Chasing the Rainbow
by Brigita Pavsic
The lack of colours scared me at first, as you can imagine. It's not every day that you wake up and step into a black and white world. Actually, it's not even black and white, it's sickeningly full of shades of grey. A normal person is instinctively repulsed by such a drab colour. You cannot want your life to be grey, can you?
The fact is, sometimes you don't get to choose. You're forced to step over grey pebbles and stones and colourless tufts of grass, past park benches the colour of which was sapped into the ground. You try taking refuge in the fall colours of the trees, nostalgic of the passing summer. But this year the leaves have fallen off before they managed to soar in triumph over our heads, lighting the fires that never burn but are always so warming.
As I enter the office, our accountant is toying with a box of paper clips that are worn out from regular use. He asks how I am doing. I don't understand the look he gives me when I say I'm grey. After a moment he starts laughing, saying, “That was a good one.”
“Was it?” I ask and he falls silent, his mouth hanging open.
His shirt sleeves are frayed. He doesn't wear the usual white. It's darker, his sleeveless pullover darker still. He resumes his bored staring into space as I sit behind my desk without offering him another look.
However, not everything about this is grey. Okay, I admit, that was a cheap pun. But there truly is one good thing in all this. The mornings are easier on a woman. There are no bluish circles under my eyes and the tiny lines are lost in the all-consuming grey façade. I don't have a problem choosing my clothes, either. Obviously you can't wear sneakers to a skirt or a pearly necklace to a hoodie, but other than that everything goes.
When my boss comes out of her office and looks at my dress, I follow the direction of her look. I didn't put sneakers on, did I? I ask myself horrified and a second later realize relieved I didn't.
“Is something wrong?” I ask aggressively.
“Nice colour combination,” she smirks.
As she walks down the hall, making small steps because of her tight skirt, it hits me. If my life has become a stencil drawing instead of a full-fledged painting, it doesn't mean everyone else's has too. Ah, well, maybe the others can discern various colours, but they will never be the kind of expert I am in discerning the slightest variations within individual shades. And that's an art in itself. Besides, I can always claim I'm colour blind which in fact is only a white lie.
It's funny of what ordinary things a situation like this makes you think. For example, I remember how we were watching black and white TV as children every evening before going to bed. We would guess first why the people on TV weren't as nicely coloured as we and, once our father explained that, what the beings in the box actually looked like. It was a simple and dull play, but back then Barbie girls were still a luxury and Tamagotchi wasn't born till decades later.
We didn't lack much, although we had so little. I didn't miss colours on our black and white TV, I didn't miss the fancy toys and luxury vacation in far off countries. I can afford all that now, although the toys have become bigger and the countries even further off, and yet there's something … something that I miss. Lately, I've asked myself often what it is about colours that I miss so much. We can survive in a colourless world, obviously. But then I think about joy and love and suddenly I'm not so sure anymore. That tinge of blue in his eyes when he sees you in your new sexy lingerie … I may be nostalgic, but I miss that.
And the feel of the redness of his tongue on your naked skin. You don't think you can feel the taste of red? Let me tell you it feels like an unpeeled orange with the little dents and bumps on its skin and the taste is that of a velvety, mushy chocolate minus the sweetness. If you don't believe me, try the yellow of the sunshine. It tastes of sugar boiled in water and cooled so it's only warm and not hot. The way it sticks to your teeth is the same as the sun's heat remains on the skin for minutes after you hid in a shade. The trick is we never feel that until after.
Now that aftertime has come for me. I am trying to cope, with small steps I try to make it through one day at a time. I used to be busy in the sense that I drank my morning coffee on my way to work and I included my sex life into the schedule in order to lose as little time as possible. I arranged so that I went to his place from my office and not from home because that would require additional five minutes. I was relishing in sucking every second out of the twenty-four hours.
And now? To amuse myself in my free time I make up games. Like the one where I describe each month of the year with a colour. January is white, February is light blue. March, I'd say, is violet, April is similar to the lead blue of the sky before a storm, May is beige. Definitely beige. June? I can't honestly decide between salmon and apricot. And then July and August liven up the colour scale with green and yellow, both almost painfully bright. September resembles clay and October steals its frock from the newly fermenting burgundy wine. December is brown, at least the first half of it, but just before Christmas it turns a vibrant red which lasts until the New Year pales after an exhausting and long New Year's Eve party.
