even the slightest shift in light. Every now and then, an expert comes on live tv after midnight and talks about our evolution in progress.

People still go to museums that display classical art but if sources are reliable, they did much more often back then. I had read about this one painter, Van Gogh, who was the most popular of them all. I had never heard of him until then. Apparently the whole magic of his art was the colors. During a family trip to Netherlands two years back, an ‘Employee Recognition Gift’ for my mother, I pleaded to go see his works and I hadn’t heard the end of it, thanks to it being a complete disappointment. I spent minutes in front of each and every one of them, trying to make out the colors but no use. What they say must be true because in grayscale, I couldn’t see anything special about them.

The painting in my hand was no different. I know they had gotten it with the thought that I would love it. And I did, it’s just, well—As I roamed my eyes over the grassy hill, I contemplated about how underwhelming the world was.

‘And green. Green was my favorite. It was what I had searched for my whole life. It was the color I moved worlds away for. It was the color I caught from life and carried it to my home, to be the first thing I see when I open my eyes. The first color. It was in the sky, it was in the ground, it was in the sea. It was in my wife’s eyes. It was the running around like children in a field under sun yellow. It was the love beating in your ears while kissing the pink lips of a woman. It was being alive. I’m sorry.’

...

A couple of weeks later I was sitting on my vanity, doing my makeup for a first date. I lined my eyes and used a medium shade of lipstick that would be, dark pink, I believe. I put on my blue or pink dress.

The doorbell rang and after a couple awkward pleasantries we drove to the restaurant. I peeked quick glances at him on the way. He had soft features, and was wearing a suit and a shirt.

We arrived, placed our orders and tried to fill the awkward silence. The twenty questions took quite the interesting turn when the topic came to our professions.

“You work in fixing the disappearance?” The shock must be visible on my face as he smiled.

“Not exactly. We can’t fix that, not yet anyway. We’re trying to find a way to see colors again.”

“But if the colors are all gone, physically?”

“How can we see something that’s not there? Well, it’s sort of an illusion.”

“How would that even work?”

“The first experiments were with something resembling glasses. I mean that could be a generous term, they’re huge and quite ugly.” He laughed. I couldn’t return the sentiment for all the pounding in my head.

“You’re saying you’ve already done it?”

“Well it’s not perfect but we have made considerable progress.”

He probably couldn't hear it with all the noise in the restaurant but my heart was beating through my chest. I don’t know what answer I was expecting, but I had to ask.

“Can I try it?” My voice came out so thin.

When I saw his face, I knew the answer.

“I’m sorry but it’s highly classified. I shouldn’t even be talking about it but you know.”

“What?”

“I guess I wanted to impress you.” He said with a shy smile.

I forced myself to give him a sweet return.

“I am impressed. I completely understand, of course. I just had to ask cause you know, it’s sort of my biggest dream.” I laughed in a way I hoped looked flirtatious.

“Really? I’ve never met anyone who cared about it, outside of the lab anyway.”

“I really do. I always have. People say that I care too much. But I can’t understand how they don’t at all.”

“I totally agree.”

“I think it’s an amazing thing, what you’re doing. You should be very proud of yourself.”

Please, please let this work.

“The feeling of seeing the world with it the first time was all I could ask for.”

I think I had stopped breathing. Of course he had tried it.

“You tried it? What was it like? Did you see them? All of them?” I found myself leaning over the table with anticipation.

“Yes, well like I said, it’s not perfect. Not all shades are visible but yeah, you can see them.”

We sat there for a minute in complete silence. He was looking at me intently, waiting for me to say something but I didn’t know what. What could I have said to convince him? I had to try it. I would do anything to try it.

“Do you—do you think I can at least see them?” I immediately added when I saw the hesitation on his face. “I won’t put them on, I won’t tell anyone anything, I swear.”

He stared at my face for so long—long enough to fill me with a level of despair one could only feel in the waiting room of a hospital.

“I guess I could let you have a quick look.”

The roads seemed to go on for eternity. It was getting more and more difficult to sit still. My head was spinning with questions.

Could it be possible? Could I dared to hope if it was? Was I on my way to see the world as it was supposed to be, for the first time?

If what he said was true, how long was it going on? Who else had tried it? Many people before me should have gotten their hands on it. People with better access to world’s delights.

I had no idea that a few remaining researchers on this came any close to finding a solution. I, the one who consumed every information available. I had read everything about that day. When people woke up and by their first instinct, thought there was something wrong with them. Freaked out, rushed to the hospitals, called their therapists. Only to find out, just as before, they were not alone in the world.

