Dying in Yellow

“We are merely degenerates Alisha; we’ve surrendered to save our lives.”
My father’s face was creased and worn; he’d seen too much death.  It seemed to have pooled in the cracks and wrinkles in his skin, turning it grey... I call him Older to myself, never out loud.  But this is my initial thought of him each morning;  that he looks older this morning than he did when he went to bed the night before.
And he was right: at first we all fought, tried to win back our freedom; but when so many of us were killed in the conflict... we just couldn’t keep fighting.  They were trained, they had weapons and they wanted to win.  They had been in our shadow for such a long time that when they stepped out from it we didn’t realise what was happening until we had lost too much ground to reclaim.  We submitted; allowing our people to be down trodden.  We watch as our colours are leeched from us.  All of us are drained, wan and watery eyed.
Even our blood isn’t as red as it was before they ruled.  Or so I am told, for I know not of the colours my mother talked about.  Oh, I know their names, and what our pale, substitutes are; but not the true colours.  The blue of the ocean and sky, the bright yellow of flowers and women’s hair are simply ideas to me, not facts.  I know not what colour a tree should be, simply that the name of the colour is green.
I was obsessed with getting back our colours.  My mother smuggled me paint one day.  It was violet, a beautiful name, and the colour even more beautiful than the name suggested.  She told me that we once wore it if we were of the royal line.  I knew she must have been right; it was the colour of importance and power.
She was caught attempting to smuggle yellow to me many years later.  I never got to see it. I overheard the men who caught her saying that it was yellow paint she stole.  They killed her.
I saw red that day.  Her blood, it was red.  People say that our blood isn’t as red as it once was; I’m not sure what to believe.  My mother’s blood, it was very red. It stained the concrete where she was killed for months after.  However, long ago, it may have been even redder, so red that the guards would feel guilt late at night, for spilling such a beautiful colour.
“Father, please. Let me try. I don’t wish to die drained of colour and life. I’m sure I can fool them into giving me back some colour.”  I had been asking all morning for my father’s permission to go and speak with the guards.
He didn’t know that this wasn’t the first time I would speak with them. I talked to them often, they thought me interesting.  I was always asking them about colours; anything and everything to do with colours.  They never could understand why I was so obsessed.  Not many people could figure out why, not even my father. Today I wanted to ask the guards a favour.  I would give them anything that I had, or even all that I had, if I could just see the colour yellow. The colour my mother had been trying to bring to me that day.
“Alisha”, my father instructed, “do not do as your mother did, risk your life for something pretty.  You could have much here.  They are starting to let women work as maids for some of their middle class.  If you became a maid you could see all the colours that they have.” Even before he had finished his sentence I was shaking my head.
“They do not want girls for that father. They want grown women who know of the world and who can do hair nicely.  I know nothing of either; I only came of age two weeks ago.  Besides, they would not wish to tell me the names of the colours. I would have so much knowledge and no way to share it.”
“Alisha; I will not lose you the way I lost your mother and that is my final word. Our people need something more than colour.  We need something more than the pretty things that fill our heads.  We need a future worth living for.”  He pushed away from the table and walked slowly into his room.
We only had two rooms.  One served as our kitchen, eating place and my bedroom and the other was my father’s bedroom.  The walls, floor and the small amount of furniture we had was all the same colour; a pale nondescript brown.  Mother had told me that once even brown was a beautiful colour.  It was the colour of earth, of something solid and unchanging.  Now it was the same as all the other colours we had, washed out and nearly grey. However there was one patch, just behind my mattress on the floor that wasn’t like that.  It was a faded violet.  I had hidden the paint when mother first gave it to me, sneaking it out and looking at it whenever I could and always being extremely careful not to get any on myself or my clothes.  This would have alerted the guards to the knowledge that my family was stealing.  But after my mother was killed, I saw no reason to hide that fact anymore, they already knew.  I painted a small patch using my finger one night.  I could hide it by moving my mattress slightly.  It had faded over the years, but it was still much prettier than anywhere else in the house.  It was real colour.
...
Once in his room the man she called Older lay down on his mattress and very soon began to snore.  When she heard this sound she crept out, ignoring his instructions to her.
...
I hadn’t understood why we needed guards; even when my mother was killed. I was young then; now I was of age and I understood.  They were worried we would fight back against them.  Try and take back our colours, and our children’s futures.  When they first started ruling us, there were many uprisings but gradually all were put down, put away, dealt with.  Every once and again, another uprising would start.  That is what the guards are for.  But my two favourites were also to become my friends.
