Red. Yes, that’s the color he sees everywhere.
He sees it when he wakes up. The color
red first appears on his eyelids. This is the moment when his eyes are still
closed. Even before he realizes that he is awake, he sees his red, warm
eyelids. And when he opens them, still not realizing that he’s awake, or going
to be awake, he sees the world spreading around him in full blooming red.
Earlier, he used to think that the red
began from his red eyes. And from his eyes, that red radiated into the world.
But now he knows that it’s not that complicated. The red is simply everywhere.
It is omnipresence.
Upon waking up, he sometimes looks at the
windows. There are five – all red French windows. Some mornings, he finds them
all open, and through them red morning breeze pours into the room. And on
other, more frequent, occasions, he looks at the red ceiling, which requires no
effort. Today, when he woke up, he looked at the ceiling. He thought it was
wet. It must be due to the hard red rainfall last night. The red rainwater
sipped into the ceiling and turned it wet and muddy. On some places of the
ceiling, there are still red puddles that are slowly threatening to drip and
wet his bed. Maybe, the bed is already wet now. Since he is outside now,
sitting on the porch and looking out into the red grass fields, he is not
giving his bed any thought. Throughout the grass fields, little red flowers
have blossomed. Some of them are shining lazily in the red sunlight. While
looking at those flowers, he sips from his red cup. The red liquid goes slowly
down his esophagus. On the way to his stomach, the liquid evaporates bit by
bit. The vapors come out of his throat while more of that red liquid skids
inside. Some of that vapor settles on his tongue, being soaked into the saliva.
And the rest simply comes out and goes back into the cup. As a result,
finishing a cup takes long hours. But he is okay with that. He has got
habituated with this routine. In fact, the longer it takes to finish all the
liquid in the cup, the better he considers his mornings. How today’s morning is
going to be is yet to be known.
When he finishes drinking the liquid,
taking less time than yesterday, he stands up. He has started to feel the
liquid spread through his system. And that must be turning his gut red all over
again. He needs to take a stroll now. He stands on the edge of the red porch
and then jumps down into the red grass fields. It takes exactly 43 seconds
for his feet to touch the grass down below. Once he gets back his balance, he notices
that he has squashed some of the red flowers. He shrugs and starts walking. He doesn’t
care where he steps. He just walks. Until evening starts to set in and the sun
vanishes behind the red horizon, he just walks.
Night takes a little longer to appear
today. He notices this anomaly, but decides to ignore the matter. And when
night has fully spread throughout, he starts looking for his home again. The
red home appears some yards behind him and once he sees it, he goes inside.
During the nighttime, the omnipresent red
takes a lighter shade. It still remains darker in some places though. For example,
under his bed and the last page of the book he read last.
He
doesn’t have to look at those places to know that. He knew it the moment he
entered his room. Pale red light is afloat in every corner. Even his skin is
losing its color, turning slowly and slowly into an unknown shade of red. This is
nothing new. His skin takes a different shade of red every time he goes to
sleep and a different one the moment he wakes up. His skin is just as aware as
he is. It is time.
He picks up the book lying open, face
down on the bed. The pages have soaked the red from the bedspread, which is
bad. Now the pages and the letters are of the same shade of red and so he can’t read a
single word. With a sigh, he closes the book and slides it under the bed. Under
the bed, the book disappears into the still darker red – a place best known for forgotten
things.
He takes off his shirt, which is as pale
as the red in the room. He smooths the crevices on his chest, and by doing so
he releases a different shade of red – reminiscent of the book that is now lost
under the bed. That red tries to fight the red of his skin, it almost wins, he
hears applauds from under his bed, looks down at this feet – a different shade
of red now. Just as the applaud ends, his skin takes over and gets back to the
shade of red it previously was.
With another, redder sigh, he lies down
on the bed on his back. Now it’s the bedspread’s turn to try to change the red
of his skin. Until his skin wins, again, he is unable to rest. The thing they don’t
understand is that, the more a red is connected to a red beating heart the stronger
it is, regardless of its shade.
He turns on his side, looks at the red
wind-charms tinkling a red tune in the red breeze filling the red night. The tune
is soothing in a way that it makes him remember the red, little flowers he saw
in the morning. The flowers are gone now, now replaced by blood red buds. Morning
will set them free, once again.
He tries to remember something that he
promised not to forget. But what is it? All that pops up in his mind is a red
star – the most beautiful star he has ever seen. Its red has a hypnotic effect
on him, and he falls asleep. In his dream, he wakes up in a red room, booming
with red sunlight.
