Mr. Brickwood's collection of color

Timothy Barnes leaned forward to ring a dusty, rusted doorbell, unable to suppress a sigh of boredom as he heard the standard ringing notes coming from inside the old house. This had to be the dullest, yet most time consuming and trouble filled assignment of his entire 6th grade year. Timothy had only a vague idea of what the great depression was at the beginning of today’s history class and now he had been tasked with finding a first person account of the time period. It had taken a full three hours of searching after school just to find someone in his neighborhood that had even been alive in 1929 and this person, Mr. Brickwood was the last who Timothy wanted to have a conversation with. The rumor among the town’s younger generation was that Mr. Brickwood’s house was haunted and that the man himself had actually been dead for the past ten years and that was why no one had ever seen him. Of course Timothy was old enough now not to believe in that kind of talk but he was still a tad wary of going inside this decrepit, shaky, shack of a townhouse.

Timothy’s thoughts were interrupted by the door in front of him swinging open and a small, surprisingly happy looking old man standing inside;

“Well hello there young man, and who might you be?” came the man’s creaking, slow voice.

“My name is Timothy Barnes sir, and I’d like to ask you some questions about the great depression, for a school project.” Timothy responded, trying to sound as polite as possible.

“Ah! Well then, come on in!” Mr. Brickwood said happily obviously excited to have some company.

Timothy followed Mr. Brickwood past the house’s small entry way and was suddenly bombarded by a view filled with more color than he had ever seen in his entire life. The walls we’re entirely covered with paintings, Timothy could not see even one clear space, more impressive than this was how the paintings were arranged. The pattern began at one side of the room with the darker colored paintings, filled with depressing vignettes of black and navy blue, following this the paintings got lighter and lighter, filled with the brightness of nature, creating an amazing rainbow effect that weaved its way around the small living room.

“I see you noticed my little collection” Mr. Brickwood said with a smile, as Timothy’s eyes flitted across the room, his mouth wide open in amazement.

“Wow…” was all that Timothy could say as he continued looking all around the space, amazingly enough the furniture and all the other items we’re color coordinated to match the rainbow of paintings that surrounded them.

“I’ve always loved color” Mr. Brickwood said quietly, “You could say it’s my obsession, sit down and I’ll tell you all about it” he said, motioning to a turquoise colored chair in the center of the room.

Timothy sat down and Mr. Brickwood did the same in a slightly darker blue chair a few feet away from Timothy’s; “I’ve loved color ever since I was your age, did you know that there are an infinite amount of colors and shades of color in the world? That means that no matter how hard I try I’ll never have something in each shade.”

“That’s amazing.” Timothy said quietly; truly impressed, then shaking himself out of this admittedly interesting reverie he realized that he still had a homework project to do.

“Is it alright if we talk about the depression now sir?” Timothy asked, “I really need to get this paper done”.

Mr. Brickwood sighed with disappointment “That’s fine, but you must see the best part of my collection first, my true visual masterpiece if you will…”

Mr. Brickwood led Timothy down a hallway to a small room near the back of the house and took from his pocket a large ring filled with keys. Silently Mr. Brickwood began unlocking the four large padlocks that lined the edge of the door, “You have to keep your special things safe you know…” he said with an almost sinister chuckle. Finally the door swung open and Mr. Brickwood ushered Timothy past him and inside. At first Timothy was confused at what he was seeing, his eyes quickly adjusted to the extra bright lighting in the room and we’re immediately greeted by the sight of another colorful rainbow, this time coming from strange small objects in hundreds of jars lined on shelves in what essentially was a large, makeshift closet. As Timothy moved closer to investigate the objects he suddenly balked back in horror; each small jar contained two floating human eyeballs, each set, a slightly different color from the next.

Timothy was so frightened that he seemed unable to make a sound as Mr. Brickwood’s hands grabbed the back of his shoulders with a surprising amount of strength.

“You see Timothy, my favorite aspect of color in nature, is found in the eyes, the idea that the very pieces of our body that allow us to see color would have such an extensive range of color themselves is quite interesting to me…” Mr. Brickwood said in a quiet, steady voice as he gently spun Timothy around to face him.

“And of course, as is true with any collection, the rarest of items are always the most treasured and sought after… Do you know what the most uncommon human eye color is Timothy?” The young boy trembled as he raised his head to look at Mr. Brickwood, shaking it slowly, the bright green and silver specks in his own eyes reflecting off the glass of the surrounding jars.

“Green was always one of my favorite colors even before I started collecting…” Mr. Brickwood said with a hearty laugh suddenly plunging an unseen needle into Timothy’s neck. Timothy was only able to let out a small cry as he quickly slipped into unconsciousness, the last thing he saw was Mr. Brickwood staring deeply, longingly, into his eyes.