Colours: A Free Short Story

The pastel shades faded first. No one noticed, not really. They just assumed they’d washed that particular top one too many times, or that sunlight bleached the colour from the walls. It was a reasonable assumption at first.

Until the tertiary colours went. No more amber, magenta or chartreuse, their hues replaced by shades of grey. Commentators nudged each other and chattered, somewhat nervously, about the new colour palette of the world. “Fifty shades” jokes abounded.

The secondary colours faded to subdued tones, before the colour leached out entirely in June. The shops were full of summery fashion that no one would buy, now that orange, green or purple had become different shades within the grey spectrum. Shoppers snapped up red, yellow and blue, keen to display their colour sensibilities without realising their own skin had faded to the same greys they wanted to avoid in their wardrobe.

The world reached a collective state of outrage when the primary colours disappeared entirely. More enterprising designers turned their attention from colours to patterns, and fashionistas adorned themselves in different configurations of black, grey and white.

Cinemagoers fell out of love with CGI and rediscovered film noir. The trouble was, crime somehow became less appalling when blood was no longer red. Humanity indulged too much, and light began to fade from the world. Shadows lengthened, and darkness grew until only black and grey remained. It was only a matter of time before black won the battle, and the world plummeted into eternal darkness.

I don’t think we’ll live much longer. There are a few survivors, but humans need light to see, and we don’t fare well in the dark. Nocturnal predators are thriving, evolving and adapting, but we’re stuck in a rut. We backed ourselves into an evolutionary dead end with our fancy technology and reliance on others. Now we just have to rely on ourselves.

If you find this, it means I didn’t make it, but you did.

Make it count.

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