#polychromers

They had a lovely morning at the zoo - they even got to see feeding time for the monkeys - but by lunch time, Lily had started to get a little cranky.

“I don’t want lunch yet though, Grandpa!” she whinged, refusing the sandwich presented to her. “Can we pleeeaaase get ice cream for lunch? I won’t tell mummy. And I promise I’ll eat my fruit later.”

Bernie tried to give his granddaughter a stern look, but she could melt his heart with a flutter of her eyelashes, so he knew she’d end up getting her way. Besides, he was her grandpa, he was allowed to bend the rules. “Okay. But only if we can go and see the tigers next.” Since Lily didn’t want to go to the butterfly house, they could go and visit his second favourite animal. The big kittens! He’d heard that there was a new cub at the zoo, and he was actually pretty excited to see it…

“Deal!” Lily nodded her head, and offered Bernie her hand. Which he shook, trying not to show his amusement. “Can I have bubblegum flavour? With sprinkles?!”

Well, Lily clearly knew she could push her look with her grandpa, but he didn’t mind. He left her where he could see her, watching the zebras in a nearby enclosure, and joined the queue.

“Excuse me, sir?” Bernie turned, to see a woman holding his phone. “I think you dropped this.”

Bernie looked at the phone, then checked his pocket. Ah, must’ve fallen out when he retrieved his wallet. “Thanks!” He reached for it, a smile on his face.

The woman in question handed over the phone, and brushed a wisp of silver hair from her eyes. “It’s no problem.” She returned Bernie’s smile, and glanced past him at the queue. “Can you see if they have any bubblegum flavour left? They’re usually out when I ask for it.”

“I hope so, otherwise I’m in trouble. My granddaughter wants bubblegum too.” he said, craning his neck to see. “Looks like they’ve just put out a new tub. There’s no other blue flavours, right?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” The woman gave Bernie a sad smile, and he kicked himself mentally for just assuming she’d be a polychromer. People his age usually were. Either that, or they looked super miserable, or wore clashing colours, and it was easy to tell from a mile off. She didn’t seem to mind too much though. “Is that your granddaughter?” she asked, clearly noticing that he felt bad.

“Watching the zebras?” Watching might not have been the right word. In fact, she seemed to be singing to them right now. “Yeah, that’s my Lily.”

Lily’s song was drifting towards them on the breeze, she seemed to be making it up on the spot, as none of it had any semblance of rhyme or consistency. “She’s got a lovely voice.” The woman chuckled, as Lily sang the last line, and bowed to the zebras.

Bernie nodded, quickly snapping a photo of his granddaughter to send to her mother later. “Yeah, she gets that from her father, unfortunately. Our side of the family has, so far, shown little to no musical talent.”

As they spoke, a small child collided with the woman’s legs, and Bernie reached out to steady her. “Whoah, are you alright?” He wasn’t really that concerned at first, it wasn’t as though she’d gone head over heels, but when he met her gaze, something seemed off about her. She was staring at him with huge, surprised eyes. Should he not have caught her? Bernie realised he was still holding onto her arms, and let go. To his dismay, the woman’s eyes seemed to be filling with tears. “Sorry, is everything okay?”

She nodded, and reached out to take his hand. “Yes, everything is… beautiful.” she replied, in a quiet, awestruck voice.

Bernie looked away from her gaze… and had to agree with her. All the colours that he thought he had lost, the lighter blues, dark greens, everything that had begun to fade to grey… they were all back. That pushchair was a startling pink, the grass was so vividly green, and he even noticed a glint of red in the woman’s silvery hair.

“I’m Gladys… by the way.” Tearing his eyes away from a brightly coloured bird in a nearby enclosure, Bernie glanced back at Gladys.

“I’m Bernard… but you can call me Bernie.” he replied, carefully taking in all the features of her face. If his colours were back… then maybe he was getting a second chance. He’d had a long time to mourn the passing of his late wife, and as the colours had faded, so did his memory of the love they had shared, but suddenly his heart was full again.

Gladys was still clinging to his hand, looking up at him with a pure, wondrous smile. Her eyes were sparkling like a lovestruck teenager’s from her time-worn cheeks. “I never thought I’d get to see so much beauty, Bernie…”

There was something so innocent about her reaction. Not only was Bernie elated that he was able to see the full, vibrant rainbow again, but he felt an enormous surge of pride that he had helped someone else see it too. He didn’t think he’d ever get to do that again. His future had just brightened. Literally. So he should probably do something about it…

Noticing the queue had moved along, Bernie kept hold of Gladys’ hand and puller her gently towards the counter.

