ACHROMATIC

Do I exist? I see the cracks that form as I waste away as seconds pass. I have a job like everyone else. I sleep, I eat, I relieve myself. The routine is ingrained in me, a monotonous cycle I shuffle through when my eyes crack open. Like a pipeline, I sit at my desk with many others next to me and across from me, all going through the same mundane tasks. My fingers slowly clattered on an old keyboard. Oops, I mistyped something. Nothing unusual. The boss always calls me slow but I just want it to be perfect though I have never been a fast typer. I shift my elbow as I reach for the backspace button and my wrist knocks into the mug by the edge of my desk. The moulded clay shatters on the stainless white tiled floor. Ugh…no backspaces in real life I guess. The lukewarm liquid pools together as pieces of my broken mug attempt to stay afloat. A sudden flash appears. What is that? Something doesn't feel right. I have never seen coffee that looks…like that.

My body is heavy, my muscles refuse to cooperate fully, I am not getting any younger I suppose, I chuckle to myself, In three years I'll be thirty yet I feel sixty already, my walk home after work is always the same. Mr Rugare sits by the benches on the streets staring at the light grey sky, little Bryan and his primary school friends play tag in the park across the road, they always tumble and roll through the dark grey-shaded grass and laugh innocently. Bryan tags one of the other children, a small girl in pigtails and her grey dress flashes momentarily. I might be unwell. Perhaps I should see a doctor. The other children begin rolling in the mowed grass and it too shifts, the image sticks for longer. My head aches as I lose my balance. I want to throw up. The sky shifts into a new shade, no! I turn away before I lose whatever little I have swallowed throughout the morning. The streets have neat roads and pavements with barely any cracks in them, the smell of concrete occasionally waffling through the wind, they had been set in not long ago.

The coffee shop I visit every morning sits a couple of hundred metres away. The white sun reflects cleanly on the laminated glass. I would be long dead without it. My hand twists the handle and there it is again, the flash. What is it? I haven't seen anything like it. It looks black but I have never seen any black like that. I rub my eyes and it's gone, as elusive as it is generous. The shop is decorated modernly with cutesy drawings of cartoon coffee characters on the walls, Tracy is a brilliant artist. Stylish wooden chairs and round marble tables scattered through the small-ish shop and the morning pick-me-up scent of ground coffee beans invades my nostrils, I inhale and sigh enjoyably at the presence of an old friend.

Tracy mans the counter. As usual, she looks stunning, and her new free-hand-styled hair suits her. I greet her routinely and she makes the same coffee for me, black with two sugars. I should say something but the words escape my mind as soon as my tongue touches them. I say nothing and softly smile at her. She reaches for a napkin and scrapes her finger at the edge of the counter. A small gash opens and oh, blood. I see it once more, sharper, her blood is that colour. She sucks her finger and wraps a band-aid around it but the colour remains. I ask her if she sees it but she giggles and calls me funny. This is the first time I have heard her voice take a different tone. The flash returns and messily distorts the walls and shelves behind her, painting them briefly into a kaleidoscope of colours that I cannot name. I make a run for it.

Elvis looks at me with all the scepticism he can muster, "So you're telling me that you are seeing things glow and look different from normal but you don't know what to call it or what these other shades even are?" He stifles a laugh, he doesn't believe a single word.

Elvis has been my roommate for the last five years I think. He's great but he can be such a…well can't say that but you get the idea. He sits on a recliner across the room now typing on his mobile device. "Keith, you didn't have to bust in here like the police were chasing you for me to believe you. You need to craft better stories, bro," he says dismissively. My watch rings flashing the time '14:00'. That's a lunch I am never getting back. At least I got my cof- no!, come on, I forgot to grab my coffee. I turn to leave and pick up an apple in a bowl atop the cabinet next to the door. The fruit makes a strange sound in my hand and I freeze. My gaze turns slowly to the juicy fruit and there it is again. I toss the thing in the bin and make my escape.

I dash through the streets with my eyes down. I will look at nothing. I know this part of town like the back of my hand. Small cars zoom by me with little noise, they move somewhat slowly as children wander through this part of town regularly. I make my way back with little difficulty and as I sit at my desk to work, a hand lands on my shoulder. The boss lady looks down at me with a sheepy smile and motions me to her office. Her office sits four floors above ours. We take a long walk through the other cubicles to one of two lifts in this office. The office reeks of stale coffee, sweat and ink. I hear a paper shredder in the background as we slowly walk through the cramped space.

The walls of the office are dark grey with darker tinted windows and white lights that give the illusion of time. She didn't send someone to do this, which is a bad sign. Rumours say she enjoys instilling terror into employees so she prefers to come down herself and let you stew. We exited the lift into her floor, the hallway with modern décor and a thick grey carpet. A large metal sign with her name embroidered on it was fitted to the door. The sign flashed brightly into a shade no metal could ever be, glistening and sparkling as the white light bounced off of it. Mrs Shumba led me in and there I sat in the comfortable chair across from her desk, her smile revealing nothing.

"We are letting you go, Mr Charinga," she said plopping a piece of paper in front of me

"Wait, why?" I sat up straight as I skimmed through the termination contract.

"You were five minutes late to work after your lunchtime. We have no time for sloppiness. A replacement has already taken over your role. We thank you for your service and wish you success in your future endeavours. Dismissed.

No, I've worked my butt off for years at this company. It was only five minutes, they can't. A whisper invades my ear, sloshing words I cannot make out bounce in my brain. Tendrils of a strange dark shade similar to the grass from earlier seep through the corners of the office. They struggle through the cracks. Shades reminiscent of the door handle from the coffee shop form on the edges of the cracks they enter through. My anger boils but I cease and the tendrils vanish with my rage. Her smile contorts into a maniacal grin and her lipstick turns into a softer shade of the blood I saw on Tracy's finger. I empty my stomach into her handbag and drowsily exit her office.

I have had enough. I say the same to myself every day but I mean it this time. I'm done. I bump brush past a colleague's shoulder checking her without noticing, her papers scattered on the ground, the white pages shifting from their neat white into various alien shades, some I remember but some are as new as a newborn. I hesitate wanting to assist her but I continue. I bump into Mrs Shumba's assistant. The wooden board she carries shifts into the same shade as the handle at Tracy's coffee shop, and my head rattles once more. I make my way to the lift and press the ground button. The button- I close my eyes anticipating another flash. What did I do to deserve this? The whispers get more intense with each passing second. I can feel them caressing my mind as a crack forms on the wall beside me.

I run through the street once more with my eyes wide open. The shades shift in through each other, painting, how do I know that word? The shades run through the pavement I step on, cracks forming on the ground behind me, one large enough to engulf a vehicle... Mr Rugare's outfit is no longer a simple black and white with some strong greys, painted into a collage of colours I cannot keep my gaze on for too long. The children occupy a foreign world more vivid and foreign than any prior. No unfiltered blacks or whites, their skin and clothes a variety of shades, the trees around them appear to be living and I stop and empty my stomach once more into a bin. I weakly barge into Tracy's shop.

She stares at me with concern. I stumble as she rushes towards me, her eyes meeting mine. She grabs my arm and freezes, I feel her shudder, I look into her eyes, her visage forms a caring smile and I see it, the whispers grow unbearably loud as my world is invaded by shifts, I feel something in my mind pop and blood oozes from my nostrils. The cracks follow me into the shop, strange colours and all, shattering and painting messily as a tendril wraps around my leg. Tracy whispers to me and the cracks become too much and just like that, I am free.