Charcoal, Ash and a dash of color.

🖤 "The Colorless Pilgrim" .

She stepped out of the house wrapped in shades of grayscale - coat a dusky charcoal, ivory scarf, boots the shade of ash. The world beyond her seemed bathed in dark.

🖤"Colors".

He opened his door to thresholds which pulsed with color: neon signs flickered like electric veins, fruit stalls spilled over with citrus and plum, and children dashed past in coats which screamed in bright rainbows hues.

She winced.

The air smelled of tangerine peels and wet paint. A bus roared by, its sides plastered with a mural of dancing suns and laughing moons. Her fingers twitched against the monochrome fabric of her gloves. She had chosen neutrality for its silence, its refusal to shout. But here, silence was a scream.

He inhaled the bright shades. A red balloon bumped his shoulder...it was startling, yet familiar - intimate. He turned. A boy with green eyes and a yellow jumper grinned, his laughter a brass instrument which awakened the senses to a bright new day. He nodded, at peace, and walked on.

She imagined the pavement beneath her feet was a mosaic of spilled coffee, chalk drawings, and fallen petals. Each step was a betrayal of her palette. She passed a florist: roses like open wounds, violets like the color of her heartbreak. The scent was overwhelming - sweet, earthy, defiant - everything she did not feel in her heart at all.

He ducked into an alley. It was dim, shadowed, safe. Like a cat he watched her from a windowsill, his coat felt like feline fur against his neck, a patchwork of ginger and soot. Even here, color crept in.

She touched the wall. It was rough, brick bleeding rust. Her hand came away stained.

She remembered a dream: a room built once, so very long ago, where every object was a shade of dark and foreboding neutrals. A piano that played only the tunes of regret. Curtains dyed in dusk. A mirror that reflected only what had been lost.

She closed her eyes.

When she opened them, the alley had shifted. A mural bloomed across the bricks - painted overnight, perhaps. It showed a woman in grayscale, standing at the edge of a technicolor forest. Her eyes were closed. Her hands were open.

She reached out and touched the painted fingertips.

They were warm.

He had seen her as an extension of himself...He knew the look, felt her pain. She was the other half of whom he had been searching for, oh for such a very time. He saw her close her eyes - and the magic happened.

He knew what he had to do.

He reached for his paintbrushes by the wall on which he painted every day. The mural came to life as he painted the colors. It showed a woman in grayscale, standing at the edge of a technicolor forest. Her eyes were closed. Her hands were open.

He saw her reach out to touch the painted fingertips.

She looked up - He stood there covered in streaks of painted colors, an impish grin upon his face.

She, startled by the sudden overwhelming heightening of her senses, that feeling of meeting oneself, but in a parallel dimension - withdrew into her charcoal shell.

He stood for a moment, just waiting, not rushing...then he slowly reached out his hand towards her. A gesture of hello.

She was hesitant...just a handshake - it can't hurt, she thought.

He smiled, encouragingly.

She, finally, also extended her hand. The touch of the two hands - one mired in dark and shadowy thoughts - the other painted in glowing and sunlit brightness , became as one.

Dark and light had found each other. Merging at last.