I wrote this for the first week of Wordplay on the Geek and Sundry vlog channel (http://tinyurl.com/m66khxp). I decided to repost it here just because.
Life was exciting. It was brimming with opportunities and choices and everything a person could want. That was what Chris always told himself, more than that it was his code. He met life with all of the energy a person could possibly muster.
Until recently.
He didn’t know what happened or how it came about, but the next time he looked, the lights were off. Surely if it had happened suddenly he would have noticed. Black and white in place of color was difficult to mistake. Without a reason, it had happened and Chris, upon noticing it, had no idea what to do.
Carrying on with his usual routine seemed impossible while he was stumbling through this confusing stillness of muted hues and dim lighting.
That was how he found himself here, on this busy street, in the middle of the night. He stood on the sidewalk, traffic speeding around him, city lights rising above him. Chris looked at the sky, fighting the sidewalk traffic attempting to carry him on.
In his hoodie, on a non-descript sidewalk, Chris breathed frantically and searched. He was finished, he couldn’t take the gray any longer. He craned his neck to gaze at the sky and he searched. He didn’t know why—it seemed that he didn’t know much of anything anymore—but his eyes were locked and he knew that the fruit of his search was his key.
Chest heaving, eyes darting, fingers twisting in his pocket, he saw it. Chris almost didn’t recognize it, but after staring at it for an undetermined amount of time, it was unmistakable.
Color.
It was a spot, a little splash, but it was there and it was rich and Chris’s chest lifted when he identified it. Distantly he felt a grin stretch across his face and everything else, his breathing and his heart rate, steadied. Everything was rising and Chris gazed at his color as his world lit up.
He was able to look away from the sky now that the lights were ignited. Chris looked around him and smiled because his world had color again and he found his excitement for the world returning.
The desire to run with life flared up again and Chris’s smile widened because he had it back. He had it all back and he couldn’t wait to pick up where he’d left off.
The lights followed him on his way back home and not once did the color fade.
