Clarion

Step. Dust puffed from beneath the cracked soles of her bare feet. Clarion’s head hung low, her eyes watching the way the fine brown dirt fell over the tops of her feet, clinging to the tiny hairs there, unwanted passengers on this journey of drudgery. The sun beat on her shoulders causing them to bow further, the heat like a physical weight.

“It wasn’t always like this you know…” The old man’s voice echoed in her ears and she misplaced a foot.

Shuffle. Thump. Step. She knew others were there, passing her on their way to and from The Plant. It was the only place anyone went or came from. The Hawthorne family saw to that.

“Brought the Treva did you? Good good.”

Step. Clarion tried not to think about the future, tried not to think further than the next time she could curl up and sleep and dream. The days stretched before her in endless sameness. The thought of the years to come clawed at her throat making it difficult to breathe.

“Lean closer girl, my voice ain’t what it used to be.”

Step. Her bones trembled with fatigue as if the day’s work had already taken their toll even though she had not yet arrived for her evening shift making Treva. Treva, the only thing that kept everyone alive after all the water had disappeared. The oceans and rivers and lakes were all gone, dried to dust and sand. Called up to the heavens some said or else buried so far beneath the earth that no one had been able to find them. Many said maybe we should have gone the way of the water. Laid down and vanished as all other life had done. They said it quietly of course, once all the lights were out and behind cupped hands and locked doors. No one appreciated disloyalty less than the Hawthorne family.

“Seems like there was a time when trees covered the land like a thick blanket.”

Step. The entrance to the mine beneath The Plant yawned ahead. A black toothless maw that would one day claim her as it did everyone else. She felt the promise of it clutching at her heart. Squeezing it harder and harder until it thumped painfully in her chest.

“The air had a scent to it that made you want to leap and shout and feel homesick all at the same time.”

Step. Clarion reached up to swipe at a cheek, uncaring of the brown smudge left behind on her skin. She glanced at her hands, her nails, flipping them over to examine her palms. Pale and colorless like the rest of her world. All vibrancy leached by the white sun. Treva had taken the rest as payment for keeping them alive, flowing through their bodies and sometimes leaking out their eyes if they had too much.

“So much color and beauty it’d make you ache, body and soul.”

Step-step. Clarion’s feet kicked up a larger cloud of dust, her pace increasing slightly. It always thrilled her when the old man talked of color. She often lay awake at night trying to imagine it, the frail form of her sister Marie breathing unevenly against her back. She would quiet her worry with a riot of imagined colors. Reds and purples and blues, living things swimming behind closed eyelids.

“People would wear every hue imaginable on their bodies and skin.”

Step. She imagined it as a texture, something she could touch, rich and soft and alive. Her eyes began to search, looking for lingering remnants of color despite herself. The Plant rose before her, a small mountain of steel and smoke. “Gratitude,” she rasped habitually, pressing her palm over her heart in a gesture that was as familiar to her as the steps she continued to take. Clarion’s gaze moved avidly now, a desire for something more flickering low and insistent at the core of her.

“Sometimes, when you visit, I think I catch glimpses of it.”

Step-step. There, half buried in the dirt at the base of a small building, lay a heart shaped locket, the chain caked in gray dust but remarkably intact. There, the setting of a merciless sun cast a sharp shadow and she mused that perhaps if she brushed a hand across the edge it would split her skin open, causing it to well with Treva.

“Used to be people had favorites. Can you imagine? So many colors you could choose the one you liked best.”

Step. Her eyes moved to those who shared the roadway with her and noticed the way a stray breeze swept strands of hair across a woman’s face, the way that man’s nose bent a little to the left, the way they walked with heavy footsteps like her own. A woman with a mole on her left cheek glanced back at Clarion strangely. The corner of her mouth twitched upwards when Clarion offered a tentative smile in her direction. A boy squinted towards her when she looked at him next, his mouth opening to ask a question before his father tugged on his hand quieting his curiosity.

“But I already know what you really came to hear about…”

Step. An elderly woman with a bent back and a face like cracked brown earth, stopped in her tracks and openly stared. Clarion matched her stare just as boldly. The old woman’s mouth slowly stretched into a toothless grin. Clarion could not help her answering smile. With each new face she noticed more and more regarding her quizzically and she wondered if her gaze was too open or impolite.

“Already know which one’s your favorite now don’t we?”

Step. Step. Step. Clarion hurried to the entrance hall of The Plant, the walls lined with mirrored glass. She paused then, peering into the glass, startled at the reflection of her face. Leaning closer her eyes flicked back and forth caught up in her own unflinching stare. In the iris there was a warmth, a soft yielding vibrancy, one made all the more potent by a lifetime lived in shades of gray and brown. She felt her fingertips tingling, touching the reflection and breathing out a solitary word. “Green.”