by Joel Arnold
* * *
Mr. Blue wasn’t quite sure what was happening to him. He ate his favorite dish (cheese pizza) watched hour after hour of The Best of the ColorMaster, had sex with not only Mrs. Blue, but with Mrs. Peach, Mrs. Pink, and Mr. Cadmium as well — then used one of the Masturbation Tubes until he was ready to fall asleep. Yet, there was still a part of him that wasn’t quite satisfied.
What a strange feeling. Not to be completely satisfied. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. He scratched his thigh, scratched his shoulders, his belly — yet there was still something not quite right.
He looked around the common room, hoping to find solace in the contented faces of all the other Colors. It was as if he was looking at them in a different light. What is happening to me? he wondered.
Every tile on the floor, every panel on the wall, every square on the ceiling was a different color. The Happy Pills were a different color each time he received one, as were the Sad Pills. But for the first time in his existence, he realized that — wait — the sheets on his bed were always white. Why is that? he wondered. And the tubes that protruded into his room, into every room, distributing the multi-colored pills — they were gray. All of them. In every room. Gray. Never green or orange or burgundy. Just gray, gray, gray.
Is that the way it’s supposed to be? It seemed rather unfair.
Mr. Blue began to notice other things as well. Inconsistencies and disconcerting patterns. For example, even on his favorite TV show, the ColorMaster’s desk was always brown. How strange, he thought. The ColorMaster, who was the very epitome of color-conscious thinking — had a brown desk. Not just on certain episodes, but on all of them. Did he favor the color brown?
Mr. Blue walked into the commons. The ColorMaster’s guest on this particular show was a talking horse, whose name was Mr. Ed. The horse was entirely white. Or black. Depending on which part of it you looked at.
“Won’t you be my friend?” the ColorMaster asked Mr. Ed. The horse said, “Of course. Of course.”
The show ended as it always did. Predictably. Comfortably. With a shot of the city, a shot of all the evenly spaced buildings, all evenly built and uniform, the same size, the same shape, and the same — color.
Hmmmm…thought Mr. Blue. All the buildings are an off-white. He looked across the room at Mr. and Mrs. Off-White. They held hands while performing an acrobatic sexual act. Do they get some kind of special treatment? Mr. Blue wondered.
“Won’t you be my friend?” came the ColorMaster’s voice over the view of the city. The residents of the forty-first floor of building #812 mouthed the words along with him and smiled when the next hour started.
All of the residents, that is, except Mr. Blue.
* * *
Nick Johnson got another glass of water after his second bout of ‘hiccups’ that day. He had been watching Mr. Blue on the video monitor, and had noticed the strange look on his face. He altered the dosage a bit more, looking to his left and right to make sure no one was watching.
But there is always someone watching, someone monitoring every move everyone makes, he thought. He hunched over his screen, his uncontrolled smirk reflected in the monochrome monitor, like an invitation to intercede.
* * *
For the first time in his life, Mr. Blue noticed that there was an almost invisible outline on one of the walls of the cafe. The cafe walls consisted of squares of every color Mr. Blue had ever laid eyes on. Yet there was this faint outline. An outline of indistinct, musty — what was it? Gray? Black? An outline in the form of a rectangle, the same shape as the portals between each and every room.
He walked over to it. Touched it. Ran his fingers along the outline and felt an emptiness in the line. It wasn’t a line at all. It was rather, an absence of line. A space. Empty. Lacking solidity. He put his face to the line — it was much like a crack in one of his drinking mugs — and tried to see what he could see. Of course, he could see nothing. There were no lights glowing on the other side of the crack.
The doorway hadn’t been used in years.
* * *
Nick Johnson watched in disbelief. Mr. Blue had actually noticed the door. Didn’t look like he knew what to make of it, exactly, but just the fact that…
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Is something wrong?” came a soothing voice slightly over and above his left ear. He could feel the humidity of breath on his neck. He tried to keep from visibly cringing, and turned around nonchalantly.
