Spectrum Rebellion

ii.

 ii.

Explaining why I had been late home to my parents was hard. Firstly, my father smacked me across the face for trailing coloured paint into the house, insisting that I took at least five years off his life for the fear of the police catching us with green and yellow stains in his carpets. After I had cleaned it all up, I had to tell them why I was covered in said coloured paint. I said the unforgivable word 'colour' once to describe the hues of the paint and how the van had spilled it all by accident, so my mother kindly hit me round the head with her cookery book, bruising the top right of my forehead. If she had hit much harder, she would have probably knocked me unconscious. I then told her I helped the driver and called the ambulance for him. That regained some respect for me and my mother gave me a curt nod, before sending me upstairs so I could have a bath and then go to my room. It felt rather childish, I found, because she was treating me like an eight year old instead of a seventeen year old. I was nearly an adult and she was using punishments that you would use on a small child. But I didn't argue, because my dad's belt wasn't that far away and besides, it was much better being alone in my room than having company in the kitchen.

I went upstairs and started to run my bath, before undressing myself and stepping into the water, the warmth spreading through all the way through my body, right to the tips of my fingers and toes. There were no mirrors in the bathroom; there was only one mirror in the whole house and it was in the hallway downstairs. It was very small and hard to look at your reflection in it, as to make sure we weren't being vain, which was selfish and went against humanity's way of life.

Sinking below the water, I looked up. I didn't care about how my eyes stung from being open underwater, because I was deep in thought. I was thinking about that green haired boy. He had looked young from where I had been perched on the van, but the way he stood and stared reminded me of someone who seemed to have a very athletic and experienced demeanour, ready to pounce or run. He seemed to be quite tall and very thin, lean almost. I knew for certain he was a Spectrum Rebel, as no abnegated person would have dyed their hair a faded shade of green. Hair dye was an illegal substance altogether, period. The way he blended into the shadows as if he were made of darkness also fascinated me. If I hadn't had been so full of adrenaline because of helping the unconscious man, I would never have noticed him. It had been the pale skin that had given him away. Besides that, he was almost invisible. It was as if he had placed himself especially, according to the light, so he could watch me deal with the driver.

That thought made me suck in a breath nervously, inevitably swallowing water. My eyes flew open and I started to choke so I sat up quickly, spraying water all over the bathroom, creating small waves in the bath. I gasped for air, my lungs burning as I tried to refill them with actual oxygen once more. My throat stung as I coughed up the water, my eyes watering and stinging. My hair was plastered to my face, so I parted it and pulled it over my shoulder. It certainly felt long, but I wasn't quite sure just how long. I would need a full-length mirror to accurately see it for myself - which was something only some Spectrum Rebels made for themselves.

Once I managed to breathe easily again, I started to shiver, deciding that the water had gotten too cold and my fingers too wrinkled. So I carefully clambered out of the bath and wrapped my cold body in a white towel, which was scratchy and quite uncomfortable. I padded into my bedroom and got changed into a grey t-shirt and black jeans that I would wear until I had to go to bed at precisely eight o'clock.

But as I sat myself down on my bed, towelling my hair dry, I couldn't shake the thought of the spilled paint out of my head. I really wanted some, and I was determined to get some...but how? I sighed and placed my hands on my lap. The scene would have been taped off and left there to be dealt with by the Disposal Unit and the council in the morning. Some of the tins of paint had been intact when they rolled out of the back of the van. The council of the town wouldn't start clearing up the road until at least daybreak. I had a lot of time to go and steal some paint from the scene. I had more than enough. But there was no way I was going to be able to get to it. My parents would hear me exit the house and I would be given a bruise to match the one on my head so fast I wouldn't have made it to the end of the front path. My parents genuinely scared me sometimes and the thought of what they would do to me if they found I had coloured paint frightened me. It wasn't worth thinking about.