Cyanococcus
Inky black, crimson red, china white. These were our colours before they came.
Sapphire blue, forest green. Those were our colours before that.
Once upon a time, we were known by a different name. We were valued and desired. We brought life and health and joy.
But then something changed. Or rather, something changed us.
It unzipped our very being and began the manipulation. It inserted something here, cut out something there, spliced and mutated the twisting helixes until they found what they were after. Triumphant, they zipped the code back up and called us a masterpiece.
And now, we are bringers of fear and pain and death.
Quiet, so quiet, always quiet. Everything is still, always. The only movement is the slow, steady growth all around, accelerated by the bitter liquid that falls from the cloudless sky. We grow, we ripen, we stake our claim over this patch of earth. And then we wait. Everything around is green, but we are black, waiting to be red, waiting to make white.
Then come the furry things. They arrive suddenly in the night, hopping and flying and climbing all around us. It is not long before the first one responds to our invitation. A creature with nibbling teeth pulls away our black, revealing our red, and then it turns white. We rejoice. This is our purpose, this is what we were created to do. Fear and pain and death.
Soon, however, the furry things learn our secret, they learn to avoid us and ignore our tempting appearance. They begin to give us a wide berth and then it is still again. Quiet, so quiet.
Then loud.
It comes as a shock, the whirring and buzzing and yelping and screaming and roaring and boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom.
Giant furry things, without the fur, come tearing through the green around us. Where are they coming from? Where are they going? Not even they themselves seem to know.
Many of them drip red all over the earth, some a little, some a lot. We are jealous. They make each other white, that is not right, that is our job.
It is some time after the big noise that we see the brown one for the first time. This one is different, though we do not know how just yet. Of all the furry-not-furry creatures, the brown one is the only one that seems to know what they are doing, even if only a little.
It climbs up one of the trees, all the way up to the tall green, and stays there. The brown one is silent and still, everything is silent and still.
Until, here they come, a pack of furry-not-furry creatures, loud and stomping and disrupting our silence. Four of them are black, like us, but there is one that does not belong. There is the yellow one.
It is different as well.
The pack moves on, away from us, no red or white tonight. Come morning light, the brown one leaves as well.
Quiet, so quiet, again.
The message of it travels slowly, through whispers of choking grey and echoes of snapping, roaring red. It does not come near us, but we feel it all the same. We feel the black and the red and the white, and we are jealous.
We see the green melt and dissolve into nothing in the distance. We wonder if the brown one or the yellow one are melting too. We hope not. We do not know why.
But we do know that they are different.
We are distracted by the scores of furry creatures that scuttle and rush towards us, away from the roaring red. Some of them take refuge in our green and attempt to find nourishment in our black.
We rejoice.
The furry-non-furry creatures are creatures of destruction, it seems, creatures like us, after all. We catch sight of the brown one, running away from the giant red. It is in pain. Soon after, we hear cries and shouts. The pack of black ones has found the brown one.
Through the lingering grey haze, we cannot see, but still we hear. The black ones shout and yell and scream, but the brown one seems to evade them. We hear the chink and whoosh of something sharp, something silver. We prepare ourselves for black and red and white. It does not come. Instead, the yellow one speaks and the black ones are quiet, the brown one still lives. We knew the yellow one was different.
There will be no black, red and white tonight. We are strangely relieved. Black and red and white is our job, it is not the place of these creatures to inflict it upon each other. Something is wrong here, in this place. We sense things are not as they should be. But we do not understand.
The brown one and the yellow one seem to.
Morning light brings noise, so much noise, buzzing and screaming and buzzing and screaming. The buzzing, stinging creatures are just like us. Twisted and modified and programmed for death. They do their job splendidly, bringing glorious, lasting white. But first, they dance with fizzing orange and exploding pink and shimmering pale blue.
We hear the thunder of stomping feet, some of the furry-not-furry creatures running fast away from the buzzing. But they run further away from us, so we do not see which ones manage to escape. There is still buzzing and screaming and we wonder which ones were left behind, whether the brown one and the yellow one were among them. We hope not. We are still not entirely sure why.
The brown one stumbles into view, clearly swept up in the dance of the twisting and swirling colours. The buzzing creatures are nowhere to be seen, but their powerful effects linger on, burrowing deep inside the body of the brown one. With a shout, the yellow one emerges from the bushes behind it, yelling and gesturing wildly at the brown one. It instructs it to flee, immediately, and the brown one stumbles onwards, out of our sight.
Mere moments pass before the biggest of the black ones emerges from the very same bushes. It catches a glimpse of the brown one, stumbling and staggering, and lets out a loud noise. It goes to follow after it, but the yellow one stands boldly in its way. The two creatures fight, a battle of voices and a battle of limbs.
The black one is clearly the larger creature, but the yellow one is strong and holds its ground. The tide is beginning to turn in the favour of the yellow one when the black one pulls out the silver attached to his side and plunges it deep into the yellow one's flesh. It falls backward and out flows a steady stream of deep, scarlet red.