I stuck my head around the corner of a building to check if the guards on duty today were my friends.  Once, when I had first started talking to guards I hadn’t checked which guards were rostered on and had started talking to one of the guards that had killed my mother.  I realised my mistake very quickly and ran home even more quickly.  I always checked now, just in case.
The guards on today were my friends.  I could tell because one of them was very tall and strong. I called him Big.  He was bigger than any of the other guards.  My other friend was also tall and strong, but not as tall and strong as Big. So I called him Not-As-Big.  They liked their names, they made them laugh and I liked making them laugh; there was too little mirth in our land now.  Big’s laugh was very loud, it sounded to me like the colour red whereas Not-As-Big’s laugh sounded more like the colour blue.
I walked around the corner and waved; Big saw me and tapped Not-As-Big on the arm, pointing to me.  They both waved back and Big grabbed a crate for me to sit on.  I curled my knees up to my chin and rested it on them as we chatted.
“So how are you today Miss Colours?” Big asked with a smile in his voice.  Neither they nor I knew each other’s real names, so they called me Colours, because it was the only thing we talked of for the first year or so of our friendship.  I didn’t really understand why they called me Miss Colours though.  I asked Not-As-Big why one day and he said it was a term of endearment.  When I asked what that meant he just laughed and said he’d explain one day.
“No different than any other day Big.  Older didn’t want me coming and talking to you or Not-As-Big about colours though.  But that doesn’t matter, how are you both?”
“I am well” Not-As-Big replied.
“Why didn’t your father want you to come and see us?  Surely he knows by now that you have done this many times before and never been hurt.”

I looked away.  I hadn’t told my two friends that my father didn’t want me seeing them, or thinking about colours anymore.  I hadn’t told them that he hadn’t wanted me see them ever.
“Colours, is everything alright with your father?”  Big’s voice sounded as if he was worried.
“He has not wanted me to have knowledge of colours. He worries that I will become like my mother.  She stole violet and yellow for me and she was killed bringing me yellow.  Father fears that I will die stealing colours.”
“Because of what happened to your mother?” Not-As-Big asked.
I nodded.  I didn’t like talking about it.  I blamed myself for her death.  Had she not tried to bring colours into my world… then maybe she would still be alive.
“You look upset, but you don’t need to worry, Colours.  We both still care about you even though we know why she was killed.  We don’t think she was wrong trying to bring you colours.  They’re what you love”, Big reassured me, but it wasn’t that which had upset me.
“I know you wouldn’t dislike me for that, you are both my friends.  I just don’t like to talk about what happened to her.”  I spoke to the ground; I didn’t like people seeing the sadness and shame in my eyes.
Big reached his hand towards me, his palm facing me.  I didn’t much like being touched, so we had come up with a way of showing that we cared for each other that didn’t require us to hug.  I placed my palm against his and we both pushed gently against each other’s hands.  I smiled, their armour meant they had to wear gloves, but both Big and Not-As-Big thought they were useless. They were leather, often worn or ripped and I could feel his fingers through the worn tips of the glove.  I once remembered Not-As-Big saying that it would be more useful to wear a paper bag on his hands than to wear the gloves
“We’re both sorry, Colours. What happened with your mother wasn’t fair.  If either of us had been the guards who had caught her, we promise, we wouldn’t have killed her.”  Not-As-Big’s voice sounded more as though he was trying to convince himself than trying to convince me.  I knew that neither of them would kill someone they knew was my mother, but a stranger who was stealing from them, that may have been different.
“Yeah, neither of us would hurt you or your family” Big said, his voice was a similar tone to Not-As-Big’s.  Without having meant to I had brought about the perfect chance to ask my friends for the favour.
“You wouldn’t hurt me even if I was stealing yellow from you?” I asked.  They both confirmed that they would never hurt me, even if I stole all the colours and painted the town square of my area.
“Then you would let me steal yellow?”  I expected them to answer with a no.
“We’d probably help you, Colours. We both know how much not only the colour yellow, but all the colours mean to you.  As your friends, we’d want to help you.” Big said, while Not-As-Big nodded his agreement.
I nodded, thinking this over. And how best to tell my friends that that was what I wanted.  Although I trusted my two friends, I still was not sure if they were saying this because they wanted to reassure themselves.  Older still did that when we talked of my mother, saying how he had done his best when that wasn’t really the truth.  His best would have been to give his life just as my mother had.