“No. Nothing’s wrong, sir. Nothing at all.”
“Nothing wrong at home? The wife? The kids?”
He almost told him he didn’t have any wife, any kids, but decided not to push his luck. “No, sir. Nothing at all.”
The man paused, his chin lifting into the air as if filled with helium, then settling at a place just above his Adam’s apple. “All right then,” he said. “Okay.” He turned and walked to his large cubicle at the end of the hall, his eyes still on Nick Johnson even as he shut the door…
* * *
“Won’t you be my friend?”
The ColorMaster waited for the light on the video camera to click off. He got up from his chair and walked to his dressing room. Although a handful of Controllers passed him, ones he had never seen before, none of them asked him for his autograph. Nobody ever asked him for his autograph. Not since the Great Separation.
His dressing room was plain. Ordinary. No bundles of roses. No notes written in flowery script left by young nymphos asking to be his friend. He looked in the mirror at his pale white skin, saw a zit forming on the end of his nose, popped it, relishing the release of pressure, the release of the milky white ooze that smacked against the mirror’s surface without a sound. One of the few remaining pleasures in the world, he thought. The satisfying eruption of a ripe pimple.
He worked ten hours a day, six days a week, with Sundays off. Three hour long episodes a day were filmed. The remaining seven hours a day were spent going over the thin scripts, talking to the guests, reapplying make-up, talking with the director about the blocking. Et cetera…
He was tired of it.
Of course, the changing of his skin color every five minutes was done by special effects. He would not have known it was done, except he had happened to stop by the director’s office for a raise one day, when what on earth should be playing on the video monitor, but his show, the show, the only show legally produced.
He was seen by millions every day, hour after hour, yet he hadn’t been asked for his autograph in years.
He looked at his five o’clock shadow, rubbed his chin, pulled the razor from his dresser drawer, looked at the inviting blade, wondering….
* * *
Mr. Blue sat in a comfortable armchair watching Mrs. Blue getting it on with Mr. Lime and Mrs. Indigo. His head bowed to his lower neck and his eyes narrowed. He pressed his hand into the fold of his lap out of reflex, but felt nothing stir. He stood up and went to the vend-machine, ordering up a large cheese pizza. It was in his hands within five minutes, and although he felt a slight rumbling in his stomach, he looked at the pizza as if it were made of excrement. He tossed it in the waste slot.
He ordered a chocolate-caramel-mocha malt. It appeared with whipped cream and a glistening red cherry, things he also loved, but hadn’t ordered. The malt ended up in the waste slot, too, and Mr. Blue trudged to his room, wondering if he had some virus. He pressed the button labeled ‘HAPPY’ three times, and three different colored pills plopped happily out, accompanied by passages of his favorite music. He swallowed them without water. They tasted bitter and left a bile-like aftertaste in the back of his throat. He grimaced, waiting for the happiness to overwhelm him.
* * *
Nick Johnson read the memo that had been placed on his desk in a crimson envelope. He frowned, the words like the third strike of the ninth inning of those long forgotten baseball games. The words like the days just before the Great Separation. The words a foreboding. A directive hinting at the shape of the future. Hin
ting at the tint, at the hue of the future.
The words — “Prepare for Directive Thirty-Nine” — taking on the same color as the envelope in which they arrived.
As he read the words over and over, the firm hand of the director clamped onto his shoulder like the grasp of ice on a long, potholed dirt-black road.
The director’s eyes said to Nick Johnson — “Into my office. Now.”
* * *
A hand clasped firmly on Mr. Blue’s shoulder as he ran his fingers gingerly along that strange crack in the multi-colored wall of the cafeteria. He turned and looked into the flush face of Mrs. Blue. One of her hands was busy between her legs, the other sliding from his shoulder down to his chest, to his belly, to the place between his legs….
“Hey, mister,” Mrs. Blue said seductively. “How about we go back to our room and take out the good ol’ cat-o-nine.” Her voice was hungry. Erotic. Moist.
