Ultraviolet Viridian: Interlude

I.

It was the rhythmic sound of hot rolled steel upon steel tracks that filled the air. The click-clacking of wheels a lullaby of Earth’s past. It was a sound no longer heard except in period films and dramas, reminiscent of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. The raw sound of vibrations and rail squeals had been replaced with quiet electric hyperlink trains that expelled shrill futuristic pedestrian warning tones at certain speeds and crossings. Yet the distinct sound of the past filled his ears and the emptiness of the dark void around him.

It was as if his existence was a ball of energy, like an entity floating around in space. In the darkness, it was as if he could not feel his limbs and extremities. His fragmented tangibility was disorienting and unsettling.

It felt as if he were dead.

As quickly as panic arose in his system, slowly the darkness peeled away with light inking over what became his vision. The stark blinding white world faded into focus, and he felt whole again.

“Azure,” something whispered. It was a woman’s voice, slightly raspy and close as if whispering into his ear.

Azure. His name.

He looked down at his hands turning them over confirming his tangibility. His deep brown digits opened and closed revealing pale palms. There was a two-inch line of shiny raised epithelial on the wrist of his right hand. The scar represented the absence of his Viridian citizenship microchip, signaling his PAAT status. His wrist burned for a moment as he flinched in response, the pads of his fingers of his left hand paused over blued veins that pulsed underneath his skin.

He was whole as he looked at himself in the window beside his seat.

The same Azure Obaluaye, a twenty-seven Person Against the Advancement of Technology– and wanted in The States’ capital city, Viridian.

He was on a train.

Not one of the hyperlink rails he was used to with their minimalistic interior, smooth ride, and high speed. No, this train lulled about on its wheels, its vibrations shaky. It was a rustic shell of what the future held. He was sitting in a passenger car, the only person in it from what he could tell as he peered over the top of his seat. The rows of gray seats were all empty and it was quiet beyond the vibrations. Too quiet.

Azure was speechless, his heart began to race as he wondered how he got there. Why he was there, seemingly transported back in time. It was as if he were a time traveler, and as he looked out the window, he felt fearful of what his reality had become.

Beyond the window, he did not know the setting. The colors were murky and muddy hues of greens, browns, and blues as if a watercolor dreamscape failed to load into recognizable shapes and landmarks.

It felt like a dream. Yet everything felt so…so real.

II.

There was a woman in the third car Azure entered when he finally gathered the bravery to explore the mysterious train he was aboard. The car was an upgrade from the last two, the seats spacious and plush. The woman sat silently staring out the window.

“Ex- excuse me,” he managed to croak out. The state of his own deep voice breaking up as if due to lack of use caused him to jump, yet the woman did not budge at all.

"Miss?” Azure was hesitant as he paused in step. It was as if the woman before him would materialize into some sort of nightmarish creature. She was beautiful, no doubt from what he could see of her reflection in the window she blankly stared out of.

Her dark hair was parted in the middle and the tresses flowed past her shoulders. Her dark skin was flecked with gold, full lips coated in matte fuchsia, hazel eyes dimly focused outside of the window. She was dressed in a tight red dress with long sleeves and simple nude brown heels.

She did not acknowledge his presence until he reached out and touched her shoulder. He half expected her to slump over or something with how still she was. It was odd.

“Oh, you’re here,” she said with surprise, yet the lack of emotion on her face said otherwise. It was as if she had been waiting for him.

There was something familiar about her, but he could not put his finger on it. There was something about the way she looked at him that felt close, yet distant. As if they had already been acquainted. As if there was something more between them. It was the way her eyes finally lit up with life when they connected to his. Yet there was a tinge of confusion as if she was baffled that she somehow recognized him.

“Shall we eat the cake now?” The nameless woman stood. She was half a foot shorter than him even in the high heels she wore.

Azure’s eyes knit together in confusion. “Uh, what?”

She pointed a manicured finger at something in the seat next to her. He looked over and saw the box from an unknown patisserie stationed in the gray seat. She picked it up and began to make her way toward the aisle.

“Um, okay.” All he could do was back out of her way. As she passed, the sweet smell of what he guessed was her perfume filled his nostrils. It was familiar. He followed her towards what he could only guess was the dining car of the train.

III.

“Crimson.”

“Pardon?”

“My name.” Dark eyes watched as the woman pulled out the cake from the pink box it had been in. They sat at one of the tables in the dining car. It was covered in a white tablecloth. A vase of faux roses was situated towards the window the table was against. They had found dishes and silverware to use.

“Ahh,” he gave a small smile as he eyed the small cake already divided into six sections. Crimson put a slice of cake on a dish for each of them. It was a two-layer chocolate sponge cake with vanilla cream with strawberry slices throughout it and on top. “I’m Azure.”

The dark-haired woman pushed his slice of cake to him. She repeated his name several times as if she recognized it. “Azure. Like the color blue.”

“Yeah…” There was something about the way she said his name. Her voice was slightly raspy and familiar as if he had heard her say his name a thousand times before. “My mother named me after the color of the sky.”

Azure always thought it was an insignificant corny fact, but somehow it felt fitting for the situation at hand.