“Is there something you want to ask us, Colours?” Big asked in an unusually quiet voice.  He had noticed my hesitation.  Normally he sounded like red but currently he sounded like the pale orange of a rising sun fighting through the dawn clouds to be seen.
I nodded, though I was still unable to ask my question.
“How about we guess what you were going to ask? Not-As-Big suggested. You were going to ask if we would help you steal yellow.  We’ve already made plans.  We expected this conversation long ago, Colours.”
“You expected me to ask for your help before now?” I asked, confused.  I didn’t understand how they could have guessed.
“Colours, your mother was killed trying to steal yellow.  You always talk about it.  We expected you to ask for our help when we first started talking to you.  But, you never have asked.  It’s been years now, both since your mother died and since you started talking to us,” Not-As-Big explained.  I nodded slowly.  I wouldn’t have reached the same conclusion as them, but I could understand now why they had.
“We’ve had a plan for how we could help you for some time now.” Big added.
“Oh, well, what was your plan?” I asked.
“We have two possible plans; you can decide which you prefer.  In the first one, we pretend to put you under arrest for something.  Then, while we are taking you to be sentenced, we’ll just let you slip away briefly; you can steal the yellow then.  We’ll pick you up on the way back, and take you home.  We’ll say the sentence was house arrest for a month or so.  We’ll watch over your door to make it appear that a real sentence was handed down”, Not-As-Big explained.
“The second plan has fewer after effects. We’ll simply turn our back when we’re guarding somewhere that has yellow stored in it,” Big said.  I could hear in his voice that he was proud of himself and Not-As-Big for thinking of these plans for me.  “The only issue that we may have is getting you to the place where we are.  But you can simply say that one of us ordered ‘special company’.”
I started to nod in agreement, and then stopped;
“What is ‘special company’?” I queried.  My two friends looked at each other; it was almost as if they were talking to each other without words.
“It’s a... lady friend.  Calling it ‘special company’ is the... politically correct way of saying a whore.” Big explained, clearly embarrassed.
“Oh!”  My eyebrows shot upwards.  I had thought it was someone who bought them food, and Older and I had little food to spare.
“If you don’t want to say that, it’s fine.  Neither of us thinks that you’re that kind of ...” Big’s voice tailed off.  Not-As-Big mumbled something about wishing, prompting Big to snarl at him in response.
“It’s OK, I don’t mind pretending that.  Many girls in my area do that. I’ve watched them.”  I didn’t understand what they would be wishing about so I just ignored it.
“You watched them?  Why?” Not-As-Big asked.
“They seemed to have more friends than I did.  I tried to see if I could be like them.  I practiced walking around like them but Older told me to stop.”  I explained.
“You don’t ever need to pretend to be like them, Colours; ever.” Big asserted firmly.
“That doesn’t matter now.  I know how to be like them, which will help me.  I prefer that option anyway; I want to be able to leave my home afterwards” I said with a small smile.  It made me sad spending too much time around Older.
Both of my friends nodded.  The plan was decided upon. We talked over it again, picked a date and then I had to leave; Older was going to be waking soon.
...
As Colour’s back disappeared from view her two friends turned to each other and began to talk.  They hadn’t been sure that she would agree with their plans.
“She’ll be much happier once this has been done”, the one she called Not-As-Big said.
“I know she will,” Big replied. “She deserves more happiness in her life.”
“Maybe if she had a husband...” His friend suggested.
“Just stop there; we both know that’s not going to happen” he said bitterly.
...
The day finally arrived, the day on which I would steal yellow. I had memorised what I was going to say if anyone should stop me, I had memorised the route in and the route out.  I knew where and when we would meet afterwards and I knew exactly what I was going to do with yellow once I had some.  I had practiced walking like the girls from my area who were whores, and I thought I had perfected the hip swing.
Their area was much nicer than the area I came from.  The colours around me looked like I always had imagined them.  I walked slower than I should have, to take in the colours around me, but I knew my two friends would still be there, we had planned this to take place in the middle of their rotation.  No one stopped me.  I walked right up to my friends, thinking past the present to what I would do when I had yellow.
...
“Take a break you two. You’ve been standing on guard here for hours” their captain ordered.
Her two friends ate as quickly as they could, but not quickly enough so that she arrived while they were still returning.  They saw her talking to their captain from across the area.
...
