✲ true colors ✲ [open]
Sept 8, 2012 1:43:52 GMT -5
Post by Lei on Sept 8, 2012 1:43:52 GMT -5
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
The color of today is black.
It slides off my fingertips in smooth, inky ribbons, drip drip dripping down into the vat of murky dye in a quick, steady rhythm. I watch with vague interest as the ripples spread across the hazy outline of my reflection, contorting the previously flat surface into an ebony kaleidoscope of shapes. The piece of fabric floating within it, barely discernable through the tainted water, is thick and velvety, probably expensive once fully stitched together, and for a moment I wonder if I’m coloring a garment meant to be worn at a funeral.
I lower my hand into the vat and splay my fingers above the colorless water, the pads of my fingers just barely touching the surface. My hand, which had once been smooth and pale, is now stained with colors, as if the many dyes that have seeped into the cracks of my skin over the years have permanently dried there, a faded rainbow of sundry hues. My fingers dance across the cool surface, transforming it into a mess of tiny ripples spreading and clashing with one another. Or maybe… maybe the deceased person themselves will wear it. Maybe I’m dyeing the suit of a dead man. I withdraw my hand from the vat, watching as the surface stilled into obsidian glass once more. As strange as it was, I found myself actually sympathizing with the cloth. A garment painstakingly stitched together and tediously dyed to just the right hue, shipped off and out into the world, only to be place on the chilled corpse of a rich Capitolite and buried six feet beneath the earth until its colors faded and the fabric itself disintegrated. It would have a short, almost meaningless existence in this world. No one would care about or even remember it. Life is so unfair.
It also strikes me that I must be a very morbid person, having immediately thought that the garment would be worn at a funeral instead of, say, a wedding, or at an exclusive party somewhere in the Capitol. Sometimes my outlook on life is as bleak as the vat of dye sitting before me, evident in how it taints the skin of my hands and stains it the color of my frame of mind. How fitting, my job was, yet I still liked it. Sitting among the vibrant colors of the rainbow was a lot better than my life at home. Compared to this place, my house was every shade of gray, as colorless and meaningless as the suit of a dead man.
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
“Mathix!” The voice booms from across the expanse of dye vats before me, and I lift my head to see the rotund form of the overseer fixing me with an icy glare. I blink back at him, confused as to why he’s calling me out, and he responds by making a motion with his hands, closing his fingers around his own wrist and shaking it in the air at me. “Where’s your gloves, boy? The chemicals in these dyes are toxic, how many times do I have to tell ya?” I slump a little at this, as I like the feel of the thickened water on my skin, though I nod and reach for the box of rubber gloves at my side anyway, pulling out a pair and slipping them onto my already soaked hands. I hold them up for the overseer to see, little droplets of black sliding down my forearms and leaving dark trails in their wake. He grunts before turning away to yell at a dyer at the other end of the room.
I heave a sigh and look down at my hands, frowning at the little smudges of black from the dye trapped within the gloves. I don’t like the feel of them- tight and constrained against my skin, the vibrant hues no longer visible beneath the milky-colored gloves. The toxicity of the dyes didn’t bother me in the least, as the prospect of death and the idea of having my whole life ahead of me were one and the same in my mind.
I plunge both hands into the inky darkness, fishing out the thick fabric from the very bottom and pulling it out, draping it over the rim of the vat. I feel a strange heaviness in my left glove, and lift it to my eyes to see that it has filled with black dye, collecting in the fingertips. A tear somewhere, probably. Though I’m tempted to just take it off and relish in the unobstructed feel of the cool black water, I don’t want to be yelled at by the overseer again, so I reach to my right for another glove only to find the box empty. I heave another sigh. Life is unfair, but it really must have a vendetta against me.
There’s another worker sitting not far from me, and I can see their box of gloves sitting directly beside them. I really don’t want to disturb them, as they look busy and the overseer is strict on the “no talking” policy during work hours, but I need gloves. I check first to make sure he’s not looking before leaning toward the worker nearest to me, pointing an uncertain finger at the box at their feet. “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, but…” I cast a quick glance in the direction of the overseer, dark eyes flicking nervously. “…Can you spare a glove? I'm out.”
And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had…
