Writing project, August 2020

This month’s word is colourful, meaning “having intense colour or richly varied colours” or “vivid, rich, or distinctive in character”.

This one is late again, sorry!

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Everything’s so bright. I don’t remember it being so bright before. So… vibrant. Mostly what I remember before is a sort of muddy darkness, shades of brown, black and grey. This… colour is new, to me, anyway. I wonder what they’ve done to me this time.

As usual, I can’t move, just see and hear. I have a vague feeling that I used to be able to meet be, not a memory exactly, just a niggling thought that says “it used to be different”.

I wait, because that’s my only option. I try reaching out mentally, but there’s nothing there. I try speaking, but nothing happens. It’s just so much colour, and a low buzzing sound in my ears. Or at least I assume it’s in my ears. I can’t feel anything, but I can see and hear, so I must have eyes and ears, right?

I think I should feel panicked, should struggle to move, should be panting or gasping for breath, but instead there’s nothing but the colours and the noise.

After a long time I hear a voice.

“Can you hear me? Can you hear me?”

I shout yes but no sound emerges.

A second voice speaks.

“It’s no use, I told you. There’s nothing left. Just switch it off.”

“But what if…”

“It’s just a hybrid anyway. It’s already had two lives, if you can call this one living.”

“But what if I could repair it?”

“It’s not worth the effort. There are more important things to spend your time on. Just switch it off.”

I’m screaming and screaming but still not making a sound. And then click! The buzzing goes away, the colours go away, the voices go away, and it’s just me, screaming and screaming, all alone in the silent dark.

© bardofupton 2020