wayfarers_lodge (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wayfarers_lodge) wrote2010-06-08 05:08 am
wayfarers_lodge) wrote2010-06-08 05:08 am
{Elise} When the colours came back
When I was young, everything was a cacophany of colours. The streets were wild and untamed, and burned the eyes and the ears and the nose with everything that they brought with them, but in those things were the greater knowings of all places and all things. I saw worlds in what flowers there were, the singing of the housewives and the children were the greatest of mysteries, and the bilious, rotten scent of the gutters were the dark things that the people do not want you to know.
So I told people what I saw. And slowly, the people saw them too, and began to understand, and the world grew wiser, stretching like trees towards the sunlight.
And then came a man who dressed in garish clothes and jingled like the bells of Christmas, all these things to make up for the fact that he had no colour on the inside. He said he liked my smile, and he liked the way I smelled, and he grabbed for me and I kicked him and screamed for help. My mother came and threw him out.
But he came back. And he came with people worse than he. And they told me I was 'immoral' and they said that I was 'wrong' to cast the man with no colours out, and that I had done a bad thing before their God, who they said was the same as mine.
So they took me from my home, and my mysteries and the wisdom I had fought for and they put me in a place made of cold and hard and sharp and darkness, and they did things to me there in the name of their God that they said was the same as mine, and those things took the colours away, and didn't even leave me with the honesty of black and white and grey.
There was nothing for a long time, well, there were lots of things, but if I call it nothing, then it means nothing and it is nothing. There were other girls like me, only girls, never boys, because it is easier to take a girl's colours away, and make it so her wisdom and her mysteries mean nothing in the house of their God, who they say is the same as mine. I spoke to them, and they spoke back, and they were the only scraps of colour in the beginning. Then one by one, their colours were torn out, too, and the nothing filled us and then there was no hope.
Until one night, I awoke, and there was a someone with me. I opened my eyes and she was there, and in that place of no colour her heart burned red, through her clothes and into me.
She spoke to me, and her voice was the voice of the washerwomen and the children of my home, it was music and it was a way out, even if she left my body to rot there in that place where there was no colours, only God, who they said was the same God as mine.
"Hello. I've been watching you."
"Who are you?" I asked, bemused, trying to buy time so I could make as much of her mine as I could.
"Who do you think I am?" She asked. I could not tell if it was a trap. I could not bring myself to care if it was.
"You are my colours. They took my colours away because I saw a world in the flowers, and heard the mysteries of their God in the singing of the children and the washerwomen, their God that they say is the same as mine. Please come back to me. Please let me have my colours back. If I must die to have you back then please, kill me. Don't leave me here where there is nothing."
It was not begging, not even for a moment- it was the truth as the world knew, and it was a truth that was evident in everything. She looked at me, as if truly seeing me for the first time.
"If I take you with me, you will never be sane again." She said.
"I can never be what they called sane," I replied, "Not after this. I have been in the place where there is no colour. No one may ever come back from that place and call themselves whole. And I don't want to be anymore."
She smiled, and took my hand, leading me with graceful steps. The doors opened before her, as if they could not bear the touch of something coloured anymore. She took me to the place where the eldest of the children of the colourless God slept, and she bid me sit on the floor. She knelt before me, over me, straddling my lap with infinite flexibility and all the care of a mother. This was not profane, nor was it even sacred- it was so far beyond such things there are no words for it.
She smiled, and leaned in to whisper into my ear.
"This is where I will kill you. And I promise you- you will never know colours like you will know them tonight."
And she bit me.
There should have been an explosion of pain, of something, but there was nothing but bliss. I felt my body dying and I knew that this was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
Then she pressed herself against my mouth, and the red flowed into me, and for the first time in months, years, I saw. I could feel this beacon of colour within me, and I could feel the one that had killed her, all the way back to...
There was a thing there. This was my colours. This was my God. No, not even- his presence made the word 'God' mean nothing, he was colour and no colour and everything and nothing. He burned into me, through me, and in a moment I was ashes.
I woke up. There was colour, so many, so rich! And I was hungry.
It is strange, but did you know that the children of the colourless God keep all their colours deep inside, where the only way to see them is by taste? She cried out for her God, who she swore was like mine, and I knew he could never be- but he did nothing as she died.
We left her room, and we went and carefully blocked the doors of the other children of the colourless God. We went to the places where my sisters slept, the girls who had their colours taken away. We woke them gently, and told them they were free, and to go outside and to wait for us. In that moment, I saw the colours awaken in them again, the colours of hope and fear and joy which they had never been allowed in this place.
My colours knew a lot about what makes a good fire. But as we searched, I saw something beautiful, something above and beyond colours, beyond mystery and understanding. These things were heavy, and they smelled like age.
"What are these?" I asked my colours, my insight, my guide into this new place.
"They are books." She replied.
"We can't leave them here." I said, again, not begging, but speaking a truth that had to stand.
She watched me again, and she nodded.
"No, we can't."
So we took them down to the girls with us, and we handed the girls some matches, and they helped us burn the place where there were no colours down. My insight watched, smiling, eyes lost in her own insight and understanding. The other girls held hands or laughed or wept with relief or just watched as well... and by the dawn, they were gone, and so were we.
