The Life Of Clean Slate

By Manasvi Mukherjee

I believe it was in 2032 when one of the Council of Uniformity members, Ben Piper made it clear, color and brightness will be sealed in the past forever for the greater good of humankind, he said with a firm tone. On the biggest screen in the world, bright vibrant colors faded into a dull blank world. But the most important question is that the whole world is being grayed out, what was achieved? My family, including my parents, required me to stick to the gray life or as I had no option but to do so. Otherwise, I would have had a life where light would shine brighter than gray.

To be fair, in some regards it all worked; but at what expense and result. 

It was fascinating to hear my parents speak about the days where the sky had beautiful sun marks while trees would glow like emeralds, until they added it was all a dream time, where life itself felt alive. Whenever we speak about wheat fields or breathe in hope, remember it was always golden colored. And it all started to sound like a fable or a unique fairy tale. So our day went glory after glory, however words have turned unjust, dull, funny and but sadly enough the efficiency of it all reduced over time, just like my dreams.

Yet it was most incredible to see how color up or down affected feelings. Love, pleasure, anger – it was as if they were all dimmed. Reds and blues free from the burden of despair and zeal diminished all. Raw feelings were put in taut in emotionless sculptures and dulled by an invisible hand. But we were used to apathetic sourness; we spent our weeks in gray mundane sameness.

I thought this was normal until the day I met Felix.

Felix was a ghoul scavenging the borders of civilization in search of archeological elements that were ruled illegal by the Council. He was somehow a favorite of many but I found his little defilement fascinating.

One day, he invited me over to an abandoned building, a place where he worked. Speaking of a pandora’s box, the place was bursting with history- torn pages of books, distressed paintings, and even pieces of crumbled glass that scattered light like a prism.

“I want to show you something,” he said while taking out a little vial from his pocket.

The slice contained a form of liquid that roused emotion so vivid that it was painful to focus. The color was blue.

I was so mystified about what I saw that I couldn’t seem to speak. “What the hell is that?” “Color,” He replied in a monotone voice. “Color. The real type. The sort that they took away from us.” “How does that sound real? And am I hearing you right? Depicting its absence as though it were a case here is making me furious.” My mind could barely comprehend what he was narrating hence I even lost my temper a little. “Lose your cool for a moment and grasp what I am saying. You tend to make everything more complex than it actually is. In simple terms, color was never eradicated entirely and it so happens that the Council doesn’t wish for you to understand that. They intend you to envision it vanishing once and for all,” Pause “It has been so long and in places they could never get to, it still lurks, waiting to be discovered.” I took the vial slowly as my hands seemed tinged with rage and my heart was pounding and out of control. All those emotions hit me in a single instant and it felt almost like a tsunami wave obliterating everything in sight. That feeling overtook a lot and in that moment all I felt was joy, sorrow, and hope which at first neutralized the original feeling, then everything tumbled down and tears started rolling down my face but instead of focusing on which meme it was. “It was betrayal,” trembled my voice.

Felix nodded. “And they would do anything for the lie to be protected to an extent that even if a single shred of the truth could expose their fabricated scam, they would abuse it fully.” 

From that day on, it was impossible to swallow the truth. It was Felix and I who hunted for other spots of colour. It was nothing new for us too; every window we gazed out of, every wall we brushed past, every step we took in forgotten regions, we wanted to find fragments of humanity; the sundering tangerine of autumn foliage, mossy greens in the heart of a forest, sun-kissed yellows pouring in through the window.

Yet all of these instances came with their set of risks – the risk of being discovered, forever. Cloaked in unappealing clothing, the council operatives interrupted our extraction efforts, deploying everything to disable us. It was the pigment alone that frightened them the most; what potential transformations of people’s essence it could entail.

Seasoned practitioners of the art of concealment that night while we were resting in a library far away from the city-force, Felix thrust a small mirror over to me that had a few indents on it. “See,” he said matter of factly.

I was amazed when I raised the mirror up to my face. And after forever I believed that my claim to grayish eyes was finally tempered by the slightest amber glow I saw. 

“Glad to say this, but it’s taking off,” said Felix as he was grinning widely.

“Taking off? What exactly do you mean?”

“It will be everything, life.” 

Slowly and surely I began to see the bigger picture. When I became aware of beauty and character that didn’t solely pertain to a creation, but rather an untapped feeling, I realized for the very first time that there was purpose behind the reclamation. And this wasn’t even the end – there was so much more ahead.

The world was surely under the control of the Council but the might of a single drop of blue, a single spark of red, a single snapshot or glimpse of green was equally evident. In the colourless world, we were the insurgents and the range of colours for our revolution was infinite.

By Manasvi Mukherjee