An Illusion of Colours

An Illusion of Colours



All around me I see grey; left, right, back, front. The only other colour in my tiny room is white; it clothes me and is spread all over the table next to my bed which is also covered by a ‘titanium white’ sheet.

Slowly, these soulless white and grey tones drown into the background and are overlaid by shades of greens, yellows, blues and reds that seep in, mixing and merging. Confining into patterns or going wild to create shapes, objects, people........... Her.

A static image of her. The deep lustful burnt sienna eyes with flecks of amber staring down at me...... Blink. She blinked. The blankness of her face was no more. She smiled, her cheeks turning a soft shade of crimson. I looked at that face that I had loved, my eyes travelling downwards to take in her body with its vivid contour and startling hues. The flowing blue of her dress, cobalt and Prussian, mixing and not mixing, forming patterns that appeared to flow like water, starting from a fall at the neck down to the toes. I look up, she was still smiling.

She moved her lips as though to say something. Her words never reached me, absorbed by the grey constraining walls. She spoke again and again, but I couldn’t hear her, even so, somehow, I knew what she was saying. And it seemed the realisation of those words made me drift away. As I looked around I noticed how the grey had been replaced by Greens, lots and lots of greens; how there were no white sheets but blooming ochre yellow and orange sunflowers all over and a clear blue sky meeting the green at the horizon. My company wasn’t dressed in my favourite blue gown anymore, but a bright red one, standing out in this utopia of colours.

I felt as though I was reliving the moments and memories from twenty years ago. Those happy days that I wouldn’t want to forget, filled with the warm white sun at noon, and cool white moon hanging in the darker colours that are painted across the night. Only her and me and no one else, as time stops and we pause to admire the scene that we know wouldn’t be the same the next day.

But the serene colours get replaced by crimson again. Not soft like the ones on her cheeks but darker, richer, bloodier. She was red now, not because of her clothes but the colours that oozed out of her very being. Colours, that flowed out of her so that they drenched her. Her soul seemed to spill out.

Now there is nothing but red. A deep, rich, dark red. It was a colour I once now is blood loved, but now I fear it as the only significance it holds now is blood. Her blood.

There are no shapes, no contours; no objects even.

Just red. Just blood.

Slowly it all fades away as my consciousness resides and I am pulled into oblivion. No feelings, no fear as I am pulled into the black void.

--x-- --x-- --x-- --x-- --x--



I wake up. Surrounded by the monotonous grey and white. I look down at my hand, another tiny white capsule tightly clenched in my fist, an exact replica of the last one.

I take it, not caring to sip the colourless water that lay beside me.

I wait.

Slowly the colours seep in again and take over. Forming shapes, objects, people............ Her. And for now, I let this illusion of colours and her become my reality.