Yet Mr. Blue gently pushed her hand away. “Not right now,” he said.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“Nothing.” Mr. Blue knew that if he told her what was wrong, something bad might happen, although he didn’t quite know what that might be. Bad was a foreign word. Nothing ‘bad’ ever happened to anyone here, ever, but there was the word. The word existed. BAD. Usually used playfully in the many sex games, but now the word had a different meaning — bad — a meaning he associated with the feeling in his gut, in his heart, in his brain.
Badddddddd……
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said again, feigning a smile. To prove it, he placed a hand between her thighs until her eyes rolled to the back of her head and her lips parted into a prolonged “Aaaaaaahhhhhhh………”
* * *
The ColorMaster had never really been all that interested in color. The program’s colors were all inserted after the actual recording had been done, the original disc it was put on being itself black and white until digitally manipulated.
Never had been interested in color until he saw the color red flow from his wrists like air currents into the running water of the sink he held his throbbing hands into. He became suddenly fascinated with it, the color of blood flowing from his wrists in red, blossoming banners. The blood danced in the sterile sink waters. It polluted the ionized, fluoridated water so deliciously, so finally, so — colorfully.
He looked around his room, noticing for the first time the other colors there. Even the dirty, dusty grays began to fascinate him. Even the color of the world fading quickly from his line of vision, the fade itself becoming a color, distinct, clear, haunting, creating a longing, a satisfaction, a finality…
* * *
“It seems that there has been a lack of communication between you and I,” the director said to Nick Johnson. The director’s chair was twice the height and width of the chair Nick Johnson sat in.
“A lack of communication?” Nick smiled a perspiration-inducing smile. “What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter what I mean. The meaning has always been classified. But what I say should be as clear as black and white. Whatever I say is as simple as saying turn left or point up or stand on your tiptoes. They are directions. Orders. To be followed implicitly. The meaning of those orders has nothing to do with you.”
“I see,” Nick said.
“Whether you see or not makes no difference to me.” The director’s chin jutted out accusingly. “You are to report to the Melanin Alteration room in ten minutes. Enough time to take a shit and smoke a cigarette.” The director smiled.
Nick smiled, then stood, trying to lunge at the director. But of course, the force field between them only sent a numbing shock to Nick’s abdomen and temple as he was propelled back into his seat. He shook his head, stood up resolutely, and walked to the door, his head held high, but his eyes focused on the bridge of his own pale, white nose.
* * *
Mr. Blue’s fingers were once again roaming the rectangular edges, misty gray/black/midnight-blue, the edges of the secretive doorway that hadn’t been opened for years. But suddenly it creaked open, to the amazement of Mr. Blue.
For the few seconds it took for the door to swing slowly open, he thought — what have I done? I was only running my fingers along those lines, feeling the — mystery…
But by then, the door was open and a figure stood there, gently grabbing a hold of Mr. Blue’s arm, saying, “Come with me, please.”
“Yes. Certainly,” Mr. Blue said. “Most certainly.”
He walked for the first time — the first time, at least, that he could remember — out onto the steps (steps?).
“What color are you?” asked Mr. Blue, to the man who helped him walk shakily down them to the floor below.
They got into an elevator and drifted down like an angel to another floor so many levels below, so many countries away, it seemed. As Mr. Blue walked into a room with a sign above that said “Melanin Alteration Room” he passed a man who was his same color. A blue the color of a ripe, bruised blueberry.
“Hello,” Mr. Blue said, surprised.
But the man did not answer. He only looked at him confused.
Mr. Blue swallowed a pill given to him by a friendly man dressed in a pale green robe, and when he woke up again, his skin was a strange yellow-pinkish color.
“Am I dying?” was the first thing he asked to the smiling man in the pale green robe.
“No,” the man said. “You’re just fine.”