Leo nodded, “Leo.” He didn’t want to talk over the instructor, but other people were. It seemed like a pretty relaxed class. “You been here before?” He faced the younger man, who’s long, light-coloured hair was pulled into a loose ponytail.

“Yeah, she’s my wife.” Oliver gestured at the instructor. “So I’m here a lot of the time. I do colour consultancy for Monochromer potters.”

Ah. Right. So Oliver was one of those people. Who had fallen in love and discovered colour and now was all righteous about helping those who weren’t fortunate enough to see the full rainbow. “Cool…” he glanced around, was he falling into the desperate stereotype of the Monochromers? Coming to evening classes in one last attempt to find love and colour?

“What do you do?” Oliver handed Leo a lump of clay, and threw his own onto his wheel.

Clumsily doing the same, Leo replied. “I’m a midwife.” he said, trying to copy the other man as he started to work the clay. “You?”

Oliver looked impressed for a moment, then answered. “Interior designer. I was a journalist when I was younger, but once I met Mel… well, it’s that age old story. Fall in love, find colour, be inspired… and I wanted to help people who couldn’t see it yet.”

“So you tell people they have bad taste even though they can’t see it?” Honestly? Leo regretted that as soon as he said it. He hadn’t meant to be judgemental and mean, but he was feeling… defensive. And sort of vulnerable. Apparently it was easy to tell when someone only saw in grey, and there was something about falling into the Monochromer stereotype that really sent chills down his spine. Because it meant more than just being colourblind. It meant loneliness.

Oliver laughed though, and shook his head. “Not at all. I get to know the people I work for, find out about them, and try to help them design something that fits their personality. So that if they do unexpectedly discover love some day, they’re pleased with the house they come home to.”

“Oh, right. So you like… hang out with people? But how do you know what colours they’ll like?” Leo had read extensively about the colour phenomenon when he was younger, and he knew that different people preferred different ones, but how could they know which before they’d even experienced them?

“Well, we mostly use neutral colours, and ones that we believe reflect the person. It’s difficult to explain, but colours have a sort of… feeling to them.” Oliver wiped a hand on his apron and reached into his pocket, handing Leo a business card. “I also teach Colour Classes to new Polychromers. You should come, when you need to.”

Leo turned the card over in his hand, getting a bit of clay on it… “Well… if I need to.” He stowed the card in his pocket. “Not looking likely at the moment.”

“You never know. Love could be just around the corner.” Oliver winked at Leo, then started up his wheel again.

As if I’m that lucky. Leo thought to himself, looking back at his clay. Nope. Still a misshapen lump. Nothing like a bowl. “How d’you…” He gestured at Oliver’s wheel, where his lump had somehow grown sides and was starting to look smooth.

“You need to use more water.” He wet his own hands. “And then you just… push it upwards, sort of.” Oliver demonstrated, and then looked up. “Now you try.”

Leo nodded, and dipped his fingers into the water. He wasn’t entirely sure this was for him, but there was no point giving up now. After trying, and failing, to copy what Oliver was doing, he sighed in defeat.

“Use less pressure, you just want to encourage it to become a bowl.” Oliver crossed to sit opposite Leo, and guided his hands. “Like this.”

His hands were incredibly soft. Leo kept his eyes on the ‘bowl’, as the other man gently showed him how to tease the clay into shape… Maybe it was because they were enacting some sort of romance movie cliche, or maybe it was the buzz that he had felt as soon as their hands had touched, but he had felt his cheeks go warm.

“See? That’s better.” The sides of the bowl were starting to take shape, and Oliver was smiling widely at Leo as he glanced up from his work. “Are you alright?”

Leo realised he had frozen, his eyes fixed on Oliver’s. “Oh… yeah… thanks.” He quickly looked away, but his heart was racing. There was something different about the way things looked. Oliver’s eyes… they were… well… different. Leo had no other way to describe it. They seemed to have more depth to them… they were a shade he’d never seen before.

As he avoided Oliver’s gaze, he started to notice other changes. Just a few. The bowl full of water was suddenly a a different hue…

Wait. Was this colour? No… Leo looked at his hands, then at Oliver, then at the instructor…

Oliver’s Wife.

So it couldn’t be colour. It couldn’t be. Not because of him anyway. Oliver already had his soulmate.

Besides… this was nothing like people had described. His sister had said her entire world had lit up… but this was just a few things. And Leo didn’t even know that they were all that different. Maybe there was something wrong with him.

Suddenly feeling very anxious, Leo wiped his hands on a towel and stood up. “I’m uh… not feeling well.” he said, making his excuses to the instructor, but Oliver caught him up on his way out of the door.