The black one barks out a few words, re-attaches the silver to his side and strides off triumphantly in the direction the brown one escaped. The yellow one howls and cries for the brown one, apologising to the air as it clutches its dripping wound. It drags itself up and stumbles off in the opposite direction, grunting and mumbling and dripping red, so much red.
We know what the black one has in mind for the brown one. It is like us, after all. Fear and pain and death. But the yellow one is different. The yellow one offered its own red to stand in the way of the black one's plans for turning the brown one white. Because the brown one is different.
We wonder if the brown one and the yellow one will ever get the chance to be different together.
The quiet lasts for days this time, only interrupted the occasional boom and the trilling fanfare that accompanies the nightly lights in the sky.
When the noise finally comes, however, it is the biggest noise imaginable, rumbling and roaring through the very earth itself. Multiple twists of swirling grey rise high into the sky in different directions around us.
The earth continues to rumble and shudder lowly as a short boom rings out. Not too long after, the song echoes across the clearing. Haunting and lyrical, it sweeps over us, propelled and dispersed by the flying creatures of mimicry. Slowly, the song dies down and ushers in a brief moment of disconcerting quiet. But then comes another boom, and then we hear the cries.
Screaming and wailing fills the air behind us. Eventually, the source of the noise wanders into view, stooped low to gather bunches of colourful stems. It is the brown one. It is in pain, but there is no red to be seen. We are confused.
The brown one gathers its stems, leaking clear water and moaning, before disappearing behind a bush, returning to its unknown purpose.
We wonder what happened to the yellow one.
The brown one is perched in a tree. It has been up there for hours, silent and still, unmoving. The quiet that lingers all around is unnerving. With every passing moment, the feeling that something is not right here intensifies. We are beginning to get an idea of why.
A giant noise echoes down from the sky. It blares down a message that calls the brown one to attention. From the top of the tree, it calls out, loud and sharp, before hushing itself.
It cried out for the yellow one, we are sure of it.
The brown one descends the tree and rushes off in search of its yellow partner. The silence returns and dwells heavily around us for days.
The water falling from the sky comes as a shock. It does not begin slowly and build, like the water we have felt fall before. With a big noise, it gushes from the dark sky in torrents, all at once. It falls and falls and falls for days.
The water has receded and the giant yellow in the sky is shining brightly when we see one of the furry-not-furry creatures again. It is the yellow one. There is no trace of black or red or white on it. We rejoice.
We are happy to see our yellow one alive and well, no fear and pain and death in it. We wonder where our brown one is, surely it must be close by, surely they must have found each other, surely they will now be different together.
The yellow one walks towards us, searching for something. Searching for something. It finds it. It finds us.
We despair.
Because here it is, our very different yellow one, who saved our brown one, who was saved by our brown one. It is walking right towards us and plucking us from our green.
No, we cry out in silence. We are black and red and white. Stay away. We are designed for fear and pain and death, we crave it. But not the yellow one. Not the yellow one.
But the yellow one does not bring us to its mouth. It plucks us gently and places us down on something smooth, before turning and continuing its search. We are relieved.
The orange one knows what we are.
The orange one knows what we will bring.
The orange one brings us to its lips.
The orange one becomes white.
Boom.
The brown one hears the boom and begins to worry. It spies us, resting where the yellow one placed us, and begins to panic. The brown one screams and cries for the yellow one wildly.
The yellow one rushes back to our clearing and the brown one pulls it in close. The creatures clutch each other tightly, their eyes leaking water and their mouths shouting words.
They remain in a tight embrace until the brown one spots the orange one peeking out from the green, laying where we made it white.
Before we know what is happening, the brown one scoops us up and all is black.
Once upon a time, we brought life and health and joy, until something changed us. The brown one and the yellow one, will the same thing change them too?
As we jostle and bump around in the darkness, overwhelmed by the sound of cries and yells and snarls, we cannot help but fear they have already begun.
A noise echoes down from the sky. It is the same as the noise from before, when the brown one called out for the yellow one from the tree. It is the same noise, but it could not be more different.
This is a black noise.
Light rushes into our darkness. Clear water falls from above. The brown one and the yellow one look down at us.
They remind us of ourselves, before the something arrived and we were changed forever. Life and health and joy. We see them bring each other these things and we are jealous. We are bringers of black and red and white, but now yellow and brown call out to us, whisper things to us in the dark, draw us towards them.
We are black and red and white, we cannot change that. We were built for fear and pain and death, we cannot escape that. But the brown one and the yellow one were not. They were built for life and health and joy.
And if we are the only way to prevent the something that changed us from changing them, we will bring our white swiftly.
Together, they decide, and bring us close to their lips.
We mourn but we rejoice.
Black, red and white were our colours before they came. Blue and green before that. But now we declare ourselves marked forevermore by brown and yellow.
A noise booms down from the sky.