fluid

The Color Blue

O.

Colors mean different things to different people, but there are two colors that are almost universal in our minds: white and black.

White for purity, innocence, emptiness. Nothing.

Black for corruption, evil, bad luck. Unknown.

For Brandon Heays, there is a third universal color: blue. There is no grey area between black and white; it's only blue. Imagine it as a sphere, a blue jewl orbited by gray. Invisible to most people who have not lived in the blue. Brandon's blue is inbetween, but also outside. Sealed off, looking out and in at once. To be blue is to be lost, but this is the type of lost that's hard to find. It takes fate, not misfortune.

I.

Like silk under him only more comforting, it also enveloped him like a cocoon. The roar of what he thought couldn't be anything besides some hungry or angry creature (though he was sure what ever it was, it was both hungry and angry) above him, but it felt distanced. Anchored between all these things was no longer Brandon Heays, but a heap of muscle and bone, waves of acheing flowing through him from top to bottom, and all he saw was blue. Blue, a color with a meaning that he couldn't remember from before (what ever before was), had taken over his life. H/e thought and saw, could even swear he heard, tasted and even smelled blue. Most of all, he could feel it, always.

Even the bed was blue. The bed that was rough and itchy, which had replaced the warm, smooth silk cocoon with no feeling of transition. The world was a blur, a deep, blue blur. The walls were a fadding soapy white (almost like seafoam) and even the television, though it was silver, was tuned to a mostly blue channel. White letters and dark blue blocks scrolling up on the screen. Big white letters at the top read (with some difficulty) "Malitt County Cable Program Guide".

There was a man next to him, and even he was blue. As the world cleared and that blue glare dimmed, only his clothes, a doctor's outfit, were blue. Brandon turned his head over, but rather than turn, it fell roughly back on the pillow, his neck throbbing sore. There stood another man, who Brandon knew should have blue eyes, but as if protesting against Brandon's very thought, his eyes widened: brown.

Brandon assumed it was his wallet in the strangers hand, and more-over assumed that his I.D. was the center of attention.

Brown Eyes took a final look at the identification before closing the department store leather wallet and placing it on the bed-side table. The I.D. promised the holder to be a man in his early thirties, but Brown Eyes saw a man who could make his grandfather (brown eyes, just as he) feel young again.

Doctor Blue Scrub opened and shut his mouth like a fish on dry land. Finally he spoke, but Brandon couldn't understand a word. It was all blue. It remained blue for another two days. The two weeks after the five-day sleep were a cycle of more sleep, pill cups, and starring at the seafoam walls. The days he spent sitting in bed, he couldn't help but to think how it wasn't fair.

II.

It wasn't fair for Sara Reed to say she feared Brandon, but there was something about him that drove into her heart as an emotion very much like fear. Pitty present along side, like with everyone who met him.

Sara, hardly the quiet one, had exchanged little more than a few words with Brandon. Walking into his apartment was like walking into a sleeping bear's den in her mind. Brandon spent most of his hours in bed, on couch, or "in vitro", Brandon's phrase for his random at home check-ups, as he felt like a specimin in a glass tube being studied by fascinated scientists.

Yesterday had been an in vitro day, and following an in vitro day was always an in bed day. An in bed day usually meant that Sara would have to cook and clean for the freak. Was it really worth the school credits to spend five hours a week with him? Sara supposed she'd have to learn to deal with his type if she wanted to be a shrink or a doctor. She hadn't decided yet.

And what "type" exactly, was Mr. Heays? He was the type of human being who's eyes say he might have been better off if he had died in that event, and he himself knows it. He may not know what happened, no one does, but he knows that he became an exception to what should have been. He never showed it, but everyone felt it.

Then again, what more than fate it's self places a lone man on the beach at night, and without a single scratch? Whatever it was, it tired him near death. Sara had heard that he slept five days straight, and still he sleeps half of his days away.

"Sara," a low, monotone voice from the dark bedroom. Brandon had been woken up by his personal, "walkin'-talkin' alarm clock maid." Sara very much suspected that the only time he was awake was for that one hour a day, five days a week.

