The Storm

The Storm

There's a certain poetry to colour when you can create it from nothing more than a snap of your fingers or a click of your tongue. You can send blasts of purple from your fingertips or blue smoke-rings from between your lips with the merest sound. Emotions dance in front of you like a painting rearranging itself in the very air you breathe. Twisting, turning and mixing together to create beautiful new colours.

But a picture never really forms. The colours merely tease you mercilessly until you give in to the fact that all you will see are the hues and tints themselves and not the masterpiece they suggest they’ll create for you. There’s always something missing. You could drop a box of clothes on your bed and smile at the soft, sandy yellow that ripples from it. But the smile on your face lingers only for a second as it changes back to the dull, boring colours of the world around you. The second hand of a ticking clock may be constantly followed by a shadow of icy-blue ink but it will never change, never become something substantial, and the magic will eventually fade until you barely realise that it's there.

But it’s always there, and it always will be.

Part One

A Storm Is Coming

1

Hey kid, he said to me. Name?

There was a man behind the counter handing out keys to the students. Every clash of his eyelids forced a puff of green into the air. The forced smile on his face attempted to exude innocence but the stale darkness that burst from the corners of his lips told an entirely different story.

Anthony Clark.

ID? he asked, his lips dyed a sullen corrupt orange.

I showed him the relevant page in my passport. The flick of the pages dancing with silver, and the nod of his head told me he'd seen all he needed to see.

The clash of the key on the desk let out a yellow ochre, close enough to gold that it glittered and sparkled, but far enough away that my mind didn't scoff cliché in my ear. It was cut with browns that suggested the dull nature of the thud.

Flat 5, Room 5, the man behind the counter muttered in murky magenta; the colour of sullied desire. His eyes flickered lecherously up and down my body as I grabbed the key and walked away hurriedly. Hey kid! the man yelled behind me, You need to sign for it.

The colours were all around me. They trickled from people's mouths, hands, the tips of their toes. They all mingled into a muddy brown above their heads. But each and every one of them was oblivious to the cloud of profanity and gossip that culminated. Oblivious to the filth and muck that flowed freely, from the ominous red of a slamming door to the grey of a pen scratching on paper or the nervous violet whispers of the people around them.

I can tell when people are telling the truth and when they are lying from the colours that tumble from their lips. I can tell what their feelings toward another person are. I know if they're happy or sad, if they're in full health or if they're feeling even slightly under the weather. There are certain colours for certain emotions. Happiness is red. Not something I understood when I was younger, given that red has always been followed with connotations of anger or lust or even passion. But happiness is red. If it has the purple tinge of twilight to it, the happiness isn't quite fake but there's a hint of fear lying in hiding.

Worldly sounds have certain colours that change in vibrancy when they're louder or quieter, sharper or softer. A snap of the fingers is a purple, more blue than red, but unmistakably a purple. It darts out of the fingers like a bullet in the direction of the thumb, slows down about a foot away and then suddenly disappears into nothing. A click of the tongue is blue and it curls around the teeth, momentarily dying them a sour lollipop-blue, before the smoke-rings tumble out of the mouth and disappear around the chin. Innocent desire and embarrassment are a bubblegum-pink that explode from between your lips.

I let out a breath of almost invisible blue-purple and turned to face him again. I picked up the pen and scratched grey across the paper next to my room number.

Sorry, I muttered and quickly made my way out of the building. The colours of the outside world were like a breath of fresh air. The bright pinks and yellows that soared out of birds’ beaks as they twittered and danced across the sky were more soothing than they had seemed before. I smiled as the clip of people’s shoes on the pavement brought sky-blue splashes into the world.

The clouds above me were heavy with rain but the darkness barely permeated the excitement of hues swirling around beneath them. A smile curled onto my face as I looked down at my map. I traced the path to my flat with my finger and made my way to what would be my home for my first year of University.

As I stood outside the front door of the flat, the first fat droplets of rain began to fall. They whistled lime through the sky and bounced vivid grass-green off the pavement and roads. A solemn flash illuminated the grey sky. Burnt orange burst through the clouds before I even heard the rumble of thunder that followed. I closed my eyes. I allowed the hues in the world around me to seep under my eyelids and colour in the darkness as I tilted my head back to enjoy the rain.

I reached up and let the drops bounce off my fingers. I opened my eyes and watched the drops turn to aqua thorns before they faded into green, then yellow, then orange as another roll of thunder vibrated through them. I let the colours settle on my tongue before I raised the key and turned it in the lock.

The walls of the corridor were drab and stained with smoke. There were only two exits from the claustrophobic room: a door marked STAIRS and the lift right beside them. The door to the stairs was pale and the lift was so dirty that the gleaming mirror effect was distorted and marred.

