Pinkitis

It was very difficult to open my eyes. Their heaviness was strict and severe. I felt extremely tired. My yawning was slowly catching up to my breathing. When my vision seemed to finally work, I found darkness for the first time in my life to be ruling with absolute blackness. I closed my eyes to retest my sense of sight and attempt to recollect my thoughts. When I reopened them, darkness had turned into a blinding illumination of pink light that became tolerable only after a long period of adaptability.

The pink clock on the pink wall indicated eight o’clock but failed to show if it was morning or evening. There was no exterior to clarify the situation. There were no windows. Doors were apparently absent as well. My knowledge was a Homo sapient one and thus only a morning knowledge. But I knew that I was naked.

Everything in the room was pink. I felt sick. To my left, I perceived a pink desk with a pink chair. A little further, rested a pink armchair. Next to it, somehow soothing to my senses, stood a pink sound system. I was lying upon comfort in the colour and form of a pink metallic bed whose pink sheets felt as soft as the fur of a fox I once found hurt in the forest and a few weeks later released in vulpine health. To my right, I beheld two pink chairs different in size and shape from the one at the desk, as well as a medium-sized pink table. My new bed, my only friend, was in the middle of the room. I should say the centre since the room was circular. It seemed that I was trapped in a large pink cylinder that luckily was not turning.

I pinched my left arm and it hurt. I screamed and I heard. This was not a one-colour dream but a pink reality. I put my bare feet on the pink floor. It was cold as ice. I looked for some kind of footwear but the floor did not offer anything familiar. I returned my feet to the warmth of the bed and pinched my right arm. It also hurt.

I tried to think back but could not remember anything about my whereabouts before my pink befalling. Three key questions began to nag my mind. Where? Who? Why? Which triggered three possible answers. I was in a nutshell being watched by nut doctors who believed pink to be a nuttiness-healing colour.

To explore my pink shell, I used the pink pillowcases under my head to protect my feet. On the wall, between the desk and the armchair, I discovered a dark pink button. I pressed it, triggering the disappearance of a section in the wall and the revealing of a large closet equipped with an entire wardrobe. Several different pink suits, pink robes, pink hats, pink underwear, pink socks, and a matching footwear selection. I put on a robe and a pair of slippers and went to inspect the desk. Its drawers were loaded with pink paper, pink pencils, and pink pens. Even the freaking ink was deep pink. The sound system seemed singular. Its pinkness reminded me of Piaf’s sentimental song, La Vie en rose. In the system’s pink cabinet, I found pink laser disks with music by Pink Anderson, Pink Floyd, Pink People, and Pink World. I selected Floyd’s The Wall. As the music filled the air, I felt comfortably numb.

I was lying in bed when an opening in the wall near the table suddenly appeared. In came a charming woman who seemed relieved to see me. I stared, enchanted by her gracefulness. Long lion-like hair. Large honey eyes. A sensitive nose. A captivating mouth. A breathtaking smile. What a smile! I could see happiness bathing in it. I could trace, under her pink outfit, a slim sensuous body, worthy breasts, and long legs, with her pink sandals exposing the loveliest toes.

“My name is Vera,” she said with a breaking-wave voice.

I smiled and let myself bathe in her sound with all my senses. She sat on my bed. We talked. Our conversation did not go far since the lighting went out. Its absence was brief but long enough to bring us into each other’s arms.

The table was dressed with food to which we gave our most serious attention. We had a tasty feast that we devoured like civilised beasts. When our hunger receded, Vera told me that she awoke in a room identical to mine. She had entered my room by pressing a dark pink button three times. I was both bothered and burdened by a bodily function that I strove to control. Vera noticed my growing discomfort and asked me about it. Upon finding out the reason for it, she led me towards the closet and pressed a dark pink button twice. Her action triggered the appearance of a smaller pink room in which I fulfilled my deep wet urge. I also took a shower that brought me a different sense of relief. Even the soap was pink. The towels too. Upon my exit from this blessed room, I pressed the dark pink button four times but nothing happened. I found Vera asleep in my bed. I covered her with my pink blanket, pushed the armchair near her, and sat there guarding her hands.

I awoke to her smiling face in which I could trace fondness, unrelenting. Darkness struck us again with its mourning attire and light followed with its pink parade. This time, we consumed the food that the table had presented to us with numerous mannerisms. To help our digestion, we walked to her room, which appeared in all its pinkness. She put on Floyd’s Wish You Were Here disk and lay in bed. I joined her.

Awake, darkness took over light and light hurried back with a pink present. An untitled laser disk was shining in the middle of the table with a pale hue of crimson. Vera inserted it into the player and a magical menacing melody filled her room. Lyrics soon began to accompany the music, which were sung in a very low tone.

Pink is the colour of the soul

And the holiest word of all.

Pink is the essence of the Lord

And the firmament of his ward.

Pink resides between life and death

And may protrude the latter’s strength.

Pink will enlighten your mad mind

And stop the falling of your kind.

We heard Pinkitis, our name for the song, many times over, but the message remained the same. There was much to be fulfilled with our minds to find any whiff of our far from fabulous fateful future. We used our acquired skills, learned techniques, limitless imaginations, and all the pinkness we could fathom. Pink root.

We adopted sixteen ideas in eight months but most of them in the first two. Restless time. Monetary illusion. Fatal alienation. Lethal insanity. Reigning hopelessness. Limpid loneliness. Raging enmity. Constant destruction. Fictitious freedom. Lifelong mourning. Ill-bred sexuality. Short life. Untimely death. Majestic animalism. Natural order. Godlessness. Vera was pregnant.

Following the birth of our baby girl, Pinky, we were moved during our sleep into a larger room equipped for three. Our time from then on was mostly consecrated to raising Pinky and reinventing love. We got used to our pink world but we knew that it was ill. When Pinky was twelve, apparently old enough for them, they took her away from us. Life became unbearable without her. Vera and I decided to act. We hit the pink wall with our pinkish knowledge but it was unbreakable. We then decided to commit suicide. They tried to stop us. But it was impossible to stop two people from killing themselves when they did not exist, especially in a pink desert.

Being only the narrator of this story, there was nothing that I could have done to help them. Engulfed in the desert's parched silence, I was nothing but another grain of [pink] sand in the wind.