“How sentimental.” A fork sunk deep into her slice of cake.

He snorted in response. Crimson paused; her pretty eyes flickered up at him as if surprised. He quickly gave out a cough, before trying to save himself from the embarrassing manner. “What about you? Your name is a color too. Like…”

“Blood?”

“Yeah.” They fell into silence as Azure grabbed his fork and divvied up a chunk of cake.

“You know, I don’t remember you at all,” the woman said suddenly. The turn of conversation was unexpected, but Azure paused as he licked a dollop of cream off his lips. “But I did in the past tense– if that makes sense. Though we’ve never met before until now. I have the feeling I’m not…I’m not supposed to know who you are.”

“Okay,” Azure said slowly before he gave out a laugh. She sounded so unsure, and he was so lost. “Sorry, I don’t know what the fuck is going on here.”

He shoved a bite of cake into his mouth. The taste of chocolate and vanilla cream spread over his tastebuds with hints of bursting strawberry triggered something.

A memory.

–

“But you’ll be there, right?” He raised an eyebrow before staring at the cake in the middle of the table. Crimson only smiled sadly before responding.

“Shall we eat the cake now?”

The same cake from his memory was right in front of him at that moment. That damned caked.

The four prongs of his fork stabbed through another bite before he mouthed it. He was slowly remembering.

The woman across from him was his lover.

Azure turned around in his seat looking at the eerily empty dining car. The lack of pausing at stops despite being a long-distance train. The lack of passengers. The marbling of colors outside of the windows. The continuous click-clacking…

He looked back at Crimson who looked at him expectantly. “We’re not in Viridian, are we?”

IV.

In the sightseeing lounge, it was then pieces of his memory latched together and he remembered everything. It had been their anniversary and he had gone into the city to buy a cake. The same kind of cake they had every year from the patisserie he had remembered from his first encounter with Crimson. The first time they met she had saved him from a scanner bot before he had boarded the hyperlink. She had somehow known his PAAT status, maybe it had been the swift movement of him avoiding any surveillance drones. The scar on his wrist was an obvious factor, though he mostly kept it hidden underneath long sleeves. Still that day of their anniversary, he did not have her to save him from a scanner bot circling the hyperlink station.

Code red was issued. Chaos ensued with confusion among the citizens. Azure panicked and called the only person who could help him. Crimson had sent an autonomous car to his location, and he had seen a robotic unit fall to the ground in the distance behind the car in the mess of drones and sirens. He made it to her place, they had dinner, and discussed his options before having cake. They had made love and she had handed him his final option before he had gone off to the last train of the night of the nearest hyperlink station. That was where his story ended. At least that version of himself.

Crimson. The actual entity of his lover who shared memories of him was out there somewhere in another timeline where he now ceased to exist. A timeline he chose to erase himself out of. Somewhere his body was limp and lifeless, surrounded by a robotic police unit, yet he existed somewhere in that current plane of existence, still alive.

Suddenly he felt angry.

How could he have made such a rash decision? Why would he have chosen to leave the woman he loved behind? The woman who saved him. Who he owed his life.

Why did he take the syringe from her?

“For me, you will die, but you’ll never experience that death,” Crimson explained further, her voice getting softer with every word.

“So, I’m gonna be jumpin’ dimensions or some shit?” he asked with a full mouth. His lover scowled at his bad table manners before nodding, her deep brown face sparkled in the sunlight.

“Perhaps maybe a more succinct explanation is that it purposefully creates a glitch in the matrix.”

“But you’ll be there, right? In the other world or whatever?” He raised a black eyebrow, fork stabbing the slab of medium rare meat on it, his eyes stared at the cake in the middle of the table. Crimson only smiled sadly in response.

–

In the present, Azure could suddenly feel the sharp pierce of the needle against the back of his neck. He could feel the cold liquid empty out of the vial as he pushed the plunger down, down, down. He remembered the old-world song that filtered through his ears as his vision faded to black.

“Now we're sharing the same dream

And our hearts they beat as one

No more love on the run”

Azure had tried to make his way back to Crimson who had spawned back in the first-class car staring outside of the window like before. As he made his way to her, the farther she became. It was as if he were making no progress at all, walking down an endless aisle of seats wasting his time. His fingernails dug into his palm before he punched his fist against one of the seats with a dull thwack.

He had made a mistake. He should have been more careful.

And now he was stuck on this train to nowhere, in what he concluded was his own personal hell.

The surroundings outside of the large windows bled a bluish green and Azure’s vision blurred as he staggered in step. He felt the weight of his body lift. Crimson’s empty shell dissipated, and the emptiness returned. Perhaps he was finished loading into his new timeline. The bluish greens outside gave way to blending reds and blues.

It was just like Crimson and him. Or what he had known. What used to be. What he remembered.

It was ultraviolet.

And as the weight lifted off him, everything faded to white.

Note: This challenge inspired me to continue a short story I wrote for a Coursera creative writing course back in 2020 named “Ultraviolet Viridian”. “Interlude” technically is a stand-alone short story as the flashbacks are from the original story, but is also a second part to what I suppose will eventually be a part of a three-part series. The song referenced is Billy Ocean’s “Caribbean Queen”.