Colours

I would have thought that being able to see all the shades of gray would be amazing. I mean, it was a huge step towards getting out of this place. But indeed, it was like stepping out into the light and then having it burn out. Completely less satisfying than it should have been. I bummed around, having nothing to do in that place except for listening to that wonderful CD, swim, and look for more things to do.

"Hayley!" I smiled as I dragged into the small garden centre. My fridge had for some reason been stocked with Philadelphia dip and bagels, and I had started floating less and less, despite the fact that I still looked as thin as ever. Hayley turned away from the dark-haired girl she was talking to and beamed at me.

"Alexa!" I went over to the display of fertilisers they were standing by and hugged her. She pulled away and motioned between me and the other girl.

"Alexa, this is Tori. Tori, this is Alexa." I reached my hand out to shake hers, and she squished her face up in a smile at me and high-fived it, then gave me a thumbs up. I scratched the back of my head awkwardly and she giggled while looking at Hayley, who shook her head.

"She seems to be in a less-than-natural state." I noted, seeing how her eyelids were half-shut. She looked up at me and made a fish face, and then burst out laughing.

"My shift ended dix minut-Os ago, so I gotta fly and find Braden." She waved goodbye to Hayley and I and then made flapping motions with her arms while she walked away. I furrowed my eyebrows, wondering how she could tell time.

"Well, that's Tori for you. She works here too." I nodded and followed Hayley back to her checkout counter so that she could ring an old lady through.

"How did she tell the time? I mean, there's no sunlight to set up a clock with or anything, and The Light never moves." I asked Hayley, completely confounded.

She pointed to the corner of her small computer screen that showed the items scanned. It showed a strange series of numbers, separated by dashes and colans. It was long, with at least eleven numbers in it in total.

"This... Clock-like contraption has been counting since the moment anything ever started. All you need to know is that the end of it is 'days' that have passed in this 'year', and that the fourth series of letters, in between that dash with the colan and that other dash, is 'minutes'. Everything is counted differently than it was on earth though. Ninety-two seconds in a minute, twenty-seven minutes in an hour, forty-six days in a month, thirty-five months in a year, and nobody even bothers to count how many years have passed anymore." She finished scanning the ladies items and I stared dumbfounded at the screen. To me, the numbers made absolutely no sense. Hayley brushed pass me to bag the ladies items, and then handed them to her. Once the lady was gone, she looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

"Why aren't you at work, missy? I know, nobody gets paid or anything since we don't really run by money here, but it's something to do." She looked away from me again as a middle-aged mother and a small boy came up carrying pots of flowers.

"I haven't been given a place to work yet. Maybe the job they have planned for me has some requirements. Maybe I have to actually be able to walk properly, because I'm going to be a construction worker. Or maybe I need to be able to see the colour brown, because I'm going to work in a chocolate factory." I replied, imagining working in a chocolate factory.

"Or maybe you just never check your mailbox. That red flag has been up for seventeen of my shifts, Alexa, and you still haven't checked it!" I put my hands on my hips and frowned at her.

"It's not my fault that I can't see the fucking colour red!" I snapped, and she sighed.

"It kind of is, though. I mean, I actually do stuff, and I can see colours. You sit around all the time, and all you can see is shades. But that's not the point. The point is, you have mail." She said the last part in a robotic voice and I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, okay Hayley. I'll be sure to check that out. I'm leaving now because you're bragging about your colours." I smacked her in the side of the head, and then made a dramatic exit out of the garden centre. Once I stepped outside into the heat of the light, I took off my sweater. The seasons never changed, or at least not from what I could see. It was kind of a shame, since I had always wanted to see snow. But instead I was stuck in the bright light of 'The Light'. The light everyone goes towards when they're dying. The light that was so far off in the distance. And the light that served as a constant reminder that none of the people in this place were good enough to get to it. I hadn't been in the darkness since I had arrived at where I was. It might have been because there were no curtains on any of my windows, or it might have been because there's no way to escape 'The Light'. Either way, I was sick and tired of the bright happiness that was constantly surrounding me. I ran the rest of the way back to my house, and locked myself inside of the bathroom on the lower level, as it had no windows. I didn't even bother to check my mail. I found the razor I had used to shave my legs that morning and removed it from it's plastic covering, revealing the sharp metal edges all around. I then proceeded to flick off the light switch and sat myself inside the bathtub. Normally I would have sat on the toilet cover, but there were no toilets in this world, just bathtubs and sinks.

I inhaled deeply and then brought the razor to my wrist, dragging it slowly across the surface.

I let out the breath, breathed in again, and let it out once more.

Nothing happened.

No wet substance. No pain. I only felt a tiny bit of pressure, kind of like having a bracelet on slightly too tight.

I yelled in frustration and threw the razor down. It clanged and banged and then fell down the open drain.