* * *
Mrs. Blue of the forty-first floor of building #812 squinted at the five by five meter screen in the commons area as Mr. Beige and Mr. Chartreuse were each having a go with her.
The ColorMaster looked a bit different, she thought. He looked — familiar? But her orgasm overtook her as Mr. Blue walked up to her and placed a hand on her breast through the mass of moving flesh already surrounding her.
“Are you all right?” she asked him, her voice out-of-breath, her blue skin darkening a bit.
“Yes. Of course. Why do you ask?”
“You just look — I don’t know — not quite yourself today.”
He grinned, squeezing the flesh of her upper thigh. “I’m quite all right. Quite fine, indeed,” he said. He kissed her, and although his saliva tasted a bit different, a bit off, Mrs. Blue said nothing as he entered her and they fell to the floor, along with Mr. Beige and Mr. Chartreuse, one big sweating heap of multi-colored flesh.
* * *
“Five, four, three, two — “ the cameraman counted down with his fingers.
The ColorMaster looked at the video camera and smiled. How odd, he thought. How odd. He had been shown a copy of Directive Thirty-Nine. Read its contents with interest, in fact.
He looked at the camera, his face a pale white, only the slightest tinges of blue going unnoticed in the skin of his scalp and the space behind his ears.
Directive Thirty-Nine. Hmmmm…..
“Won’t you be my friend?” he asked the video camera. The bright red light shined at him, and he thought only for a moment, It’s staying the same color.
But the thought disappeared quickly, finally, like a dream forgotten upon waking. He told the video camera who the guests were to be for that hour. Asked the unseen audience to stay tuned throughout the entire hour, and to — to—
“Please ignore the misty smoke seeping through the vents,” he said, reading off the video screen to his left, in a calm, reassuring voice. “They are just happy gasses. A special treat from me, the ColorMaster. Enjoy. Breathe deeply. If you feel like sleeping, do not resist. Breathe deeply and enjoy.”
It was a live broadcast, the first live broadcast ever for the ColorMaster’s show. The list of guests was shorter than usual, only enough material to fill about twenty minutes, and then they would be off the air. Twenty minutes was all the time they needed for the gasses to take effect.
* * *
Nick Johnson had already forgotten his name as he copulated with Mrs. Blue. Had forgotten his name even before setting foot on the forty
-first floor of building #812. The smoke came in through the vents in different colors.
How nice. Greens and golds and pinks and yellows and even his own color, blueberry blue, and my — wasn’t it just the nicest smell? Wasn’t it so awfully nice to breath in? He began to feel tired as his latest orgasm dissipated from his body. His eyes began to shut, and he noticed Mrs. Blue and Mr. Beige and Mr. Chartreuse already snoring. He only noticed their breath stopping as his eyelids fell shut irretrievably. He noticed their breathing stopped, but didn’t mind, the stopping of their breathing no more worrisome than premature ejaculation.
* * *
“Five, four, three, two…” The cameraman counted down to the end of the show, the last show for a long while, not caring if his voice was heard over the live broadcast.
The ColorMaster — newly appointed, but still the same — squinted at the video camera, at the bright red light that winked unceasingly at him.
“Won’t you be my friend?” he asked. The red light winked for the last time and turned the color of soot. The television crew began turning off the lights. The camera was rolled away and the ColorMaster was soon left in darkness.
Yet still — he repeated — time after time, as if the words had their own taste, their own color — “Won’t you be my friend? Won’t you be my friend?”
Harvey’s Favorite Color
“Here ya go. Take it.” The stare-down lasted five seconds, but Harvey finally gave in and freed the hot dog from the bleached hands of the street vendor. Harvey paid the guy, thanking him with a sneer, and headed toward The Park.
Passing dirty white buildings and grimy apartment complexes, Harvey soon spotted the entrance to The Park. It was a wrought iron gateway that simply read PARK in cold block letters on top. The gate extended around the entire park in the shape of a square. Harvey walked through the entrance and onto The Park’s dull concrete ground.
