The Colour of Your Voice © Copyright <<2020>> Daniel Newwyn
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Cover design by Oliviaprodesign
Chapter title illustrations by Hong Long Nguyen
Table of Contents
July 16th.2013
February 7th.2011
February 8th.2011
March 24th.2011
April 7th.2011
July 16th.2013
July 24th.2011
August 1st.2011
October 12th.2011
September 16th.2013
October 29th.2011
November 16th.2013
April 20th.2017
Postscript
About the Author
July 16th.2013
“T urner Nguyen, you have a visitor.”
The old prison jailer opened the bar. The man in the corner looked up at him; his face contemptuous, hair shaggy, eyes devoid of life. It had been a long while since he had caused any trouble, but the warden still insisted on calling a young officer to lock his hands.
The ceiling over Turner’s head was a lot higher than in any other facility he had been in before; he wondered if it was because they wanted him to feel as isolated and insignificant as he could. There wasn't even a window — only a small ventilation hole at the top, way past his reach. It only took five steps for him to cover the distance of his room — a room so tight it could squeeze the life out of anyone.
That was fine for him, or at least that was what he convinced himself — the past twenty-seven years had been already way too tumultuous for a man of his age. Isolation was probably the best gift one could ever give him, even if it would be accompanied by death.
Reluctantly, Turner followed the young officer, resisting the nagging urge to just slump down on the ground. These guys are mere lowly guards, who are they to force me where to go, he thought.
“Go!” said the young officer, shoving him. Turner growled, tried to shake the man away. The officer kept shoving, he kept pushing him back. Just when the tension between them escalated to the point where the young officer would grab a baton and bash Turner on the head, the old jailer intervened. “Hold on.”
He loosened his handcuffs slightly. Seeing that, the officer protested. “What if this scum tries to escape? These offenders are all the same, they take off the first opportunity they see!”
The warden shook his head. “His time is running out. If you only have days to live, you'd want them to be a little relaxed, don't you think? Even if they are on death row, they're still people... There, comfortable now, Turner?”
“Look at that ungrateful sack of shit,” the young officer grumbled, “He didn't even utter a thank you! Your kindness was put in the wrong place.”
Turner did not answer. He had been that way since day one of his transfer to this facility — as silent as a rock. A rock with razor-sharp eyes and a murderous look.
No one has visited him since he transferred; then again, no one had visited him before either. Turner didn't even bother to guess the freak who wanted to meet him. Whoever it was, it mattered not. He didn't know anyone, he didn't have friends, and he didn't need anyone to think of him.
It had always been like that.
The warden led him to sit in a room, separated from the outside by a soundproof glass door. He studied Turner carefully while unlocking the handcuffs for him.
Turner turned his head and asked the warden. “Is it today?”
Every day, he asked if that day was the day he would finally be executed. When he had first asked, the warden flinched. There was always a sense of pity in him when the person on death row asked him — because their eyes as they looked at him would be full of anguish. Despair. But gradually, when Turner asked, that feeling faded away in him. Turner wasn't like the other prisoners.
“No.” Until then, the answer was the same as every other time. Turner just sighed.
The warden handed him the phone, “You two have an hour.”
Turner didn't have to wait long for the visitor to come in. It was a tall young woman, her tumbles of soft black hair weaved around her shoulders and sprinkled on her arms, her bangs long enough to cover her eyes like a sheepdog. Who the hell are you? Turner thought, and turned to the jailer as if to say, “You’re mistaken.”
The girl, on the other hand, seemed to recognize him. She calmly sat down on the chair and picked up the phone. Only after she swept her bangs to the sides and revealed her eyes did he mutter, “Oh, it's you.”
February 7th.2011
“C an you just fuck off?”
Shards shot at Violet Pham's face as her mother slammed the drinking glass on the floor. It was supposed to be a gift for her mother on Violet’s eighteen birthday, until it was broken into pieces at least. She just wanted to give something to her mother. They never got along, but she was sure that her mother cared, in her own way.
“Did you just waste my money again, dragging this crap home? Why the hell do you think I need a fucking glass? We have two bowls, we drink from bowls, idiot! How much did you pay for this crap?” Her roars got even louder when she didn’t hear an answer. “The loan sharks are coming tomorrow! And I… I don’t have ANY - FUCKING - MONEY! How much did you pay for this? Huh? Huh?”
Violet didn’t reply. And her mother gave her what she deserved: A slap to the cheek.
“Get. Out! Out of my sight, you useless waste of oxygen!”
The young girl ran as fast as her legs could carry her. Before long, she reached a banyan tree behind a thick grove. That was where she always ran off to whenever her mother would show up with a broomstick. She never searched behind the groves.
