“Fear”

We’d slosh through the city of grey puddles, throwing grey water to the grey streets. We’d head into the grey market, the one with the grey merchants, the ones selling grey food, grey gold. We’d leave the market with handfuls of the colour grey, spewing grey words at the grey birds. We’d leave the market with handfuls of nothing.

But for what? Why did we stay?, you might ask. What did you see?, you might wonder.

What did we see?

What did I see?

Grey gold, grey geese, grey goods, grey guile.

Great grey, good goons; “get gone,” got

lost.

I…

I couldn’t see. It was all... nothing; it was all grey. The noise, though. Oh, the noise. I couldn’t bear the noise. It left his mouth, a noise, so clear, so piercing it cleared, it pierced even colour itself. Killed them. Killed the colours. Killed me? Not quite.

A reverberating boom traversed my world; shredding, shedding the colours. Picking up speed - a wave made of the most colourful noise to be heard.

The colours were dead, but the sounds were not. The grey birds sang with more colour than they could ever have imagined, hoping that maybe their songs could awaken their dreams. They’d learn, though, they’d learn soon. The dead shall remain aslumber.

I ran - far and fast. I could not locate the colours, no matter the viIlagefolk I questioned; the people couldn’t locate the colours. Where were they hiding? I would find them, I’d say. I will find them.

“Angst”

That was long ago. I hadn’t found the colours - but I’d find something better. When something in our world dies, it will not be brought back. That I know. But I’ve also since wondered: why not make more? Could I make more? That I don’t know.

The birds do it, every day. They breathe in grey air, fill their grey lungs - and when they’d exhale, they’d exhale with pigment. With colour. So, what if I want to pigment my air? I’ll need to make sound. Music. I’d not leave the forest until I’d made colour. Until I’d made music.

I’d needed an instrument.

A flute! That’s what I’ll need. The flute, I think, will compliment these birds in song. And then I’ll play with them, and play and play until every colour has returned to the forest, then the cities, then the skies. Then the world, I’ll save the world. I’ll save the colours.

And play and play and play and play and play and-

Here’s an issue: it didn’t work - my flute made no pigment, no life. I carved a special flute, careful and perfect, of the bones of the fauna of the forest. Perfectly chosen; the perfect flute. Spent days practicing my song - it would be perfect. But I went to play my song to the birds, to offer them my colours, to offer to combine them and to make every colour that wasn’t.

They didn’t want me. “You monster,” they’d said. “You killed us, and turned us into your ‘music’. And you call it love!”

I needed a new flute, one carved from an outsider to the forest. Maybe then they’d see.

“Glee”

I’m sitting in my house, nice and warm. A lovely little home, if you ask me. Spacious and splendid, perfect. But lonely.

I really do try not to think of what I’d done. I’m the reason I’m alone - he’d sent himself away because of me. Because of the sound. My sound. The hills fell dead at the sound of… me.

I’d heard it too, the noise I’d made. It shattered me, pierced me, ripped holes in my skin from which to fly outward. Repulsed him. Broke him.

So I wait - I can’t hear. Can’t speak. I’ll never speak again, I swear it. I won’t let myself speak. I’m waiting until the colours forgive me, return to me. I know they’re waiting for me, somewhere. I can’t have killed them all. They’re somewhere. They must be.

He’s here.

Knocks on my door, asks for a gift. A present?

I won’t speak to him - I love him. I won’t hurt him again. He stays a while, he talks, I listen. His wonderful stories - the birds, the music, the trees. He wants me to be a part of his music, he says. I won’t answer, not yet. Not until I’m sure my words are just as grey, as meaningless as the colours.

I would never answer, I’d find. My words would never come.

“.”

The second flute, carved from the tibia of the most evil monster in the land. A monster with a tumour bulging in place of his heart, with lungs made of slate and with toxic fumes escaping his pores. His eyes, his mercury eyes melted as he noticed, as he watched, and they dripped from his face onto the floor. With his leprous fingers he grasped at grey air, his fingers with their peeling skin to reveal bones made of gold. To reveal his perfect skeleton. He hadn’t said a word.

I sit in a clearing, lift this flute, this second flute, this golden flute, this perfect flute. I play. And I play and play and play, squeezing colour and emotion from every note, every sound. The song hovers, it’s shy at first. Then it dances. Twirls and skips, paints the birds first. They flock, they join and they sing. Exhaling colours never seen before, latching to the textures of bark, of the leaves, of grass, of fur, of skin. The colours, they gracefully killed the grey that lay before, exiled it just as it had done before. Colours pierced through the sky and into the towns, and all succumbed to the glory of newfound vibrancy. And all was perfect.

And I’d slosh through the forest of vibrant puddles, throwing vivid water to the verdant utopia.