Color vs. Shade

Against my will, I am now starting to remember my childhood.

One of the side effects of being around Chronos so much seems to be a more...active memory. I can remember images, details from my past now that I'm sure I never could before I met him. I can't wait until whatever it is starts releasing the memories I blocked out. He keeps telling me I need a psychologist. I'm sure he can see perfectly well why I never will get one. But now, these vivid memories seem to be limited to some of the more benign moments in my life. Possibly it's a good thing. The way I was going, I might have blocked out my entire past and finished going insane. Now, I can remember my mother's name, my old school, the smell of the grass in my backyard...even the color of my hair.

--

Red. I stood pulling at strands of it in the mirror in the bathroom, and then made a face. I'd always wanted darker hair. Not black, necessarily, but something more subdued than my garishly bright, almost orange tresses. At least it was straight. I wanted simple hair, no curls, not too long or short...maybe a nice brown. I shook my head vigorously in defiance of my reflection. I was ten.

“Joanna!” It was the voice of one of my sisters, signaling lunchtime. I always insisted on my full name, but I still can't remember why. I don't use it anymore anyway.

I ran down the hall from the bathroom, passed my younger sister and brother’s shared bedroom, and slipped down the stairs, toes bumping against the side of the wall to keep the steps from creaking. I still tend to instinctively move as silently as I can, but of course now it’s mostly out of necessity. I did it then, too, although it was no use in my own room. That whole floor was one big creaky mess. The stairs, surprisingly, were not, so I jumped the last two and glided through the living room, my feet barely seeming to touch the white carpet or any of the toys. I stopped as the carpet did and arrived in the dining room, where my mom was trying to serve grilled cheese sandwiches and drinks to all three of my brothers and sisters at once.

I can remember all of this about my house because, for better or worse, that place has been lodged in my memory since long before I met Dr. Chronos. Whenever I try to imagine the layout of a house that I’ve never seen before, or that isn’t described well enough, it automatically becomes the house I grew up in. Sometimes this gets bloody annoying.

The phone began to ring as I approached the pan of sandwiches and my traditional seat at the upper right-hand corner of the table. Elaine, my mother, shook her head less vigorously than I had.

“I can’t take it; I’m going to let it go,” she said as she pushed a glass of milk towards my eight-year-old sister. The phone rang for the third time.

“I’m taking it; hold this a second,” she finished and rushed off for the phone, leaving the greasy frying pan in my hands.

“What’d you give it to me for?” I whined. My, but I was a self-centered little bitch in those days.

“I’ll get it!” said my sister Kelly, who was almost thirteen. She jumped over to the pan and snatched it clumsily out of my hands. Twisting it aside as she took out the last sandwich, she promptly swung the pan straight into my milk.

“Aah! Now look what you did!” I said as the white liquid splashed over my feet. I ran into the kitchen to get paper towels, muttering, “Thinks she’s so smart…”

“It was an accident. Anyway, you asked for it,” Kelly retorted as she followed me into the kitchen, where we stumbled over the sponges and towels, fighting for the privilege of cleaning up spilled milk. I heard my mom in the foyer, which was where the nearest telephone was, saying, “Yeah…no, I know. Listen, I better go—the kids are being crazy,” and rolled my eyes.

--

After lunch, Elaine sent all us kids out to the backyard to play. It wasn’t a large house—at least, not for five people—but there was a huge grassy backyard where my siblings and I could run through the sprinklers or turn cartwheels or whatever it was we did. Or was it six people? This is both amusing and depressing to me: while my house is forever in my memory, I have almost no memory of my father. He had either left the family for good, or simply had a full-time job. Or possibly a “full-time job,” insert suggestive coughing, and then left. I’ll never know now, although in theory he’s still alive somewhere.

My brother was, yes, turning a cartwheel then. In later years I would come to envy his acrobatic skill.

“Daniel, why are you wearing all blue?” asked Kelly, Special Agent of the Fashion Police. I can’t quite picture it, but I suppose he must have worn a blue T-shirt and shorts that day. It was a Sunday, living up to its name, with hardly a cloud in the sky. The sun made the dull brown back porch, the green grass, and even us brilliant.

Daniel looked down, as if just noticing his clothes. He shrugged. “My favorite color.”

