Color
There is little color in the maze that extends below the asphalt and concrete of New York City. Vast pipes and channels penetrate the surface, tearing black holes into the ground, forming the entirety of the sewers. These formations compete against metro tubes and power supply lines for space, structuring the below-ground-environment in a seemingly chaotic way.
There is little color on the paths the four brothers frequent. They avoid the construction sites, stay away from illuminated subway tunnels, do not approach areas with bright light. The almost exclusive darkness lingering in the tunnels and adjacent service rooms annihilates everything, leaving only faint reminders that there also exist something else than black and grey.
There is a little color in the abandoned places they use as hideout and choose to call home. Little by little they collected objects of utility, articles made out of plastic, articles possessing a brilliant color, articles bringing a variation into their home that was pleasing to the eye. But eventually, everything would loose its color, adjusting to their rather colorless environment, getting more and more similar to the dull tones surrounding them.
Where they live, bright colors are rare.
Sometimes, there are traces of brightness.
When it rains, the sewers get even more wet than they already are. Which is only logical, as their main purpose is to channel away all excess precipitation from above. Under these conditions, an old brick wall in a no longer maintained tunnel can start to fall apart pretty quickly. The soaked stone starts to form blisters, and pieces of the outer layers just come off, peel off almost like when shells or skin are scaling. And underneath that outer layer, there is a bright red color. Which only indicates that the walls stability was severely compromised and it is better not to linger near that particular area for too long.
It is also curious what humans dispose of in the sewers. How can they even remotely think that a damp room just a few feet underneath their city could be a good place for a toxic waste dump? They probably have never seen a bright red brick wall rot away in no time. Donatello was way too excited upon discovery of the rusty barrels. The aggressively yellow signs were still very bright and clearly visible, warning of things like 'Danger Biohazard' and 'Radiation Hazard'. After some serious talk and a lengthy discussion, the anonymous tip to a large newspaper got rid of this illegal waste problem. Donatello was just allowed to take some of the bright stickers off the barrels to plaster various items in his so-called laboratory with them.
It is rare that they were directly responsible for creating something colorful. Raphael must have been very angry that time. It usually takes a lot of force to crack a plastic cup. Plastic dishes were made to last for a long time and they don't break so easily. But every now and then, a seemingly unbreakable item gets in the way with an impulsive outburst and suffers the consequences in form of damage by breaking. The plastic is still bright underneath the surface, the deeper layers not affected by the daily abrasion. The edges of the pieces are pretty and intensely colored. Sharp and bright, they almost shine. But broken tableware is useless, no matter how pretty the colors are.
The most feared bright color down in the sewers was always associated with the silent blinking of the red caution light which gave notice when the energy levels of the heating system were dangerously low. In the first years, that system solely relied on a small generator which had the bad habit of breaking easily if only looked at wrong. Heat means life down here. Particularly so for all the reptilian inhabitants of the sewers. Reptiles require a certain temperature to feel comfortable and to stay active. Irradiation in the infrared range is thus so much more important than visible light.
Directly linked to the insecure power-supply, some of the most stunning colors often appeared in the depths of the fridge. Rotten food can produce the most stunning and surprising colors. For example, that intensely green fungi growing on toast whose 'sell by date' passed two months ago. Or the indefinable orange junks in milk that got too warm. You quickly learn not to eat food that has brightly colored things grown on it, suffering through food poisoning once makes you learn to avoid these things quickly.
May it be danger signs, broken items of daily use, signaling the threat of freezing to death or contaminated edibles - most bright colors were negatively connotated.
Even so, not everything brightly colored was automatically bad.
Since he was little, Michelangelo has always treasured the comic books he salvaged. First, just for the pretty pictures painted in flashy colors they contained. Later, as soon as he was able to read the letters and understand the words, he learned to appreciate them also for the wondrous stories they told. They illustrated such crazy adventures with even more incredible characters, they made Michelangelo forget for a while about his own crazy life and made him feel less of an outcast of human society. Back in the days, Comic books were hard to come by, rare possessions, real treasures. And over the years, they stayed very special to Michelangelo.
When they were finally allowed to leave the sewers and to surface, to set foot onto the streets of their city, it was a fairly special experience. It was a surprise to them to find the city this well illuminated, even so late at night. The city never sleeps. The richness of the visual inputs is almost overwhelming. Bright neon lights, glowing advertising pillars, arranged store window displays and simple street-lamps rip holes into the darkness and fill them with their colorful emissions. And at the same time the shadows they cast get even darker, the areas empty of colors even deeper. Bright lights and colors pierce the night like blades, creating a sharp contrast.
On cable television is where they first saw how the world on the surface looks like in full daylight. It was widely different from the dusk till dawn time they normally roamed the streets and raided the dumpsters. The bright pictures they saw flashing over the screens on the surface now also flooded their cavern. They brought a piece of 'upstairs' down into their home. The TV showed them things they have never seen, not in the books they collected, nor in the newspaper clippings they picked up from the streets.
With April stumbling into their lives, a whole set of new vistas opened up for them. New perspectives and possibilities. They sometimes would stay at her apartment during the day, peeking through drawn curtains and watching the city in full daylight. Due to the high buildings towering in front of the apartments' windows, it was however never really possible to fully see the sky. All Michelangelo ever caught were glimpses, a fraction of the wide-stretched blue above.
The first time Michelangelo saw the bright blue sky without any tall building or other bulky obstacle in his line of vision was like a revelation to him. April was so kind to take them all to a trip outside the city, into the green. Leonardo of course mainly saw this change of scenery as a possibility to spice up their daily training, but Michelangelo would spend a huge proportion of his free hours just laying in the grass, staring up at the sky. He wished he could bring a piece of the sky back into his underground-home.
He was determined to bring a piece of the bright blue sky back into his home.
The old transistor radio works with batteries. No reception down here, not in this part of the sewers anyway. Fortunately there are cassettes. Michelangelo presses 'Rewind' and then pushes down 'Start' again.
I am sitting here in the boring room
It's just another rainy Sunday afternoon
It is difficult to find a surface not too damp, but dry enough to take on color. It took him long enough to find this room. This is now his personal resort to retreat, his little private kingdom.
A great deal of persuasive power and the promise not to enter the room Donatello called Lab for as long as a month was needed for Michelangelo to get allowance to permanently borrow the industrial floodlight. The other creative tools were much easier to acquire. It still amazed Michelangelo how wasteful humans went about their material belongings.
Yesterday you told me 'bout the blue blue sky. And all that I can see
During the past few days, the wall gained first a light hue of light blue, and more and more layers and details were added thereafter.
I'm turning my head up and down
I'm turning turning turning turning turning around
And all that I can see
The last stroke is done, and the brush is set aside.
Michelangelo sits cross-legged on the cold floor, marveling his handiwork.
There is a feeling of freedom, it feels like he is escaping the constrictive confines of the sewers. The walls move back, make more room, and the memory of that one day under the blue sky floods Michelangelos memory. He remembers weightless clouds being pushed around by a soft breeze, the warmth on his skin, the bright royal blue of the sky.
The smile on Michelangelos face is bright like a rising sun.