Chromophobia

I rarely enjoy any of those melodic hues people profoundly represent with relaxation, powerlessness, beauty, time, specifically- good times. The sands of the beach. What a terrible place. Under that pile of micro grains is the truth to all of this. It’s destination? Destruction.

The sands of time. As if flipping the hourglass gave a sense of vitality. To me, the looming anxiety of time, descending of sand, created more worry visually. Time. Time was running out. Panic!

Right?

We stood paralyzed by the intrusion of this- light brown paper like box. Sealed with a flaming red double necked bow clutching perfectly in the middle of this large rectangular container. It was placed directly below the old sky light.

Before HQ was established and the surrounding walls stripped of their tinged glass, the nave came to meet the transept. Their crossing accented by gods eye. Her direct glare would strike everyday around the same time. 3:17pm. Its light shown downward, perfectly, illuminating the spacing of wall absent cubicles. They left a pocket unfilled. There sat a scroll- no, a declaration. This, package, as if it sat on display at the MoMA, waited for our attention.

The precinct left no soul without this crushing fear of lifelessness as the doors opening, crowded with officers and officials, stuck open from the stopped traffic.

The beach used to fill me with this mystical sensations that life- life was going to be alright. Sand particles running through the gaps of my toes, plummeting as I lax my palm after snatching a microscopic sliver of its entirety.

The forest gave me rush filled years of wonder as I would burst by trunks of trees, flaring with exuberates and youth. The passing’s of green, yellows and orange rays, berries and fruits stuck onto bushes never led me to paranoia. Then, the traveler collided with the deep rooted stump. And in this moment, defeat fried through the fog like beams of vehicle light during a siege. We are not currently under attack. We’re at defeat.

“You’ll know soon.” He kept saying at first. “You’ll know soon.”

“What- will we know, soon?” Jarred threw back at him after a continuous jolting of questions. It was either his sinking reality of this guys words or his exhaustion. He was pushing. They were locked in a visual standoff across this blue flame scorched metal table.

“Do you understand why we celebrate our birthday?” He looked at me, breaking his daring gaze. “Why repetition is so important? Why we adopted theologies, ground rules, are suckers for the familiar. Habit, bound, creatures. The uprising downfall of humanity. Their sake of staying the same,” He huffed with such disappointment. One that broke his eyes to well up. “continue as they always have. Weak and predictable. That’s where you’re most vulnerable-“ Me and my partner stick our slightly tiled heads forward, leaning inwards as if every pronunciation was a key to the lock. “where you think you’re most secure.” He hissed the extent of that single word.

I noticed, evenly, with equal distribution, he would pay Jarred and I equal attention. This gesture alone, gave him a kind of involvement. As if he wants to ensure that we are who he chooses to speak to. Just us.

“Why now?” I moved forward. Kicking the silver, warn steel table leg. Surprising both my partner and this man who sits before us. “What now?”

“Do you wear that opposing blotched colored stone, obsidian and opal, do you wear that because of your daughters vitiligo?”

I heard of a man once. The one who has the ability to use time as his right hand man. Something that defies the reality of how nature and time itself coexists. Within time, all will fail. For what seemed as day, hammering at stubbornness, gouging at repentance, flowing through rivers of anarchist prayer. We got no where, then he would throw a premonition, retract, become zombied. He radiated within this thin, oily haired, bleach complexion mid age man wrapped inside of destruction. Even for a scrawny man, his salted, ungroomed face, those loosening yellowing teeth, he had this powerful voice. He’s way too comfortable. He’s not fearless of this interrogation, he’s waiting. There’s been a subtle patter that filled the room with a daunting whisper of a slap. Like the most distant footstep your ears can capture.

It was a pendulum swing kind of rhythm. Utilizing both his feet and finger tips rubbing the table to mimic the sound of the actuating arm. To the volume of failing consciousness. Just out of reach.

He’s merely out of time when he began to yap relentlessly.

“Great question!” His eyes shot open. His full limb restraints clang against the table as he brought his arms to the surface of the cold steel. His remarks now chaperoned with hand gestures. In this colder than comfortable room, sweat migrated from his forehead pores, falling to freedom from the edge of his paper thin chin. His grin was a meeting point when he spoke. His jaw would click in between collections of words.

“You see, both of you see. I want you to see why discipline is so important. And why it is so deadly.”

He furiously licked his lips, tilting his head up, making it harder to witness the table. His eyes strained downward to observe his hands. He spoke with a single corner of his mouth pulled to the side now. His twitches encourage him to realign every couple sentences. With every switch, a new mood, personality, threat.

“You lost, and and! And-“ he said, raising a single finger, as if pleading to finish before we scoff off. “It’s because you were too organized to see that this narrow field of view you have is useless. Everything you see, so easily passed and passive. You became your own enemies when your focus was only on a man you can never catch because - and this is the cherry on the pie – you only focused on how far from him, the case, victim commonalities, aggressors, motivators – all that sh*t.” Speaking quickly, he waited for no reassurance to continue. “You lost the moment you stepped into this office Mrs Alemontè.”

Jarred strung his arm slowly in front of me but I shook him off. Pushing it away. I may have proven him right with my jolting flinch. Maybe a broken finger would be the only way we will get a straight answer out of this psychopath.

“By the way I see it, you’re in here with us. DNA cross matched with eight recent murders. Leaving an insignia-“

“That you haven’t broke yet-“ I shut up immediacy. By accident, we didn’t want him knowing that. “Let me help you.” He spoke slowly. “reprehend, mate. A favor for a favor.”

The precinct fell behind me as I trekked slowly to the box mocking my hopes of sovereignty. It felt as though nails broke clean through the tips of my fingers, cracking the nails bed. My limbs stiffened as if a snake stood on their tails before me. My stomach destroyed from anxiety I hardly remembered to breath. I opened the box, blinded by the refracting light from- a loose brown and white blotched leather chess set on a quartered board. The opposing colored plank still, the pieces hand stitched it seems. The smell horrendous, the interior wrapping of the box, partially soaked. All these diagnoses of contents- in that moment felt as though I stopped the curse of reality. Allowed to sit. Sit and watch as you figure out what haunts the darkness within yourself. A room door violently ripped open, consuming, relentlessly.

The crowd depressed, confused, just watching me there. But, on further examination. Running off of pure nothingness I noticed the queens cap. Smoothly dismantled, removed, defaced perfectly. A scroll sat in its shallow divot where the crown once sat. Pushed through the entirety of the fabricated game piece. Gloveless I unraveled the parchment.

“Check Mate.”

Forcing the board over the back read “In memory of Laura Alemontè, friend to some, daughter to one.”

And below it.

“You took everything from me as a child. It’s only right I take the child that means everything to you.”

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Sincerely, Jahvon.