The Brightest Star in a Constellation

31: Red Like the End of the World

☆ Evan ☆

The words Peter left on my whiteboard are like an uninvited guest inside my mind. I don't have to ask what it means. The logic behind both sentences is absolute: Nothing is permanent. Everything is temporary.

I jog around the school under the bubblegum pink sky. Clouds roll like a mountain range behind apartment buildings built like ramps as I hurry into the safety of the double doors. Lunchtime is almost over; based on my internal clock, I have about twenty minutes.

My math class is after lunch, and in the meantime, I grab a sandwich and a paper cup filled with shitty, low-grade coffee. I dart upstairs, knocking back my drink.

On my way past the rows of classrooms, I spot Nicole. She's squinting at her computer screen, and she whirls around in the office chair to face me. Rolling across the floor, she balances against the doorframe and says, "You've come at the perfect time. I have a quest for you."

I follow her into the classroom. Plucking a red pen off the teacher's deck, she taps the computer. It's filled with lines of text against a black screen. Nicole holds up her finger so that I wait for her to switch tabs, showing me a separate page. It's like a flash game; a pixelated green background behind a character selection screen. The options are greyed out.

"This," Nicole says, wagging her finger at me, "is my secret project." She clicks on the first character in the list. The selection flickers away, switching to dialogue boxes that scroll across the screen. A rising sun like a phoenix cracks out of the frame, creeping to its zenith over the destroyed, burnt grass. "It's an apocalyptic world—but after the worst has passed. The only survivors live in a tiny town—that doesn't have a name right now—and they have to work together to keep it running. But what it does need is an artist. Somebody who can take these generic assets and turn them into a decent game."

I pop the rest of my food into my mouth. "So this is what you've been working on all this time?"

"Exactly." Nicole grins and lowers her triangle-lens glasses, coloured a bright shade of citrus. "We're going to do some designing together."

☆ ☽ ☆

I hate the colour red.

I would think that makes me less of an artist, because what the hell does it mean to hate a primary colour? It's as if—for the rest of my life—I tried to write without using a vowel. It wouldn't be possible, just like making pure red from scratch isn't possible. Magenta and yellow create a less vibrant colour that looks like red, maybe—but it's not the same.

Red. The colour that can be seen from the furthest distance. The colour of the horizon at dawn, as the sun blots out the clouds, a blockage in the core of the universe. It was that shade this morning, signalling a warning.

One colour in various shades is the ruined future in Nicole's game concept. It's also the colour of my mother's ruffled shirt as she paces around the kitchen table.

Elaine traces the chipped hardwood with her finger, her eyes downcast. Her fingernail catches on a snag and she hangs there, mid-motion, for two seconds before she moves in the opposite direction and the crack settles back into place, unnoticed.

"Before I give you these phones back, I have a few rules for you," Carolyn starts, holding both phones in her hands. The lock screens have gone dark, the battery spent. "No more staying out past curfew. Come back home on time, please. I'm getting tired of waiting for you to come back to me."