"That you, Sara?"

"Yeah." Who else?

"Come over here."

Sara did, Brandon very much enjoyed the sight of another human being, nothing compared to the doctors. He never considered them human beings, they were much more like robots. It cheered him up some (still he felt a little blue) and gave him a reason to at least move.

Brandon wasn't surprised the first time he saw her. He was sure of what to expect when one of the doctors told him they'd be sending a girl over from the local high school to help him around. He expected blue, and he got blue for the most part. Sara's favorite color was blue, she wore blue jeans and always a blue sapphire necklace (her mother's, he assumed), and punk rocker's electric blue dyed hair, her natural black roots just starting to show. No blue eyes, though. Brandon hadn't seen a single person with blue eyes in Malitt County. He saw something blue of everything, but not an eye of the color blue, and color blue was color true to Brandon Heays. He must be living in a world of liars.

Often the first thing he saw of her were blue spikes of hair that nearly scratched the ceiling. Today she wore it in a ponytail.

"They say I'll be fine eventually, and I'll be living for free until I can get a job. They seem to have taken a liking to me." Brandon seemed to smile, or maybe it was just a twitch. He did a lot of that. Brandon never liked to ask for things directly, when he called her in and tried to make small talk, he really needed something.

"Lucky you," the air was cooler in Brandon's dark room, it gave her a chill down to the bones. "Hungry?" Sara asked him, and he nodded.

III.

His brown eyes turned to honey when they were struck by the light of the sun as he got out of his little blue car. The moist beach air gave him a chill down to the bones. The beach was rocky and covered in weeds, the good sand was found only directly by the water, not worth the hassel for most people. Besides, everyone had a pool, it was much easier to dip in a pool than to climb down those dangerous rocks to the ocean. The man had been found half in and half out of water inside a small cavern. It was really more of a large hollow rock, rusted red in color.

He was reminded of a poem he heard his daughter reciting that morning before school, "and the dry stone no sound of water," she said. "There is shadow under this red rock, come in under the shadow of this red rock."

Brown Eyes (Detective Allen Rochis, his badge read) continued to hear his daughter's voice in his head. Come in under the shadow of this red rock, she said again and again. With each repeat of the phrase, she sounded less and less like Kimberly Rochis and more and more like

(Brandon Heays)
someone else.

Come in under the shadow if this red rock, come in under the shadow of this red rock...

It was Brandon Heays, the strange man who didn't exist. He had a California I.D. though not a single file of him existed. Without a doubt, Allen Rochis knew (how can I know? I've never heard his voice!) that it was the voice of Brandon Heays that called to him now.

But how is it possible...

(How what? Of course it's possible, of course it's his voice. Didn't you yourself speak to him that afternoon?)

It was a dream, I didn't know he even existed until hours later. I didn't even see his face in that dream, never heard his voice outside of the dream, how can I be sure?

(The red rock. Come in under the shadow of this red rock.)

IV.

Brandon couldn't willingly eat anything but toast since he had been found. Sometimes with butter, sometimes with jam, once with peanut butter (which he nearly choked to death on), but mostly plain toast. With his toast he enjoyed watching old cartoons and drinking iced tea. Sara thought this was funny, watching a man older than her father (so he looked) sipping tea, munching toast, and watching Scooby-Doo.

It was funny, but grew tiresome fast. Sara explored the appartment; one room, bathroom, living room and a kitchen. Mostly empty except for what was needed. Finally, she settled in front of the living room window, looking out into the distant Malitt Town Main Street, the county center. Malitt was a plot of land which rubbed up against the Pacific half way up the California coast. Surrounded by mountains north, east and south. An extremely conservative community. The county would go extended periods of boredom and routine, and once in a while something strange (More than strange, disgustingly terrible, evil) would shatter that routine for a time.

This time, stranger than anything she'd seen in Malitt before (and she had seen some strange stuff go down), a man had appeared. Fallen out of the sky, washed up by sea or vomited out of Hell. Wherever he had been rejected from could find no better place to chuck him than in quiet little Malitt County, shut off from the rest of the world. What would they do if this man started something? If he were a terrorist, even? How would the County find help? Would they climb the mountain and drive two hours to the nearest town for it? Could Detective Rochis save the day again?