The life was nothing but chaos that day and the days that followed it. As with every catastrophe, the only ones that bothered to fake composure were the anchors in well pressed, all gray suits.

There was also the matter of being in the car of a stranger, being led to God knows where, but I couldn’t think straight. He seemed fine, anyway. From the beginning of the night, I had already known that there wasn’t going to be a second date. He was boring and simple, but seemed harmless.

When we finally stopped in front of a big building, I practically jumped out of the car. He showed the security a card and led me to the elevator. We went through several halls where I was looking around with constant eye movements, as if I would miss my chance if I didn’t spot it.

He stood in front of a door and opened it. The inside was exactly how you would imagine an engineering lab would look like. There were a bunch of tools and machines on countertops, wires and computers and what-not. I didn’t care about any of them. Thankfully he didn’t offer to give me a tour and directly walked towards a desk with a glass box and inside was a pair of, well he was right, you couldn’t describe it with a word better than glasses despite it looking nothing like it. He was watching my reaction. I didn’t have any strategy anymore, so I went straight to it.

“Can I try it? Please. There’s nothing I want more.”

I knew he was looking at me but my eyes were fixed on the glasses. He got closer to the desk, pushed some sort of button on the box and opened its door.

I was shaking. Perhaps it was an overreaction but it was real.

He approached me and slowly placed the glasses on my head. I blinked a few times to register and gain focus. Then my breath got caught on my throat.

Blue.

Blue.

It was either gonna be blue or green but I just knew.

Blue.

I was looking at his eyes like it was the first time I’ve ever seen a pair. I couldn’t avert my gaze, I couldn’t blink. My knees were shaking uncontrollably. I think I was whispering the word ‘blue’ again and again but I couldn’t be sure.

I slowly turned around. Most of what I was seeing was grey and white, and for a second I thought it stopped working but then I looked at my hands. My skin. My dress. It wasn’t anything like his eyes so—so this must be pink. I felt tears down my cheeks. It was. It was very, very sweet. I wanted to look at everything. I wanted to see everything. I looked around again and caught some other colors. Small details of all the big gray machines. I suddenly clutched my handbag and with shaking hands, took out the compact mirror. I almost dropped it when attacked with all the colors in my bag. My body shivered. Brown. My brown eyes. My smudged pink lips that I didn’t fix after dinner. I couldn’t stop crying, I was so mesmerized that I didn’t notice him coming closer to me until he slowly took the glasses off.

I backed away a step and glanced around. I was standing there in utter disbelief, my face frozen, only my eyes moving, taking in the ugly world.

I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders, and then his lips on mine. I couldn’t react, I couldn’t do anything. Only when his hands started to move downwards, I came to my senses with several blinks. I tried to push him away, but he kept touching me, kissing me. I wriggled and said no multiple times.

“What? I just made your dream come true. Don’t I deserve some gratitude?”

I felt an ache in my hands, moving through all the veins in my arms. The rage I was trying to control got away from my grip when he pushed me to the desk. Before I could do anything he put his mouth on me again and his fingers started to lift my skirt.

I hadn’t had a moment to calm down after the biggest experience of my life, my mind was all over the place. But I had to do something. I hovered my fingers over the counter behind me and grabbed a hold of the first thing. I didn’t have the luxury to hesitate with his hands under my dress. I hit him in the head. Hard and swift. He fell to the ground.

I took a breath in the silence. I was going to face that decision with a much more hysterical reaction later, but at that moment, I was frozen.

I looked at the object in my hand. It wasn’t heavy but it had a sharp edge—now covered in blood. The same shade as the one on the side of his head.

I threw the thing on the desk and suddenly had a huge desire to see it. See the color of blood. Red.

I put on the glasses and kneeled next to him.

Now sliding down to the floor from his right temple, blood red.

A sigh escaped me involuntarily. I remembered the times I laughed until I cried. The nights with my fingers between my thighs. Hovering my hand back and forth over the candle flame, its passionate dance in the tunnel. My dress moving around in tango class. The anger that ran through my veins. The beating of my heart when my world changed.

It was beautiful.

So rich. And so bright. In certain angles it was as dark as black but the rest…I was convinced then and there, this was the most glorious thing I had ever seen.

The author was wrong. Red. Red was the best. Red was life. Red was now my favorite.