She leaned her back against the tree and curled into a ball. It was like giving herself a hug, and she needed a hug.
“Maybe I’ll cry today,” the tips of her fingers buried in the trunk. She had tried, and tried, and tried again. But it was useless. Through the seventeen years of her life, she couldn’t recall crying at all. Maybe she never really did, or worse, maybe she’s simply blocked all the memories of those times.
Maybe that explained why she didn’t have a childhood.
Life has never gone my way, Violet thought. If only… if only she hadn’t suffered from this loathsome curse.
From the big road behind the groves, a truck honked loudly. Tangerine-coloured bubbles crept through the gaps between the leaves, floating in front of her eyes. She closed her eyes shut, hands covering her face.
“Go away! Get away from me!”
She thought she was gifted with talent. But that day, she didn’t know anymore. Maybe they were right. She had to accept it: she was horribly, horribly sick.
Violet Pham could see the colour of sounds. Ever since she knew it, everything she heard carried a shade.
The sparrows chirping behind her garden sounded brown.
The water flowing from the tap was peach orange.
Her pencil sket
ching on the paper was almond.
Her mother's squeaky berates were mossy green.
Violet was so sure she was born to be a painter. She knew that. She would spend hours pouring her pencil sketches on paper, glaring at the milky white rays in the air dangling around, wrapping the mossy green blobs emanating from her mother as she passed by.
Mossy green was the colour of her voice. “You can't do anything right,” was the sound of it.
The voices of others were usually grey, and grey only. Grim, monotonous. Talking to them, she often ‘heard’ the shades of the static noises as ones from a black-and-white TV. That was also part of the reason she didn't like to talk to people as much as observing every other thing around her. She liked the magenta of the wind blowing on the roof of a building, the turquoise of bicycles tinkling on the dirt road, the bumblebee-yellow of bamboo brooms scraping on the middle of the brickyard. Everything sounded full of life to her.
But people weren't.
She slumped on the ground, her breathing was as ragged as that of a cross-country athlete who had just completed a marathon. She looked at her shaky hands, at the palms scarred with the marks of her mother’s whip.
“No… I’m not sick. I have to believe…”
Her mind wandered to her high school memories, to the countless hours spent after school sitting and drawing. Her mind was hazy; she probably didn’t want to remember much of that time. But how clearly she recalled the shouts of her classmates at her, after they caught her spending time by herself, again and again.
“Weirdo! Are you mute? When we ask, you better answer. Do you think that just because you're new, you're better than us?”
She had tried to ignore them and concentrate on drawing, but it did not seem to work. There was a kid in the gang, her name was either Kalia or Katia, she couldn’t remember. She'd grabbed her piece of paper, handed it to the others and laughed with utmost glee.
“This is what you plug your head all day doing? What the hell? Contesting for ‘Kindergarten Scribbling Day’?” She had then passed it to the girl behind her. “Oi, you, look at this crap...“
A funny thing about bullies is that when you make it known to them that you’re vulnerable, they will never stop. That was the case with Katia and her gang.
They had torn her painting and thrown it in her face. That had produced no reaction, and they didn’t like that. It was more fun bullying people who begged them to stop. Katia had grabbed a water bottle and poured the liquid all over Violet’s head.
“Yo? You done being mute yet?”
She did not say a word.
The sound of water running from her head was burnt orange. Focus on the sound, focus on the sound, focus on the sound. And the mean people will go away.
Eventually, she no longer paid Katia any heed. It wasn’t because Katia stopped bullying her; she picked on her on a daily basis. It was because she no longer cared. It was easier to pretend people didn’t exist if you didn’t care about them.
But Violet cared about her mother. And that was the problem.
Her mother was frequently beaten up by the debt collectors, sometimes to the point where she was better off dead than alive. Violet was mature; mature enough that her mother would no longer whip her on the face to vent her anger each time she got thrashed. After all, Violet was pretty, and she earnestly desired for her daughter to land a rich husband. That meant whipping on places people wouldn’t spot. My mother is hopeless, she thought. She did not dare to say a word when the bullies grabbed her hair and dragged her around, so she had to hit her child. But Violet was no less hopeless. She never dared to fight back.
They were often left with nothing to eat inside their household; many days they had to cut up watermelon to mix into their rice. On days her mother had enough money to buy meat, she would buy liquor. Those were the worst days. Her stomach was empty, her cheeks were swollen and her eyes were puffy.
“Why can't you go make money? Do you want me to die? I regret giving birth to the likes of you... Only waste my food money…”
“Day after day, you only draw and draw... Do you get any goddamn money from drawing? Why are you so useless? You like being poor all your life, huh, huh?”
Her voice was mossy green. Violet never liked mossy green.