My seven-year-old sister stuck her tongue out at him. “Blue’s ugly! Red is the best color.”

“Nuh-uh, Janie, it’s purple,” teased Kelly. She looked at me. “Help us decide, Joanna. What’s your favorite color?”

I thought about it. “Black.”

“That’s not a color, it’s a shade.”

“What’s a shade, then anyway?” I retorted, feeling unaccepted.

“White and black and gray. And all the shades of gray,” said Kelly

“What, like mom’s hair?” offered Daniel. All four of us cracked up, but I was still pondering why black couldn’t be a color.

--

Later that day, mom locked us in the house and had us play hide and seek while she was shopping. Kelly, of course, was it. She and Janie, who had been found already, had been looking for a few minutes now, but I was still sans hiding place. I snuck down the carpeted hall into my bedroom. Once inside, I immediately noticed the underside of my desk. Normally, I would have rejected it as too obvious, but the shadows under it seemed darker than usual. No one could see me under there. As I slipped in, I could have sworn my hair turned black in the shadow. I peeked out again, but couldn’t see enough of my hair to be sure. I felt completely safe under the desk. Invisible. Almost immaterial. When Kelly, Janie, and Daniel came into my room, they didn’t seem to have any idea where I was. Kelly bent down to peer under the desk, and screamed. I screamed too, and fell out of the darkness. We started laughing as Janie and Daniel came over.

“Geez, Joanna, you scared the crap out of me. I thought your hair was black for a second…”

I was probably more scared than she was at that point.

--

That night I had a dream, which I can remember because I’m almost positive I had the same one a few nights ago. I was running over rooftops, gliding silently through the night, and feeling as free as the moonlight. Everything around me seemed to be drained of color by its glow, but my hair, instead of being the appropriate shade of gray, was purest black. It was as if I was looking down on myself as I leaped between buildings, so that I could admire my tresses, but I could also see through my own eyes, feel the roughness of the concrete and stucco as a put a hand down to steady myself. I suppose I switched back and forth between viewpoints, but it’s hard to write a dream on paper. I’d probably have to start scattering words all over the page and upside down and diagonally, and I haven’t gotten quite that pretentious yet.

In that clear, black-and-white world, I was graceful—I do not believe that I felt such grace again until I was about nineteen. It was wonderful. But all good things come to an end. My left foot slipped on the edge of a particularly wide gap between buildings, and I tumbled down towards the shadowed wall of the building on the opposite side. As my feet passed over my head and dropped down again, I aimed them at that wall, hoping to push off. My feet slid straight into the darkness. But I was not shocked or frightened. As I slid into the shadow, I felt an instant of relief and security. That is, until there was an abrupt suction and the shadows began to pull me in. Suddenly the night was scary. I was all alone. My hands clawed the air as I slid down and into the wall. I saw myself swing them at the wall, and they collided.

--

Back to where I started…

I stare at my face in the mirror. I do not want to go out tonight. I haven’t slept in six days. But life isn’t fair, some things can’t be helped, and shut up, all the authority figures from my past who said that to me. There is a strange urge now to make a face in the mirror, and I manage a halfhearted sneer. It’ll have to do.

In particular, I stare at my hair. I haven’t even had a chance to dye it this week. I don’t dye it to get rid of the red I hated so much. No, that took care of itself. At the age of 26, my hair is a uniform dull gray. I reach behind me into the medicine cabinet, looking through the mirror for that disgusting black stuff Chronos gave me. My hand finds and retrieves it with ease and tosses it forwards over my head to my other hand—I have been forced to learn some coordination over the years. Still, I reflect as I begin rubbing the stuff into my hair, avoiding sleep is a good way to avoid remembering more. Some of my recollections, as I said, have cropped up in dreams. The next important time in my life would probably be when my abilities “officially” manifested—when I was 14. Not good times.

Now I apply my makeup. Vampire whiteface, black circles around my eyes, you know the drill. It’s funny because I hate both clichés and Goth culture. Funny. Ha. Ha.

The night is cold, but that’s what the black trench coat is for. I stand on my roof, looking out at the city. I’m going to be late.

No, red is the least of my problems now. I’m done with colors. My life, I think as I jump off the building and slide into the darkness, is in black and white.

Maybe the occasional shade of gray.