Colour

Colour.

It’s what draws her to it, her hands digging through the dust to reach it before it disappears again.

Colour.

Something she hasn’t seen in so long, something she hasn’t believed she would see again.

Colour.

Something she hasn’t dared to hope for, for what feels like eons now. Everyone around her tells her to stop daydreaming, to stop lingering in the past. Everyone around her seems to have given in to their grey, blank existence.

Her mother often tells her she needs to stop dreaming, that she needs to throw herself into the terrible art of surviving.

It would be easier if she could.

Except, every time she closes her eyes, she remembers the world as it was. She shakes her head, she doesn’t like to think of that day, the day when everything changed, when the world that was full of so many vibrant wonderful things suddenly turned grey. A tear snakes down her cheek as she recalls watching the colour seep away, the verdant green of the trees, the bright blissful blue of the sky, the reds and pinks of the flowers in her garden, all flittering away.

Like dust.

Dust which covers every surface, burying the world so deep in grey that its too easy to drown in despair.

Her mother hates it when she talks like this. Its on these days that she reminds her that they’re still alive and that they need to keep it that way. Her mother talks of survival and little else.

But she, she dreams of colour, of a world when there was more than just surviving, a world which was full of small, beautiful things. The pinks and golds of the sky as the sun rose. The sparkling blue of the lake in their park. The twinkling dots of yellow blossoms scattering the grass. A world where terrible things felt far away.

A childish dream, her mother says.

Yet, here she crouches cradling colour delicately in her hands. She looks around furtively to make sure she’s alone, she often is. Everyone else is out, hunting for food and supplies. She should be at the cabin where its safe. Her mother doesn’t want her to be out here, she fears that she too will drift away like so many others before.

In another life it would be maddening. In this one, however, her mother’s request does make sense, the world is a far more dangerous place than it used to be and likely she shouldn’t be out here alone. But as always, she has found a way to sneak away to try and find some ounce of serenity. It’s reckless, she knows that, but sometimes in that cabin, the air is too thick with tension and the waiting becomes too much. Out here, in the open air, she can breathe, she can find some peace.

Among other things.

The evening sun glints off of the object in her hands and she flinches slightly unused to such brightness now. Casting a wary eye around her, she quickly covers the item in her gloved hands. It could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

In the right ones though it could be enough.

A reminder of what the world used to be.

A reminder of what it could be if everyone stopped fighting, stopped simply surviving and remembered what it was to work together, to live, to create a world full of wonder and beauty. On the darkest of days, she wonders if her mother was right, if that world does only exist in her dreams.

If it did, she wouldn’t hold this object in her hands.

A golden heart shaped locket shining away in her grasp.

She doesn’t dare open it for fear of breaking this remnant of the past. Instead, she ponders how it came to be here. Was it dropped by people fleeing in a hurry? Tossed aside by someone trying to forget a love lost? Did it belong to whoever lived in this cabin before them? Do they miss it? Do they still have the people whose photographs are tucked inside?

Her heart aches in her chest. So many people lost as the dust descended. She clutches the locket to her chest. Its not hers and they’re not her photos inside but she knows who her pictures would be of. Everyone has people who are now just memories in this afterwards life. Everyone has people left who they are clinging too.

Remnants of a life they had all once lived.

She strokes her thumb over the fragile little clasp knowing she’ll never open it. She wouldn’t want to disturb or lose the pictures inside, proof that they had been cherished enough for someone to need a photograph and to need to keep it by their heart.

Its bad enough that someone has lost this in the first place.

She wonders if they miss it.

And then, another thought, much more dangerous crosses her mind. What if she could find them and return this little locket? She knows immediately what her mother would say, that’s it just another foolhardy pipedream and not worth the risk. But she remembers a time of colour and of kindness.

She looks up around her at the tall black pines cutting into the white sky then down at the fine grey dust coating the floor, then finally at that glimmer of gold in her palm. With her mouth set in a thin line she turns and hurries back into the cabin stopping immediately as she sees the cut glass of the mirror.

Her clothes are black and dusty, blending in with the world around them. A colourless life.

Except that’s not the case. There’s the deep chestnut brown of her hair. The honey colour of her eyes. The pink flush in her cheeks.

Colour.

She brings the locket up to the mirror, watches the gold dance in the reflection and nods to herself. She knows that the world will never what it was, but perhaps its not also the same as what they say. She holds colour in her hands for the first time in years and the daydreams no longer seem so far away.