Colours had no meaning when they weren't created by sounds. Nothing compared to the beauty and the emphasis that they poured into the world. They painted contrasts with each other, seemed to love and fight and come together as one with even the smallest of whispers or the loudest of screams.

I walked towards the door marked STAIRS. I pushed it open with my shoulder and looked at the poster on the wall.

Ground Floor - Flats 1 & 2

First Floor - Flats 3 & 4

Second Floor - Flats 5 & 6

Third Floor - Flats 7 & 8

With a nervous purple sigh I trudged up the stairs. The lack of coloured noise in the stairwell disturbed me and made me feel more than a little disappointed. I was used to most places having at least some form of colour floating around in the air even if it was just from an expanding pipe or a cooling radiator. But this place was unnervingly silent. I assumed an escape from the colours would be satisfying, relaxing in some way but that was not the case. The butterflies in my stomach fluttered more intensely, forcing regurgitations of purple up and out of my mouth into the stairwell. It was almost like they were trying to help me relax by bringing colour into my world.

As I reached another set of stairs that would take me to the second floor, my foot caught on a ragged edge of one of the steps and it crumbled underneath me. Coils of bright, bumblebee yellow clutched at my ankles and wrapped around my calves. I smiled at the reassuring touch.

With a breath of determination, I carried on up the stairs.

I reached floor two just as another rumble of thunder echoed through the world. The storm was getting closer and I was looking forward to watching the clash of orange and ochre against the windows in my room. Even though I've had this...ability...for as long as I can remember, there are some things that just never get old: a thunderstorm in the summer, the golden bark of a dog or the dark blue of toast jumping out of the toaster in the morning.

The red of a slamming door interrupted my reverie. I looked up into the eyes of a girl roughly the same age as me, wearing a skirt that was slightly too big for her, a jacket that was just too small and a hat with a brim that could have held an ocean.

Hi, she mumbled with a breath of purple laced with red; fear undercut with happiness. I'm Lacey.

Anthony. Or Tony, I replied. Whichever you fancy.

What flat are you in? she asked.

5. Just heading up there now.

Ah, so you got your key from the creepy old guy at reception? she asked, a smile creeping onto her face and her words changing from purple to burgundy as she relaxed a little.

Yes! I replied, instantly more relaxed knowing that we shared something in common, even if it was only the disturbing nature of a lecherous old man. I got a totally weird vibe from him. Got out of there as soon as I could.

Ditto. I'm in flat 5 as well. Room 3. She started to go down the stairs. I've got to get my bags out of the car but I'll see you there in a bit?

Sure, see you.

A smile and a wave later and I was back en route to my flat. I turned the corner and came face to face with a door emblazoned with a rusty 5. I took a deep breath, fished the key out of my pocket and opened the door.

I was greeted with silence. I don't think you can understand how heavy a silence could be until coupled with the complete and utter absence of colour. The fact that not one thing in a room is making the slightest noise or causing the slightest vibration of sound in the air is terrifying. You're hit with a wall of nothing that seems to push you backwards. The only way you can force yourself to move forward is to cause something to make a noise; cough, close the door, rattle your fingers along the cold radiator; anything just to send a trickle of colour into the air. I did all of those things, just so I could bring myself to put one foot in front of the other. Once the colours burst into the air I began to move with grim determination.

I found my room around the corner at the end of the hallway. I slid my key into the lock and turned it. I smiled at the mauve click and pushed the door open.

I took a glance around my room. It was a good size: big enough that I could fit all of my stuff in, not too big that I would feel trapped by any gaps in the colour. The double bed was on the right in a small cubbyhole, the end of it sticking out into the room. I'd change that later so it was flush against the wall and I could have a corner where I could stack up my pillows, wrap my duvet around me and read until the small hours of the morning. Directly beside the entrance to my room – on the right as I walked in – was a small door that opened into a very small bathroom with a shower built into the side of the wall. I turned on the shower and fist-pumped as the room was filled with powerful jets of grass-green that bounced enthusiastically off the floor. There's nothing worse than trying to wash yourself when the water is trickling out, powerless, stammering from hot to cold as you stand there. I turned around and looked for a light switch but it was nowhere to be found. I stuck my hand out of the bathroom door and clawed at the wall. I finally found a switch that kicked fluttering light into the room. A stuttered brown hum spread out to the four walls as the extractor fan tried its hardest to remove the steam from the shower but ultimately failed.

That would get annoying.

I went back into the bedroom and checked out everything else. There was a tall oak wardrobe to the right hand side of my bed. It reminded me of the gateway to Narnia which brought a smile to my face. There were shelves adorning the walls on the left hand side of the room which were just screaming at me to fill them with books until they were almost buckling under the weight. A chest of drawers sat next to them which matched the wardrobe and beside that was a long desk with a corkboard plastered to the wall above it. It all matched. It was, all in all, quite a stunning room. It was much fancier than my last University accommodation had been.