“You’ll come back next week, right?” he said, resting a hand on Leo’s shoulder. Leo just nodded, trying to ignore the fluttering in his insides, and then scarpered out of the door.

As he made it outside, he stopped for a second to let his heart return to it’s normal speed. This… had to be a weird coincidence, right? Arrhythmia or something. He should go home, and lie down. He fished his car keys out of his pocket, and checked the sky for rainclouds…

And found himself unable to tear his eyes away… The sky had never been so beautiful. Grey and white clouds were drifting in the distance, but most of it was… well… Leo didn’t have a word for it. It had to be a colour. It had to. He’d never seen anything quite like it in his entire life.

But why was everything else still the normal shades of grey?

Holly made a dismissive noise, pulling on a jacket. She was a little self conscious about her boobs, and Katy knew that. This was probably her way of trying to make her feel better, but Holly didn’t feel like putting herself on show - even if they did have standing tickets for a big rock concert.

The concert itself turned out to be pretty great, actually. Holly had followed Katy to the front of the venue. Her tiny friend had the perfect pointy elbows for pushing through crowds, so all Holly had to do was stay in her slipstream.

With each new song, Holly found herself enjoying the gig more and more. She couldn’t deny the lead singer was worth the hype, and she was impressed that the band was as good live as on the album. By the time they were returning to the stage for an encore, Holly was shouting with the rest of the fans, euphoric even though she was being pressed against the barrier.

The final chorus began, and all the fans threw their hands in the air, singing along at the top of their voices. Holly didn’t know all the words, but she shouted along the ones she’d picked up, and stuck her hand out as Asher Sparks reached down to connect with his fans.

There were a lot of people reaching out to touch him, and Holly could feel all the other hands knocking against hers as Asher ran his hand along for high fives.

Then something changed suddenly, and Holly felt her chest do a somersault. Everything was so bright, and… and…

Oh my god.

Her head was swimming. And her eyes… they hurt.

Colours. They must be. With each new colour she saw - and there were so many shades - she felt something new. A joyful leap in her stomach, excitement, a little fear…

Who could it have been? Who else had she touched? Holly’s eyes searched her immediate surroundings, searching the faces of the people around her as best she could. But it was dark, and people were moving so fast, and how was she going to figure out which one of these people had triggered this?

As the last notes of the song faded away, Holly looked up to catch a glance of Asher staring into the crowd with a startled expression before the lights went out.

“Katy….Katy..!”

Maybe it was the adrenaline from the concert, or that she couldn’t find her friend, or the fact that she was seeing colour for the first time ever, but it was a little too much for Holly, and the last thing she remembered was closing her eyes against the sudden onslaught of visual information.

—

When she awoke, she was lying on a couch in an unfamiliar room, with Katy sat beside her, talking rapidly into her phone. “No, she just passed out!” she was saying, flapping her hands and looking very distressed. “I don’t know. They said she could stay here whilst they cleared out everyone else, but the medic seemed to think she was alright.”

“Katy..?” Holly raised her head to get a better look around. They were in a room with couches, mirrors, and… instruments…

“Oh my god, Holly, are you okay? What happened? Did someone knock you out?” Katy flailed her arms widely, accidentally throwing her phone half way across the room in the process.

“No I… Did you see who touched me?” Holly looked down at her hands, then back up, her eyes darting around the room rapidly. “Katy I can see… colour.”

“ARE YOU SERIOUS?!” Holly jumped as her best friend squealed in her face, and tried to back away, prevented by the solid arm of the sofa.

“Shhh.” Honestly, she’d just passed out, her head was hurting. “Where are we?”

“We. are. in. the. DRESSING ROOM!” Okay, Katy clearly couldn’t help, she was hysterical. “The BAND let us in here. They’re out signing autographs. But they’re gonna come back.” Katy looked like she was about to hyperventilate, so Holly decided she should probably interrupt.

“Everything looks so…” Holly trailed off. She didn’t have the words to describe what she was seeing.

“Colourful?” Katy suddenly leaned forward to stare into Holly’s eyes. “What’s it like? Was it immediate? Who WAS it?”

“I don’t… know…” Holly managed, staring right back at her friend. “Katy, your eyes are… I didn’t know eyes were so… Wow.”

Katy laughed and sat back down. “Well we need to find your soulmate.” Holly braced herself. She knew Katy was about to launch into another hysterical rant about how excited she was, but Holly couldn’t process that right now. She was busy with this entire new experience.

But the rant never came. Holly looked at Katy, and followed her frozen gaze to the door, where The Hallucinations had just entered. All four of them. Led by Asher Sparks, who’s expression was decidedly different from his usual entitled smirk. He looked… confused, a little shell shocked.

