Final Fantasy VII and all its characters are copyright their respective creators.
. green .
The sky is forlorn and metal-grey, which isn't surprising since it is nothing but grey metal. It's of a depressing shade, with every rust and oil splatter and smoky stain like a cancer upon the heavens. There is no colour here, nothing but the monotony and dullness of dirty greens and sickly yellows. Everywhere is the same, and one could walk and walk and walk through Sectors One through Eight and back and not know the difference.
Even the graffiti looks the same; a mixture of rusty red and dirty blue, of threats against Shinra and helpless emotional anguish.
The sun never sets nor rises; as far as we're concerned, it's not even there.
Nothing ever changes, no matter the number of times I wash off the graffiti. They always reappear, with the same emotion of dulled, suppressed anger throbbing weakly in a hopeless heart.
Nothing ever changes, no matter the number of times I clean the windows. The grime and dust of the upper plate seeps between invisible cracks, dripping slowly in a rain of thick black-brown colour.
Nothing ever changes, no matter the number of times this lowly janitor sweeps and scrubs and washes. He will never see the promised gold beneath the grey veneer. City of fortune, indeed.
It's ugly. This whole city is ugly.
"A flower for your thoughts, sir?"
I turn and blink, dumbstruck. Colour stood before me, like nothing I had ever seen.
"Today is a horrible day."
Tears welling up and mixing my vision into splotches of red and pink and yellow and green. Oh lovely, lovely green. Green reflected from the healthy leaves of a lily, caught and trapped in her eyes. Lovely, healthy, living green. Nothing like the sinful colours of this polluted city.
"Oh? Do you think so?"
I nod. She smiles.
"I think today is a beautiful day. The sky is bright and blue, the winds blow gently against the grass, the air is fresh and soothing to the skin."
She speaks as if the upper plates were torn apart and the heavens revealed before us. How could she know all that without ever seeing the sky in the first place?
I laugh, cackle, and it tore at my throat. Emerald eyes smiled again; had they ever stopped?
"Thank you for your thoughts. As promised, a flower."
She thrust it into my hand, the one that wasn't holding onto a splintered mop. With a pleasant bow, she walks to the tunnel that would lead her to the plaza. Clunky leather boots halt, and I think I see her turn back slightly, voice soft and calming and still smiling.
"And today is my birthday. So it will be a good day. I believe so. We all must."
I look down at the tiny flower, study the yellow petals. It would die in a few days. There was little doubt. But then my gut twists, my stomach knots, my lips dry and I lick them, remembering the old taste of the old vegetables from the old garden patch behind my old home in my old town.
They were a lovely, lovely green.