Like most people in Malitt County, Sara knew no other place but Malitt County. Her grandparents were born and died in Malitt, her parents met in the County's only high school and reproduced. Her mother was taken from them when Sara was twelve years old, and her father would die here, also. Surely, Sara Reed would die in The County too, one can't escape the county, even in a coffin. Custom of The County was to have one's ashes thrown to sea, fish food. The fish would eat the ashes and the people would eat them, a disgusting recycling. Sara wondered how she'd eaten her mother: fried or sushi? A thought that almost made her vomit and cry: had one of those fish had Tom Ken in it?

But maybe next year she wouldn't eat any more Malitt Fish. If she studied well and learned much, she might escape. Escape like Allen Rochis did.

But Allen Rochis returned after two years. Returned with a woman and her daughter (soon to be his woman and his daughter), but returned. Came back bitter, "Born in The County, die in The County," he said. Maybe he was right. Did that rule apply to Brandon Heays, who was not born in The County, who Sara wouldn't doubt hadn't been born of woman at all, but of the sea? A laughable idea, her imagination knew no bounds and thanks to that, she would leave The County (if it didn't kill her first, as it almost had so many times) and maybe be happy. Of course, being happy was only secondary to leaving The County.

V.

Brandon dreamed that night the same dream he had been dreaming for a nearly three weeks. He might have dreamt it before then, but he wasn't sure. He couldn't remember, it was all still blue.

He could see water below him yet he felt solid ground below as if he were walking on a piece of glass directly on the water. There was a voice that screamed to him (he couldn't understand what it said besides a few curses, the blue was too loud). It seemed to speak to everyone in the world including him. It could have been God, but Brandon doubted that. God didn't curse.

He could see a reflection of himself in the water below, but there were other people in the reflection. Then he became the reflection, standing upside down under water, against the surface of the sea as if it were another glass floor. The conscience part of his mind was on the brink of insanity, nearly fell if not for the subconscience (below all consciencenous, above all thought) held it away from the edge.

And then the dream changed, he stood on the beach.

Malitt Beach, Malitt County's Malitt Beach. And the name was fine. Since arriving on Malitt Beach in Malitt County he felt as though an actual mallet had been driving a nail into his head and heart.

On top of the red rock. The ocean was angry, not by expresion, it seemed litterally angry. Brandon could feel the burning hatred directed towards him. There was a voice, it came from under the small cave, the big rock. "Come in under the shadow of this red rock," the voice, the blue-haired girl begged. "Mr. Heays, please come in under the shadow of this red rock!"

Brandon now appeared on all fours, face directly before the red rock, and it's shadow was thick. Brandon was casting the shadow, directly behind him was the sun setting behind the sea, it's last rays of light for the day should have been illuminating the hollow, but Brandon was in the way. He could not see the girl, but he could hear her, and her voice echoed from inside. Had the cave been that deep? Not at all, no more than a hanging rock surrounded by others to give the illusion of a cave, but no more than that. Maybe three feet high, seven feet long and three feet long.

Still the girl echoed, the girl he was sure didn't like him one bit was now pleading, crying for his help.

"Come in under the shadow of this red rock! Oh GOD come in under the shadow, your shadow!"

Brandon crawled, and he crawled further. The dim light of the outside world and the roar of the ocean and storm ceased. Now only quiet and dark, accompanied by the occasional whisper in his ear: "Oh please, oh PLEASE wont you come in under the shadow of this red rock?" a whisper so soft and so close that he though he could feel the cold of the girl's breath and the moisture of her lips as she pleaded in his ear. He tried to shout back at her, not knowing what to say. I'm coming? Don't worry? It's OK? He didn't know what he would say and even after he said it, he didn't know what he had chosen. There was no sound coming out of his mouth.

There was instead of sound, a shinning blue glow which poured out like a waterfall into the black surroundings. The girl's voice, still in his ear but this time loud enough to deafen him came again, screaming;

"Help! Help! Oh my god HELP!" She screamed.