Gray- Part 3

 

(Read parts 1 and 2 before you read this one 😊)

The room she was waiting in was one hue of gray. It seemed like the floor, the walls and the ceiling were painted the same color and had a smooth texture to it.  While she was feeling the wall to her left, the floor split into two, as if it were a flap, and a chair was raised. A clear, loud familiar voice told her to sit on the chair and wait for further instructions. What was she getting herself into? It was a point of no return. Despite her inner panic, she did as was requested.

Her mind went back to when she had woken up that one morning and as soon as she opened her eyes, all colors were gone. She remembered that she had gone to a party at the editing company to celebrate the new titles for that semester. The company used to throw these parties to celebrate those writers whose ideas had been accepted by the government and it was always a grand bash. She remembered getting home late, falling asleep watching tv and waking up the next day, poof, no colors. It had felt like so long ago, as a consequence she was having a hard time remembering what colors looked like. It didn´t make any sense to say that the sky was blue because nowadays it was either a light shade of gray or a darker one. She knew which fruit was which due to shape and texture, as a matter of fact, that wasn´t hard at all for anyone who was an observer. Bananas used to be yellow, pears a light green and so on. But how about roses? How did people know which one was which? How about color coordination of clothing? How did she know if she was wearing a matching outfit? She just didn´t. Nobody did. This bothered her deeply because she worried about the future generations and how much they were missing out on. If you think about it, they won´t be missing out on much since they never had it. They say that when you lose one of your senses, the others become stronger. Here it wasn´t a sense that had been lost, but just colors. Just colors? Her brain was on a run and to her relief, her thoughts were interrupted.

“You are going to close your eyes and I will count from ten to one. After this slowly open them and try to avoid closing them again”. She couldn´t place a finger on where she had heard that voice before. It wasn´t the president, nor the minister not even the butler, nonetheless she had heard it and she was sure about it. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Now, slowly open your eyes”. She did just that. Slowly she opened her eyes and she couldn´t believe what she saw. Color.

The first thing she looked at was herself. She had on a red pantsuit and red shoes, at least her clothes were matching her shoes. The whole room was white. She wanted so badly to close her eyes again to see if it were true or it would go away, but she remembered what the voice had said. The sight pained her eyes. She was a strong woman and made believe that it did not ache her at all. It felt as if she had been in a pitch-dark cave and then all of a sudden out in the sun. She was tempted to smile, colors brought happiness to the mind. Her head started to fill up with questions. She wanted to write them down to help her figure things out. Was this only here at the president´s house? Was he the one controlling the whole situation? How was it done? Is there a connection between the voice and the counting? But she had nothing to write on.

“Please, stand and walk into the next room. Take a seat and your Highness will be with you shortly”.

Your highness? She wanted to burst out laughing. He wasn´t the king of the country, he was just the president whom, at this point, she was not certain whether he had been elected fairly and democratically anyway. Ok but that was a whole different story. One story at a time. Today she was going to focus on colors.

The wall in front of her opened and led to a fantastically elegant colorful room. It seemed to be a library. So many books all organized according to color. On one shelf the books in blue covers, on another red covers, on another green covers, even purple ones (she had forgotten how passionate she felt about the color purple) and so on. So many shelves. So beautiful to look at. The fact that most of those books had been removed from the country did not affect her. She had read many of them and she knew that the government had destroyed millions of books prior to the disappearance of the colors. This had bothered her for many years until she and a group of writers had decided that they would retell the stories they had read even though they could not write about those topics, especially stories about the past to whoever wanted to hear these stories. Nonetheless, it was done in secret meeting places and if found, the storyteller would simply vanish. (Once again, a whole different story- focus). Marveled by all those colors, she decided that she would sit in a multicolored armchair. It was quite comfortable.

As she looked at the colors, she tried her very best to memorize them so she would be able to describe them to her friends and family as soon as she left this place. That is, if she left this place alive. Focus was a must now. Breathe. Stay focused. Remember the plan. Use your charm. Her self-talk was working.

The mahogany door between two gigantic  bookshelves opened and in he walked standing tall- the president. She wanted to throw up. How she despised this man!

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