Life in Black and White
The alarm went off at seven. As usual, Scott opened one eye, then the other. He stretched a white arm and fumbled with the smartphone, which kept ringing and buzzing. He traced his security rune on the screen (he laughed whenever he called it that, but not at seven in the morning, oh no) and stopped the alarm.
Scott let his head fall on the pillow again.
He sighed, and walked out of his bed. He went to the kitchen, prepared the espresso coffee pot and put it on the fire. He then went to the bathroom, so that the coffee was ready when he was back. Scott poured his coffee in his favourite mug (a white mug with “MUG” written in black letters on it), added milk and put it in the microwave oven for a minute. He closed his eyes and counted the seconds: he was at fifty-nine when the oven pinged. Not bad.
Scott picked up the mug and sat on one of the kitchen chairs, propping his feet on the second one. He closed his eyes and took a first sip. His mind wandered over the work today, though he knew it would be easy. It was always easy.
Something touched his calves, almost a caress. Jordan’s tail, but she didn’t meow. Scott let one arm down. A soft muzzle touched his hand and, sure enough, Jordan started purring and rubbing his knuckles. If only one could stay like this the whole day.
Alas, it was not to be. A few minutes later, the coffee was over and Jordan was bored, and had decided to go from rubbing to chewing. Scott stood, put the mug in the sink and went to have a shower.
After the shower, the misted bathroom mirror didn’t let him see his face. He rubbed it with a towel, just enough to let him shave.
It was white. It was all white. What he wouldn’t give for a little bit of colour. But life was what it was, wasn’t it? And there was always hope.
On the streets, most people just ignored him, but there was always some jerk who stared. Scott wasn’t sure what was worse, those idiots or the kids who didn’t know about him and his people. Where was education nowadays? He recalled his grandad tales, stories of a time when the ivories were the majority.
But time changed everything. Time and technology. And both had brought colour with them. Oh, colours had always been out there, of course, but acquiring them had been so difficult at first. However, with time the colours had sprouted everywhere. And now the ivories were almost gone.
Scott reached the office, and he swiped his card to enter the building. The guard nodded as Scott walked towards the lifts. Several other workers were in the hall, waiting for their lifts. Some mumbled sleepy good days, and Scott mumbled back. No other ivories. And this was one of the places where finding them was easier.
Scott sighed inwardly. Well, life could be worse, he supposed. After all, he had a job, albeit it was usually so boring.
Ava was waiting for him with a warm smile. She had good news, she said, because she had managed to find him something different. Today Scott wouldn’t be working in an airline security leaflet, like every day: instead, he had been given a role in a public health campaign against insomnia. And guess what? He had yellow elements, too! Scott smiled, and when Ava said so, he entered the government booklet.
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This is my entry for the Weekly Writing Exercise: March 28–April 3, 2016 on the Writer’s Discussion Group in Google+.
Not a lot of writing story with this week. I saw the prompt and didn’t feel much inspired by it. I thought people would have a hard time with it. And instead of that we had a lot of awesome entries. In my case, all of a sudden the idea that the illustration reminded me of those airplane safety leaflets struck me, and the story wrote itself.