She loved her mother, for love was the only thing that kept her mind sane. Her inner war had been going on too long, a struggle to salvage the fragment of hope. That things would get better eventually. That her mother and her, they would get through it all, together.
Ten years of self-doubt, self-pity, self-torture. But when the decision was made, it was made in an instant.
She had made up her mind.
On her eighteenth birthday, Violet ran from home.
February 8th.2011
F rom time to time, Turner would come to Violet's place. He did not come often, but he was there without fail on the eighth of every month. He wasn't quite acquainted with Violet, but her mother, he knew very well.
“You delayed it for a few weeks, you hag. Where's the damn money?”
He would be the one to take the plunge to grab her hair, shouted at her as she begged for ‘another couple of days’. Others liked tagging along with him, because he would do anything, as long as it was his responsibility. Some would not beat up old people. Some would not hit children. But Turner, he fucked everyone up.
“I told you last time! Hand me the damn stash! You can still have a full bowl of tofu rice, and you dare tell me you have no money? Whatever you still have, I'll take it all!”
Violet's mother had been in tears, bowing like a dog, moaning.
“I don’t have anything left! P-please, forgive me... I have only this daughter. If you fancy her, I'll call her out… I-if you don’t fancy her, maybe your Boss will...”
Sean, the guy who tagged along with Turner, heard that, and he grinned from ear to ear. He lightly slammed his elbows on Turner's shoulders.
“That be a good deal bro. Heard chick’s a cutie…”
Turner ignored it. He looked down at the crouched woman, grunting.
“Crawl between my legs.”
“W-what?” Her eyes widened in disbelief.
Turner pointed to the space between his legs. “Crawl. Now!”
She trembled as she crawled through Turner's groin. She did so too slowly; he kicked her to the ground. He put his feet on top of her face, his voice as bloodthirsty as a hyena's.
“If I don't see my money next time, I will piss on you and you will swallow my piss. You will drink it all, won't you? Since you give zero fucks for neither your honour nor your daughter anyway.”
They scurried away from her house, shutting the door. Sean, the dude who was tagging along, chased after Turner, his voice dissatisfied.
“Yo, we just gonna leave like that? Bro, didn’t you want to check out the daughter first? You let the old hag off the hook anyway...”
“Go ahead,” Turner said.
“What?”
“To Tanner's house, quickly. That guy's paying late again. Three blocks away.”
“Why only me? I can’t bag it up myself, that prick ain’t vomiting shit-”
“I need to pee.” He waved Sean off. The guy groaned, but did as told anyway.
Having gotten rid of him, he headed to the back lane. Of course, the person he was looking for had not escaped in time.
At the other end of the alley was an eighteen-year-old school girl with a cloth bag on her back, several sets of clothes stacked inside.
Where did she think she could run to? Turner thought. They knew all about her, about her relatives near and far, knew her face, knew the faces of her third-generation ancestors. He shortened the distance; she picked up the pace. But there was no way he wouldn't have been able to catch up.
When the distance between them was only ten feet, Turner spoke up. “You.”
Violet stopped short. She just stood there, didn’t say a word nor turned back. He stood watching her from behind. She walked slo
wly, her steps were firm. Turner called out. “Run to Second District. We don't loiter 'round there.”
She stood still again. He tried to guess what was on her mind. She must have been surprised when she heard his words. Would she say ‘thank you’?
He blinked, and she had already left. He could still chase after her, surely.
But he did not.
Her mother owed money, not her. She wasn't involved. There would come a day when her mother would sell her to the debt collectors.
There were those who chose to drown in debt. There were those who chose to fuck their brains out for money. But she would have never chosen to have her mother give her away.
If he had parents, he would never do them wrong.
Lighting a cigarette, Turner hurried away from the alley.
March 24th.2011
T he second time Turner ran into Violet, she was sitting in the café with a piece of paper and a pencil in her hand. They met in the Second District; he took it as a little something to rejoice. At least she listened to him.
The place was nothing spectacular; it was an old wooden building, one so old that the pillar might just fall onto you if you shook it a bit forcefully. There was minimal decoration, and minimal decoration was needed — the owner of the café didn't believe in spending on innovation to attract new customers, for he had enough old folks coming around to sustain his business. Naturally, the place was empty most of the time.
Turner wasn't any familiar face, though. It was getting hot outside, and he just needed to get away from the scorching sun.
As he passed by her table, he glanced at what she was painting. It was an abstract painting, full of spiral circles, he didn't understand whatever those were for. He didn’t know anything about painting. But he personally found it quite intriguing.
He didn’t talk to her. He knew she would remember him, because she would always sit in the corner watching him hit her mother. There was no reason for someone to mess up their loved ones right in front of them, then act like they were on friendly terms.
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