“Ash, what the hell, are you okay?” The drummer followed the frontman into the room, clapping Asher on the back.

“Yeah I’m fine…” Asher looked over at Holly. “You feeling better?”

Right, so apparently by fainting she’d made a big show of herself. Great. “I’m fine…”

…

Okay, so she hadn’t even managed to convince herself with that. She wasn’t fine. She was confused.

“She just saw COLOUR!” Katy finally piped up, the excitement of her best friend finding a soulmate was apparently too strong for her celebrity related anxiety. “And she doesn’t know who it came from.”

Good lord, Katy. My life is not a soap opera. Holly nodded, wishing her friend would shut up.

“Wait, are you serious?” Asher crossed the room in a flash, crouching to be eye level with Holly. He reached out with one hand and touched hers. “It’s you…”

Holly felt a tingling sensation at the spot where Asher’s fingers touched her hand. The rest of the world melted away, and she was staring into the most wonderful face she’d ever seen. It wasn’t just that he was gorgeous - which he was, not just because he was famous either - she found herself fascinated by the freckles next to his mouth, the angle of his jaw, even the smeared black eyeliner. She almost didn’t notice Katy chattering excitedly to the bassist.

“OhmygodIcan’tbelieveitisthisactuallyreal!!!!!!!!!!” she was squeaking, as the bassist sipped from a beer.

“Maybe we should… give them some space?” The drummer finally intervened, and ushered everyone else from the room. With difficulty.

“HOLLY TEXT ME I’LL STICK AROUND!” Katy yelled, just as the door closed.

“You can see the colours too?” Holly asked, realising she hadn’t spoken in some time. Her mind was running in circles. Was this real? She didn’t even KNOW him. She hardly even knew his music! He was a celebrity!

“Yeah… I…” Asher cleared his throat, then finally got up from his crouching position and sat down next to Holly on the couch. “I couldn’t see you. I had no idea who…” He kept trailing off, and Holly knew why. It was distracting, being able to see a whole new spectrum of colour.

Holly nodded. “Me neither…”

They both just sat there for a moment, Holly’s eyes were focused on the shirt she was wearing. There were a few neon splashes in the design, and she couldn’t take her eyes off it.

A few minutes passed, and she felt Asher’s hand on hers again. “Can I…” he hesitated, retracting his touch for a second. “It’s just… if we can see…”

Holly almost laughed. Was Asher Sparks, renowned rock and roll frontman, being shy? “Then it means we’re soulmates?” Finishing his sentences already. Must be love. She nodded, and took his hand. “We should probably… get to know each other…”

Asher smiled, squeezing her hand as she took his. “Yeah. Probably.” Wow. This wasn’t supposed to be awkward. “You go first.”

“Is Asher Sparks your real name?” Holly had been thinking about this since it had all really sunk in.

He seemed confused, and shook his head slowly. “Ash is. Well, Asher. Ash Thompson… You didn’t know that?”

“Sorry… I don’t even really um… I just came with a friend tonight.”

“You don’t like my music?”

“Oh, no, I mean, yeah. I had a great time tonight, I’m just… not a fan.” Holly felt bad. Mean, even. She’d basically come to his gig and told him that his soulmate didn’t like his music.

But Ash started to laugh. “Of course… my soulmate. You were put on this earth to humble me.”

“I wasn’t put on this earth just because of y-… you’re joking.” He nodded, and Holly grinned at him. “Do you need much humbling?”

Ash clutched his chest, and then pretended to swoon. “You wound me. I can’t believe you don’t know all about my conceited, bad boy persona.”

Maybe it was the pre-drinks. Or the high she was feeling from all these new colours. Or the fuzzy, tingling feeling that was still dancing around on her skin. But this silly, dramatic show made her laugh, and she felt a rush of affection. He wasn’t conceited and weird. He was… a dork. He was silly. “Obviously just a persona.” she pointed out.

“Oh, really?” Ash flashed a smirk at her, and almost immediately, the atmosphere changed. Holly’s heart fluttered, and her eyebrows raised just a little. That was the sexy frontman she’d seen on all the tour posters.

Trying to pretend she wasn’t flustered, Holly blew a stray hair out of her face. “So you can smirk. Big deal. Not exactly a bad boy. I bet you d- eep!”

Holly had been interrupted.

By Ash’s lips on hers.

Not the first time she’d been kissed, but absolutely the best. It was like the colour had invaded her head too, she felt sparks of electricity from her head to her toes, and then Ash’s hair between her fingers, holding his head close when he tried to pull away.