Color — A Short Story
Note: I wrote this without editing or polishing, with the goal to simply write and see where the story might lead. The first 400 or so words I wrote a few months ago as a writing challenge with a friend, then completed the rest today having forgot I started this short story.
…
“Tell me when you are ready,” Evelyn asked, holding the syringe at the back of Dorian’s neck. Her hands shook, nervous she might inject the drug incorrectly, or that the dosage was too high. She took a deep breath, wondering how Dorian looked so calm.
Dorian adjusted his postured, letting his head hang down towards his lap as he sat cross-legged on the carpet. Evelyn’s hand felt cold resting on his shoulder. He made sure to take note of that feeling, as it might help him if the experience got too intense to handle. It’s the little details, he thought, that’s what keeps us sane.
“Ready. Just promise not to leave me,” he teased.
“Same to you,” Evelyn attempted to joke back.
“I’m ready,” he said a moment later.
As the needle touched his skin, piercing into his spine, Dorian focused on his watch ticking in motion. He felt the liquid flush into his neck at exactly 6:35:40 pm. Ten seconds later he felt Evelyn scoot closer to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his right shoulder. He felt her heart racing through her chest against his back, taking deep breaths and shaking. Dorian breathed in her rhythm, staring at his watch.
At exactly 6:36:12 the first wave of the drug kicked in.
“Feeling okay, babe?” Evelyn asked, her voice sounding as though it came from inside his head, echoing in an almost musical cadence.
“Everything’s fine,” Dorian answered, watching the carpet below him change color from white to sky blue. The second hand on the watch slowed pace as the lights in their apartment faded out, leaving everything but the carpet in complete darkness. The cold sensation of Evelyn’s hands dissipated until Dorian no longer felt anything. Everything but the sky blue floor disappeared from Dorian’s vision, and at exactly 6:37:01 the watch disappeared too.
For a moment Dorian sat alone on a flat, blue, dimensional plane. Neither feeling nor hearing a thing, he decided to stand. The motion took no effort, no energy at all. He simply willed to stand and then floated to his feet. Dorian laughed, holding his hands out in front of his face to check the time.
“Can you hear me?” Evelyn’s voice spoke, seeming to come from all around him, even inside his body.
“You sound like a waterfall,” he responded.
“Shhhhh,” Evelyn whispered. “Shhhhhhhh,”
The sound of Evelyn’s voice tickled. As the feeling spread through his body flashes of neon lights pulsed before him like small lightning bursts. Walking towards the lights, Dorian reached his hands out to grasp them. A starburst flash of pink light materialized before him, then danced around him in circles before entering into his heart. Immediately, he felt a jolt of energy flush through his body.
I’m warm, he thought.
“Yes, you are,” Evelyn answered from somewhere.
Dorian stepped forward into the void of darkness before him. As each foot touched down to the blue surface that was once the carpet, a surge of pink light glowed underneath him, fading away once he lifted his step again. Dorian walked without looking forward, staring down to his feet and giggling at the lights.
“It’s your favorite color,” Dorian said.
“Favorite color favorite color favorite color favorite color,” his voice echoed from all around him.
“Pink?” Evelyn asked, her voice vibrating out from inside of his chest, repeating louder and louder until her voice clashed with the echoes of his own voice surrounding him. “Pink? Pink? Pink? Pink?” mixed in harmony with “Favorite color favorite color favorite color favorite color,” until the sounds blended into a choir of indistinguishable voices. The choir shifted in tone, pitch, and timbre as it sung, and Dorian danced to the music.
The choir stopped immediately as Dorian glanced down again. The pink glow beneath the soles of his feet solidified into a thick metallic liquid, like mercury, rising from the floor. Dorian flinched away from the the substance waxing around his feet, reaching towards his ankles and slowly enveloping him, but he was immobile. He struggled to step away, using more force, without any success.
“Tell me when you are ready,” Evelyn asked.
“What?” Dorian responded, the liquid reaching his knees.
“Same to you,” Evelyn joked.
“Something’s wrong,” he said looking around him for something to grab onto, finding only the void that surrounded him.
“Feeling okay, babe?”
“No, I’m scared, it won’t stop. I can’t control it,” the pink shell covering his torso.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes, yes. I can hear you, babe. I can hear you. Help!” Dorian expressed, covered to his neck.
“Shhhhh,” Evelyn whispered. “Shhhhhhhh,”
The liquid flowed over his eyes, encasing his entire body. He felt nothing. No warmth or cold or sensation in his body. Without the ability to move or see, Dorian felt completely detached from anything. Only a mind floating in nothingness.
“Hello?” Dorian asked voicelessly, with no answer.
How much time passed, Dorian did not know. He sat in silence, his thoughts first of panic and loneliness, shifting to frustration, until eventually he gave up worrying. All thoughts faded from him until there was nothing. And there he remained.
Dorian did not notice when or how long he had been staring at his hands in front of him, standing on a sky blue surface. Thin pink lines traced the edges of shapes around him, everything else pitch black. Squares and circular objects and shapes he did not recognize. Dorian dared not move, only observe. Something felt familiar about the objects around him.
A neon green cloud emerged before him, like smoke, floating in space. The cloud twirled within itself, collapsing and expanding, but never moving from its place in the air. Dorian stared into the cloud.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“Where are you,” a voice answered from within the cloud.
“Who are you?” Dorian asked the cloud.
“Who are you?” it asked back.
“I am…I am…I am…” Dorian muttered.
“Tell me when you are ready,” the cloud interrupted.
“You are strange,” Dorian told the green cloud.
“Same to you,” it said as it expanded and collapsed.
Same to you, same to you, same to you, same to you, the thoughts repeated in Dorian’s head.
“Why do my thoughts repeat themselves in a circle in a circle in a circle in circle?” Dorian said out loud.
“Can you hear me!” the cloud shouted. “CANYOUHEARMEHEARMEHERMEHEAREMEHEARME!”
The noise rattled in Dorian’s skull. He clenched his hands against his head, pulling at his hair. Nothing quieted the voice in his head until Dorian stepped towards the cloud, inhaling deeply. He drew in a large breath of the cloud, the green smoke syphoning into his lungs until there was nothing left and the voice silenced.
“Shhhhh,” Dorian whispered. “Shhhhhhhh,”
Dorian exhaled, watching the color of green flow out of his mouth towards the objects outlined in pink. Green filled into the objects, creating depth to his surrounding. The shapes returned to his mind as he struggled to remember their names.
“Chair!” he exclaimed at an object before him, the color orange pulsing out of him like a sound wave.
“Right,” he realized, glancing to his watch.
“7:15:01” Dorian said, the color purple seeping out of his skin into the walls, table, chairs, bookshelves, carpet, couch, and everything else filling his living room. One-by-one every color returned to his view, the world a bit more vibrant than it was before.
“I’m back, babe,” Dorian said, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his apartment, but Evelyn was nowhere to be seen.
…
Updates | Day 7/179
-Short(ish) term goals: Go dancing tonight. Write for at least 4 hours tomorrow morning.
Shoutouts/Inspirations: Elaine for the writing session. More of those need to happen.
-Closing whimsy: If you need a prompt for writing, this one was quite fun. Essentially, pick a random character (a drug user, in this case), object (a watch), and a spoken line (please don’t leave me) and see what story your mind imagines.