A fork of lightning lit up the sky outside my bedroom and threw a splash of orange against my window. The sound of the thunder followed and a smile burst onto my face. I jumped onto my bed and lay back with my hands folded behind my head, watching the storm rise to its peak. The colours smashed against the window. The noise made the glass vibrate and sent ripples of fiery orange into the room. I raised my hand and let it curl around my fingers and trickle down my throat before it dissipated. I inhaled slowly and savoured the moment, basking in glorious nature.

When I was younger the ferocity of a storm used to terrify me so much that I made my parents install blackout blinds in my room. It didn't stop the ripples of fire but it did put an end to the raging vortex of colours ripping through my skull. I remember one time when we were on the beach and a storm was brewing. The peals of thunder began so far away that the only reason I knew they were there were the flashes of orange on the horizon. I ran to my mum and told her that we needed to go home because the thunder and lightning was going to get me. She told me I was being stupid and that I should sit and watch the storm; the only way I'd get over my fear was to face it head on. I cried for about an hour straight but once I saw through the monster-shaped clouds I noticed an elegance that I hadn't seen before. A staccato tango that the sky put on show for the rest of the world to see. I lay back on the soggy sand, let the rain wash over my face and played the obedient, rapt audience, the applause just waiting to burst out of me.

My trip down memory lane was interrupted by a dark red knock on my door.

Anthony? Lacey shouted through the door. You want a coffee?

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, stretched magnificently and went to open the door. Lacey was standing there, covered from head to toe in bags, a suitcase in tow and a handbag wrapped around her neck.

A coffee? You sure you don't want a hand first? I said with a laugh.

Sure, she giggled pinkly. That’d be good.

I took the bags from her hands with a warm smile and followed her round the corner and into her room. It looked like she'd been there for months: posters covered every inch of the walls, photos and paintings adorned the corkboard wall and the cupboard door. Her study notes had already been printed out and were stacked clumsily on the desk.

Nice place you've got here, I said, slapping myself internally for the clichéd stock response.

Thanks! she said with more fervour than was necessary. I totally could have left it bare and boring you know but then it just wouldn't be me and I really can't stay in a place that doesn't show some of my personality you know? It just wouldn't be right and we're going to have to live here for a whole year, you know, so we have to make it our own and stuff. You know?

The ramble that came out of her mouth was bubblegum-pink laced with lowlights of purple. I frowned, not knowing whether the pink indicated affection or coyness. This was a downside of my 'ability'; I had no way to block out what people thought about me. There’s something too invasive about knowing that someone possibly finds you attractive, especially after only knowing them for collectively less than five minutes. What’s even worse than that is when you mistake embarrassment for affection. Then you’re the one breathing bubblegum-pink for the rest of the day.

Sure. Give me a couple of days and mine will be covered in...well, books.

Big reader then? she asked as she added the bags in her hand to the tremendous pile that had already accumulated on her bed. I used to read all the time when I was younger but I just don't seem to have any time for it anymore, you know? Painting and studying are all I’ve had time for the past few years. She unwrapped the handbag from around her neck and placed it meticulously dead-centre on the desk. You got a favourite book?

Uh, none that spring to mind. Where do you want these?

Just dump them anywhere.

I placed them on the floor next to the bed and then rested back against the desk.

Now. Coffee?

Why not...

After you!

2

The Perks of Being a Wallflower? she asked, taking a sip of her coffee. I don't think I've ever read that one.

Contrary to what I had thought, Lacey wasn't all that bad. She was, undeniably, a bit of an airhead and she made coffee by putting the milk in before the hot water but she was funny. She could definitely keep a conversation going and she was deceivably intelligent. There was something infectious about her pink laugh and she seemed to be genuinely interested in the things that I had to say.

I took a sip of my coffee as I stared at her incredulously. My shock was enough to forget to blow on the drink and it scalded my tongue.

Ow! I said as my tongue throbbed. I massaged it with my finger as Lacey laughed and ran to get me a glass of cold water. How can you not have read Perks?! I exclaimed. It's incredible!

What's it about?

"This kid called Charlie who’s starting high school. He struggles to fit in so he writes these letters to an anonymous person and he starts to make friends and gets dragged into a world of drugs and stuff. And he’s troubled but you don’t find out why until the end. It’s so hard to explain but it’s just incredible. You have to read it."

Fair enough. Isn't that a film now? Couldn't I just go and see that?

"Uh, no! The film is brilliant, it really is but you have to read the book first. It’s just perfect."

Okay! Okay, I'll read it, jeesh.

You better, I said, feeling for a second that I was being a bit pushy after having only met this girl a half hour ago. Sorry, it's just –

Incredible? she asked with a sarcastic smile.

Yeah...

Well, I'll keep an eye out for it.

I