“What are you doing here girl this isn’t your area?”  Not-As-Big was playing his part well, the blue in his voice was all but gone, he sounded grey.
“You know why I am here... To be Big’s ‘special company’!” I said laughing.  I pushed open the door they were guarding and wondered where Big was.  When I didn’t see him outside I had assumed he would be waiting inside; but he wasn’t.
I couldn’t understand was why Not-As-Big was continuing his act.  He started yelling at me when I began searching for yellow.  I tried to explain that I had to find it before I could steal it but he continued yelling, getting even louder.  I tried to calm him down, but I wasn’t sure what I was meant to say.  I told him he could help me look for it if he wanted but I found it too quickly.  Holding it up triumphantly I turned to leave with it.
“I will not let you steal from my area, urchin!  Put that away now!”  Not-As-Big had drawn his sword and was pointing it at me, this was when I realised this man was not my friend, Not-As-Big.
...
The captain had her at sword point when they arrived. He yelled at them to draw theirs too. She didn’t understand why there were three people in the room with her.
“Which of the three of you are my two friends?”  She asked, her distress was evident to her friends, but the captain was too enraged to be aware of it.
“No one here is your friend!!”  The captain swung at her with his sword.  Big grabbed at his shoulder, throwing him off balance and tried to reason with him, pointing out that she was only a girl, she was barely of age.  Their conversation very quickly grew frenzied.
...
They were so loud; I backed into a box.  The first man made a grab for me; I knew that he wasn’t my friend, Not-As-Big, now.  I was unable to evade him.  He held me so that the tip of his blade was at my throat and the hilt at my hip.  It reminded me too much of what had happened to my mother.  First they yelled, then they had grabbed her and then she was bleeding, all the colour pouring out of her. I began to scream.
...
The captain jerked at the sound of the high pitched scream.  His blade sliced deep into her side.  Pain evident on her face, she collapsed into a heap on the floor.  Blood began to pool around her.
They roared at him to leave and he did.  Something in their manner told the man that staying would risk his life.
...
Once the man my friends called captain, the man who had cut me, left they both ripped their helmets off.  Big used his gloves to try and stem the flow of blood gushing from me.
It was very red, much redder than I ever remembered seeing it before.
“Come on Colours, stay with us!”  Not-As-Big’s voice broke. I could see his eyes now that he didn’t wear a helmet; they were a beautiful brown, the colour of the earth.  But they were clouding over with tears as were Big’s. Big’s eyes weren’t as dark a shade of brown.
“My name is Alisha” I whispered.  “What are yours?”  I wanted to know the names of the two people who had risked so much for me.
“My name is Nathaniel” Not-As-Big said, tears straining his voice.
“We’ll get you out of here, you don’t need to worry... and my name is James”, Big said, his sentence broken by the sobs that shook his body.  Not-As-Big, or Nathaniel, reached out with a shaking hand and brushed away one of the tears from my face but I knew that there was reason to cry. I wasn’t going to survive.  I was going to die.  I could feel my colours fading.
I knew then that my father had been right.  I shouldn’t have chased after colours.  They were beautiful, but useless.  Our people needed more than beauty, we needed hope, something to believe in.  James moved so that he could place my head in his lap and he brushed my hair backwards, behind my ears. His sobs were very loud from where I lay, his crying hurt my heart.
“Alisha, I will get some yellow, and I will paint somewhere in your area in memory of you.  Just live to tell me where, please...” he wept.  His voice broke twice while he was speaking.  At my feet Nathaniel began talking.
“No, we won’t just get yellow; we’ll get every colour for you.”  Nathaniel moved next to James who offered his hand, palm to me. I tried to lift my hand to his but I was already too weak.
“I don’t have the strength left...” I gasped.  Nathaniel lifted my hand to James’ outstretched palm and when our palms touched, James’ fingers didn’t stay open, but closed around my hand, holding it tightly to his.
My two friends both looked so sad, and so was I; I knew that my people needed more than colour... And then I had my final idea.
“Paint a picture, of hope... for my people.  And, hang... hang it in the... a-a-area center… Please” I begged.  They were both nodding and both talking but I couldn’t hear them; I couldn’t feel James’ touch anymore either.
…
She died there, holding James’ hand.
They didn’t leave her there though, they carried her home to her father and apologised to him.  Two days later they started painting a picture of hope in her area’s center.
It was a picture of her, with all the colours in the world vividly present.
But she was holding yellow.

…