No, I haven't forgotten November, because you see – November is grey.
I chant these little mantras while walking, eating, sometimes I even dream of them. I wake up sticky with sweat, trembling and afraid I'll never be able to fall asleep again.
I remember when my ex boyfriend, of course he wasn't ex at the time, invited me on a fishing trip up to the hills. I turned him down, saying, “Sorry, I can't. My schedule is too crammed with trying to survive.”
He didn't take it well. He said we were not here to survive, we were here to live. I laughed at his words, I laughed even harder when I saw his hurt expression.
I didn't hear my boss return into the office, but when her voice slaps me in the face, I realize I'm not on a fishing trip.
“Are you hypnotizing the ruler to do the work for you?”
I stare at the ruler in my hands and then at her face. I remember the ruler used to be blue.
“Whatever has gotten into you? There's no place for sleepwalkers here. Start working or leave!”
As I make up my mind I think I trace a shade of green in her eyes.
“I'll leave,” I say too loudly and the accountant is startled from his stupor. My boss glares at me.
“You will what?” Her face resembles a bulldog's with all the disapproving wrinkles. I wonder: do I like dogs? I can't remember. That's why I pick up my purse and jacket. “Sorry, I have other things to do.”
Her nostrils flare. Her anger doesn't scare me. I have to find out whether I like dogs. I set off in search of the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I rush down the steps and out through the glass door. Every time I come out onto the streets I still shudder and instinctively make a step back. I expect to see red buses, colourful signs, people rushing, blue police officers. But all I get is a smeared charcoal drawing. I sigh and walk in a random direction because I figure any place will do.
I fling my satchel over the shoulder like a soldier leaving home for the battlefield, proud only on the outside, shrinking with fear in his guts. The first few steps are long and determined, then I slow down and I get a little wobbly in the knees. I'm not going anywhere in particular. This time all that matters is what I'm walking away from. So I walk and skip every few steps, I look straight ahead and my lips stretch into a smile, like they aren't mine at all, like I have no control over them.
I almost trip on an old man leaning against the wall, cradling a saxophone in his lap. The sounds that he's getting out of the instrument with his gnarly fingers make me stop. It's a melody I know, but I've never heard it like this. It sounds like weeping and smiling at the same time. It lulls my soul into a calmness I haven't known for days. I want to touch the instrument to feel its metallic coldness because I can't see its shine.
I dig in my satchel for change and drop it carefully into the open case in front of the man's feet so that the twinkling of the coins won't disturb the music. But he stops and yells at me, “Oy, stop stealing, you punk!”
I jump back.
“I wasn't stealing,” I stutter. Then I notice his eyes aren't focused on me, he's staring to the left of me. His walking stick is propped against the wall next to him. “And I'm not a punk!”
He looks surprised at my voice, he probably expected to hear just the thumping of footsteps running away.
“I thought you was the punk that steals me money everyday,” he grumbles.
“They steal your money?” I shake my head. “I wish I had more with me …”
He waves his hand dismissively and then places his fingertips on the polished buttons. He nears the mouthpiece to his lips and another heart-rending melody is born from this blind, wiry man. As I watch him, a rainbow is being born from his saxophone. It coils out from the instrument like a snake enchanted by the snake charmer's melody. The saxophone becomes golden, dark green spills down the man's velvet trousers, the yellow plaster is pealing from the wall behind him, and his white thin hair billows when a red bus passes us.
I am suddenly filled with joy. But the song dies and the man lowers the saxophone in a moment of rest. I set off with dragged steps. I wipe at my tears with the back of my hand.
I turn into the alley where I usually have my morning cup of coffee. The light sign above the door is blinking nervously like it's in a hurry to go somewhere.
I sip my caffe latte in the quiet and cool room. I keep thinking of the old man and when it's time to pay, I'm already decided. I head back down the street to where he supported the wall.
He's still there. I stand next to him wordlessly. He feels my presence and his face scrunches up as he turns his face in my direction.
I calm him, “I can help you fend off the people stealing from you.”
He's relieved when he recognizes my voice. He settles back into his relaxed posture. He grips his saxophone and starts to play. I smile.