Indigo Gerber d5 ~FIN~

Indigo lay on his back on the slant of the roof, the sky above a deep blue intertwined with light and black. The wind swirling through the air and then the stars, shining bright, roaring, spinning forever and ever in the void. The endless dance of eternity. In his hands he held an hourglass turned on its side, equal amounts of sand in both sides.

Is that what it meant to be immortal? Unhindered by the passage of time? Eyes burdened by dark circles stared back at him from the glass. Infinity. That’s what he held in his palms. The pendulum swung in his chest and he laughed at the absurdity of it all, exhaling unspoken desires into an unforgiving world.

The smoke from the paper cylinder betwixt his fingers curled upwards approvingly, unlike his mother about the state of his scruffy facial hair. A shave was needed, she insisted every time she saw him. But there were just so many other more important things to do.

Under his jacket, the letter he’d received burned a hole past pale skin and ribs, nestling in his soul like a tiny painted bird in the center of a cuckoo clock. Cog or key.

That was the question.

The real question.

It was a simple equation really, but simple problems were the hardest to solve.

They required common sense.

Which meant they were in actuality complex.

Take art for instance. Anyone could paint a picture. But only those that understood that art was emotion x imagination could create something stunning. He supposed gardening was art in a way, but he did not approve of the hydrangea bushes his mother had planted all around the house.

There was something missing in their aesthetic, though he had yet to discover what.

---

Nyks. Nyx. Nox.

The name  slithered through his mind.

An old name, one with meaning. Anyone who took the time to study the dead languages of the ancient world would know the goddess of the night. Always hiding in the spaces in between, enveloping the district, lurking in the hearts of men. The living darkness. A scientist would tell you that in atmospheric chemistry it was the generic term for nitrogen oxides, the ones relevant for air pollution.

Nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide; every power plant and oil drill seemed to birth them, creating smog and acid rain, clawing at the troposphere's ozone with spindly fingers. Perhaps the heaviness that hung in the air wasn’t as bad as what the endless factories in district nine surely produced, but it had to come close.

Certainly, he’d read a book on the subject.

But which was the man? Poison? Forgotten deity?

Both?

He knew about the possession charge. But why bring it up? 

It wasn't blackmail. Not in the slightest. 

Genius, the ink had declared. It was true, obviously, even if it was an unveiled attempt to stroke his ego.

Indi. Overly familiar for a stranger to use. Then again, as a childless socialite turning to internships to find an heir, understandable. Not even his parents called him that. Indigo, the oft unloved stripe in the rainbow, sandwiched between blue and violet, both and neither. Better to use the nickname his peers had given him.

The Professor.

Indi. It crunched between his teeth like a greasy potato chip. Familiarity bred contempt as the saying went. The audacity of it all clutched at his eyes and twisted them upwards. Surely someone else could see how unremarkable the whole of district five was. It was a void. And only a few constellations shone in it.

So terribly, terribly few.

His thoughts drifted through the rest of the letter. Munchies. Wanna. Slang left a bad taste in mouth, not unlike brussel sprouts. We must be better than that, Mr. Nox. The desire to consume carbohydrates and essential fatty acids after freeing one’s mind was necessary to keep the body going.

It was voracious hunger in fact. Surely one could understand never feeling full. Wanting to consume everything in front of you like a burning furnace. Food for thought. He inhaled the fire, the lifeblood of the universe itself and turned the hourglass on one end, watching the sand trickle away, collecting at the bottom to become one single moment frozen in time.

Yes, he wanted to teach. To mold young minds, take them to new heights. But there was time enough for that. For all of it. The offer in the letter awoke something in him, piqued his interest. Hands on experience at a million-dollar company.

The chance to own it.

The prize itself didn’t interest him, he had no need for money, power or fame. But the game did. Proving your worthiness. Locked in a mansion for a year with an unspecified number of fellow interns.

A chance to prove that he really was the best the district had to offer. Trivial. Stunningly trivial if the other interns were normal and thus uninteresting. And yet, there was a faint hope in the back of his mind, that maybe, just maybe someone else in his pitiful excuse for a district could actually be worth talking to.

It went without saying that he'd have to be able to keep the conversation going first. Indigo stood, inhaling the crisp night air, and spread out his arms like a conductor, bowing to an unseen audience and making large sweeping movements with the hourglass. 

"Yes! Brilliant! Love it when I do that. Decision time. Haha! Of course!" Why wouldn't he? This was the opportunity of a lifetime!   I'm Indigo Gerber!  Nice to..." his head drooped as his right hand opened and closed on empty air. Indigo's sense of self-importance deflated as he started to think about what living with other people; strangers, was going to require. 

God, he hated small talk. 

The only thing worse than shooting the breeze was iambic pentameter.

Indigo shook his head, wobbled and promptly fell off the roof.

---

Watching sand spill out of the broken hourglass by his head, he decided that hydrangea bushes weren’t so bad after all, though the one crushed under the weight of his body would definitely need to be replaced. Good thing his parents were working late; though he could hear a nosy neighbor opening their window to no doubt complain about the sudden noise.

"Let's try this again. How is the weather? People talk about the weather right?" he mused, ignoring the lights that were turning on up and down the street.

The night sky had no response for him.