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“But I am trapped, too. We are all victims of the masks we wear, the roles we play, our lives nothing more than poorly scripted parts in a play written by those with the ultimate power, the overseers, the decision makers. Every cog fits, everyone has their place, desired or not, everything runs smoothly like a well-oiled machine.
But even machines can break down.”
(lilimist/Narcissism)

A multi-layered, magical-realist style short story. On the surface, it’s about an ephemeral relationship between two quiet school girls. Some memories — some colours — don't ever fade.

{ first written & released by Vixen Phillips in 2000 }

Forever questioning reality; it seems my only purpose in this grey wasteland, devoid of colour, light, and…

But my memory nags me. Feelings nag me, so within reach, but locked away, safe, in the place I bury all things of meaning.

I remember, still.

What it was, to dream.

How it was, to live, and see colour, and dance in the rain.

What it meant, to have hope.

But I can only unlock such memories in my safe-haven of complete and utter aloneness.

For when I remember such things, sometimes, I cry.

I remember…her face.

✿ ✿ ✿

I was always so trapped, like a bird in a cage, both behind my own mask and that forced upon me by society, gender, age, colour, religion. White trash. Slut. Girl next door. Lesbian. Tomboy. Devout aethiest.

Never more so, however, than when they slammed the gates of my mind behind me, each and every morning I set foot inside that school yard. An Orwellian landscape of cloned faces and bodies, other girls, girls I could not reach, girls I would not reach for even were I drowning, uniformed in that same dull grey which now permeates my five senses.

I expected that I would die, in a place such as this. Attacked or ignored, understood by none, I drifted, lost, alone, dreaming up new and more elegant methods of self-disposal, ending the endless cycle, creating meaning, getting my revenge, my pointless, soulless, uncared-for vengeance upon those who had never bothered to see, and would never care.

Learning their lessons, administered with the cold perfection and pure apathy of those who were well-versed in teaching them, breaking in a silent corner of my mind, my despair the only blanket to keep me safe.

I had always denied it, at that time. But in reality, their reality, I knew already. I was shattered, like glass.

This was neither the time nor place in which I would have expected to come upon her.

The morning she stepped into my prison cell, my class, was the first time I ever truly saw colour. And the dream…breathed.

✿ ✿ ✿

I tried my hardest not to stare, tried my best to hide, to pull the broken shards up around my body, wishing I might bleed to death, wishing to disappear.

Useless, it was useless. Panicked, somehow I knew, she saw truth regardless.

She saw truth…because she was truth.

Hair of pale spun gold and blue, eyes almost as dark and as deep as the night itself, and a tiny porcelain frame, a smile of innocence, purity, light…

Her entire self; just watching her, guarded, I could feel such warmth…

Her name, she told us, was Ophelia, which I promptly scribbled on a page in my notebook, for some reason unknown.

I still have it now, in perfect lettering, the script of the insane, adorned with three tiny roses, hanging upon the wall of my cell.

I think I knew, the moment I met her, I would lose her.

I think I always knew, that someone like her could not stay in a place like this.

And the glass cut through my hands with a bloody, dreadful clarity as I realized they would take her from me.

✿ ✿ ✿

“Dreams,” she said to me, “your dreams are so beautiful. I wish you would take me there, one day.”

The Colour of a Dream by lilimist   Page 1 of 4   writing

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