Bleeding Color

It begins and ends with a dream. She wakes in dusty darkness, her fingers clutching on a quilt she bought because it was a splash of color in a monochrome city and she wanted it for herself. Now it's become a splash of color in a monochrome life and she'd get rid of it if only she could.

Nobody's buying color anymore because it's bleeding into their fledgling city and it's bleeding into their lives. Most importantly it's bleeding into her dreams, first in red and then in pink and now she dreams blue, a thousand shades of it, blue and blond.

The blue recedes from her vision, chased away by dust and dim lighting. She edges her feet out from under the quilt. The floorboards are cold on her toes, but the rug is warm and she stays standing on it for a while.

She's going to have to leave the room in a minute, drift through her half-forgotten hallways. Check on Marlene and Denzel. They'll be asleep, naturally. Marlene sleeps with all the distance and silence of a stone sinking to the bottom of a placid lake. Always has. Denzel's a little trickier. He's seen too much firsthand.

She straightens his blankets. Picks up one of the heavy covers he's tossed on the floor and folds it, sets it on the wooden chest at the foot of his bed. His skin is pale in the moonlight that leaks through the thick winter curtains.

Cloud's in the kitchen, sitting at her kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee from yesterday morning. He doesn't seem to notice the fact that the stuff still in the pot has congealed into something gelatinous.

"You're up late," he says.

"Early. I heard the screen slam," she replies.

"Lucky I didn't wake the kids." There's a wry twist to his tone.

Does he even know what day it is anymore? "They have school in four hours."

"I'm sorry," he says.

She doesn't want his apologies. Which is sad, she thinks as she grabs a cracked mug and pours coffee-sludge into it, tosses milk on top of it and microwaves it for a minute. Cloud is only really good at giving apologies. Everything else...

Everything else just bleeds away from him, like a watercolor in the rain.