My insight was right. I have never known colours like I knew them that night. But I know now where my not-God is, that is not theirs nor anyone else's but mine. I know where my insight is. And I know where my mysteries are. They are within me, they are me, and there is nothing else in the world but me and Him.
So I told people what I saw. And slowly, the people saw them too, and began to understand, and the world grew wiser, stretching like trees towards the sunlight.
And then came a man who dressed in garish clothes and jingled like the bells of Christmas, all these things to make up for the fact that he had no colour on the inside. He said he liked my smile, and he liked the way I smelled, and he grabbed for me and I kicked him and screamed for help. My mother came and threw him out.
But he came back. And he came with people worse than he. And they told me I was 'immoral' and they said that I was 'wrong' to cast the man with no colours out, and that I had done a bad thing before their God, who they said was the same as mine.
So they took me from my home, and my mysteries and the wisdom I had fought for and they put me in a place made of cold and hard and sharp and darkness, and they did things to me there in the name of their God that they said was the same as mine, and those things took the colours away, and didn't even leave me with the honesty of black and white and grey.
There was nothing for a long time, well, there were lots of things, but if I call it nothing, then it means nothing and it is nothing. There were other girls like me, only girls, never boys, because it is easier to take a girl's colours away, and make it so her wisdom and her mysteries mean nothing in the house of their God, who they say is the same as mine. I spoke to them, and they spoke back, and they were the only scraps of colour in the beginning. Then one by one, their colours were torn out, too, and the nothing filled us and then there was no hope.
Until one night, I awoke, and there was a someone with me. I opened my eyes and she was there, and in that place of no colour her heart burned red, through her clothes and into me.
She spoke to me, and her voice was the voice of the washerwomen and the children of my home, it was music and it was a way out, even if she left my body to rot there in that place where there was no colours, only God, who they said was the same God as mine.
"Hello. I've been watching you."
"Who are you?" I asked, bemused, trying to buy time so I could make as much of her mine as I could.
"Who do you think I am?" She asked. I could not tell if it was a trap. I could not bring myself to care if it was.
"You are my colours. They took my colours away because I saw a world in the flowers, and heard the mysteries of their God in the singing of the children and the washerwomen, their God that they say is the same as mine. Please come back to me. Please let me have my colours back. If I must die to have you back then please, kill me. Don't leave me here where there is nothing."
It was not begging, not even for a moment- it was the truth as the world knew, and it was a truth that was evident in everything. She looked at me, as if truly seeing me for the first time.
"If I take you with me, you will never be sane again." She said.
"I can never be what they called sane," I replied, "Not after this. I have been in the place where there is no colour. No one may ever come back from that place and call themselves whole. And I don't want to be anymore."
She smiled, and took my hand, leading me with graceful steps. The doors opened before her, as if they could not bear the touch of something coloured anymore. She took me to the place where the eldest of the children of the colourless God slept, and she bid me sit on the floor. She knelt before me, over me, straddling my lap with infinite flexibility and all the care of a mother. This was not profane, nor was it even sacred- it was so far beyond such things there are no words for it.
She smiled, and leaned in to whisper into my ear.
"This is where I will kill you. And I promise you- you will never know colours like you will know them tonight."
And she bit me.
There should have been an explosion of pain, of something, but there was nothing but bliss. I felt my body dying and I knew that this was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
Then she pressed herself against my mouth, and the red flowed into me, and for the first time in months, years, I saw. I could feel this beacon of colour within me, and I could feel the one that had killed her, all the way back to...
There was a thing there. This was my colours. This was my God. No, not even- his presence made the word 'God' mean nothing, he was colour and no colour and everything and nothing. He burned into me, through me, and in a moment I was ashes.
I woke up. There was colour, so many, so rich! And I was hungry.
It is strange, but did you know that the children of the colourless God keep all their colours deep inside, where the only way to see them is by taste? She cried out for her God, who she swore was like mine, and I knew he could never be- but he did nothing as she died.
We left her room, and we went and carefully blocked the doors of the other children of the colourless God. We went to the places where my sisters slept, the girls who had their colours taken away. We woke them gently, and told them they were free, and to go outside and to wait for us. In that moment, I saw the colours awaken in them again, the colours of hope and fear and joy which they had never been allowed in this place.
My colours knew a lot about what makes a good fire. But as we searched, I saw something beautiful, something above and beyond colours, beyond mystery and understanding. These things were heavy, and they smelled like age.
"What are these?" I asked my colours, my insight, my guide into this new place.
"They are books." She replied.
"We can't leave them here." I said, again, not begging, but speaking a truth that had to stand.
She watched me again, and she nodded.
"No, we can't."
So we took them down to the girls with us, and we handed the girls some matches, and they helped us burn the place where there were no colours down. My insight watched, smiling, eyes lost in her own insight and understanding. The other girls held hands or laughed or wept with relief or just watched as well... and by the dawn, they were gone, and so were we.
My insight was right. I have never known colours like I knew them that night. But I know now where my not-God is, that is not theirs nor anyone else's but mine. I know where my insight is. And I know where my mysteries are. They are within me, they are me, and there is nothing else in the world but me and Him.