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ROOM 8143

A 10-minute short story of Creative Fiction.

By Cameron DeWitt RuizPublished 3 years ago 6 min read
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ROOM 8143
Photo by Hugues de BUYER-MIMEURE on Unsplash

If you would prefer to watch or listen to this story, click here for the accompanying YouTube video.

ROOM 8143

David always loved the color blue.

“Blue comes in an incredible number of intoxicating daily shades,” he would proudly state anytime someone inquired about his favorite. “How could anyone not love blue?”

Blue could be as bright as a mid-summer desert sky, which hadn’t seen a cloud for more than a few weeks.

It could be a darkness mistaken for blackness, like the deepest depths in the canyons of the oceans cavernous floor.

Blue could be as light, as fresh, as new, as an unborn human baby boy being celebrated five months before it’s due.

It was as powerful as the tears of a nation. Mourning and weeping for the deaths of innocent people who fell from the sky with the towers on 9/11. Trapped inside.

Blue can reek of sadness so strong, it chokes you.

Or it can be the happiness, the warmth, the feeling of joy. The joy of life itself. Like, when you laugh so hard water flows away from its home in your eyes. Creates a rampant river, running down your face, guided only by the pores of your cheeks.

Memories, even.

Blue can be the color of memories. Like the first time your soul was penetrated by those piercing blue eyes. Those eyes. His eyes. The vibrant, fantasy blue, eyes you thought were only ever found in novels that can make a groin pulsate with lust.

Blue can take on a life of its own. Morph into the stunning pigment of the stone made famous by Indigenous Americans whom once populated the southwest. Turquoise.

It can also be the color of royalty. Of wealth. Many queens throughout history could be described as having an affinity for the elegant designs of royal blue clothing. The receipts being in pictures and paintings of past royal fashion.

Blue could be anything.

Everything.

The shimmer in a peacock feather. The egg of a robin. The uniform of a cadet or, even, as the mascot of a Navy.

It could be light or dark. Life or death. Happiness, sadness.

“The versatility of blue is astounding.” David would affirm, smiling. “That’s what makes it so beautiful. So special.”

He adored everything about blue.

After his mom died of ovarian cancer, David’s thoughts about blue changed. His perspective switched. Shifted, into something new. Something dark. Scary. Something more sinister.

His dreamlike visions of blue were replaced by real life images from the last two years of his mothers life. And the more time he spent at the hospital with her, the more he began to see blue for what it actually was…

…The calmness in the air accompanied by - suffocating under - the impending loom of death.

It was the low, gentle, hum of machines whirring, purring, and beeping. Some even with blue lights indicating their crucial role in assisting with someone’s breathing. Keeping someone’s loved one alive.

Someone. Like his mother.

Blue was the clack, click, clack sound of the nurses’ powder blue, kitten heels making their way down the obnoxiously long corridors, to deliver another fresh round of truths to family members of the soon-to-be departed. Truths David did not want to hear. Truths about his mothers life expectancy. Truths that he wished were just cruel lies of some unfathomable joke.

The blue of those shoes never carried with them good news.

He’d start preparing for the next wave of depression anytime he heard the heels coming around the corner. Towards Room 8143. His mothers room.

Click, clack. Click, clack.

The mention of blue, now, made David remember her bed. Made him think of all the precious time she had lost to that bed. Its’ hard, white sheets, and cold, melancholy blue knitted blanket that kept her warm. But not warm enough to keep her from shivering towards the end.

The nurses’ uniforms - the scrubs - were heavy with blue too. In fact, more often than not, they were completely blue. Except for the occasional draw string, or the few times a nurse would wear those pearly white gloves to safely, take blood. To perform more invasive tests that would never save his mothers life.

Or, on the special days, like holidays, when the hospital staff would mostly all wear patterned, lively scrubs. The vibrant colors symbolizing today was a day to celebrate. To be happy. A stinging reminder for the patients and families that they were not at home together, celebrating whatever occasion the day these fun and happy scrubs, were calling for.

The days that stung like a jellyfish wrapped around your heart. Nursing itself.

The days the nurses stood out even more, when standing against the backdrop of the hospitals bedroom windows. The windows, which had been painted a grayish-blue tint, calming the swath of colors from the outside world, but that, at night, made room 8143 glow like the water of a shallow pool. The neon blue light from the hospital sign two floors above, ripping through the glass, into the room, and reflecting onto the surrounding curtains of the bed. Which were, otherwise, an uncontaminated shade of perfectly blank white. God-like white.

The hopeful blue glow of help, a sad nightly reminder of where his mother was living.

Dying.

Blue was the color of isolation.

The shade of David’s mom’s lips as she struggled for breath during the last few days of her life. Unable to retain heat even under the pile of extra blankets the night nurse had brought. The excessive extra amount of blue blankets.

During those last few nights, face drained of life’s color, her lips were the same pale purple-blue as Rose’s (from Titanic). When she nearly froze to death, on a floating door from the wreckage, and released her dead soulmate into the iceberg infested deep blue waters of the North Atlantic.

David had learned to hate blue.

Despised it for all its shades of loneliness, quiet and sorrow.

Resented it for the searing memories of his dying mother he had been left with.

Blue, now burned inside his soul with the raging intensity of red. Like the heat of an uncontrollable forest fire igniting the land with the crimson shades of Hell.

The meanings for blue David held dear were eviscerated over those last two years. Blown apart like the lives of people living within blast radius of an atomic bomb.

Blue, was bad. Horrific in all its shades.

Following the funeral, David’s favorite color became black.

Black was nothing if not the color of unknown, undefinable nothingness. The only color left in his heart. The sole color of his dreams. Of the nightly nightmares that made him soak his sheets with hot sweat.

Black…had no expectations.

Black was infinite.

Complete.

Unlike, the once limitless, versions of blue David used to preach about. Rave over.

The color that made him smile freely when it crossed his mind.

For David, the magnificence and wonder of blue died along with his mother. Dissipated into thin air with the last, cold, crushing exhale, released from his mother’s slightly parted, pale blue lips. Her dead, Kate Winslet lips.

He wished he could forget the fascination he once had for blue. Forget all of its ugly memories.

Time would only tell if that was possible. If his future contained that kind of peace.

Had he still believed in God after the death of his mother - that’s what he would have prayed for. Asked for. Begged for.

To forget the sadness and pain of blue.

Blue.

The wretched shades of blue.

-- SEPTEMBER 2020 --

WATCH: Author Reads Original Short Story - Room 8143

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About the Creator

Cameron DeWitt Ruiz

I am just 1

Of more than 7 billion perspectives,

Living in a world

Of Social Constructs

🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️

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