Author note : Title and whole fic inspired by Ben and Alfie. Cover by Harari
The colour today is grey
The colour today was grey. Just like yesterday, just like tomorrow. It hadn't always been like that, he thought, extending the arm that still worked to catch a leaf, carried by the wind until it finished its course in his palm. A damaged leaf, wrinkled like old parchment, already dead. He used to love the trees of the compound, the way the wind was whispering in their branches, the way they changed for each season… but now, the world was grey. The big tall trees had nearly no leaves, the winter already well advanced. Their dark skeletal silhouettes were hovering over him, not even contrasting with the paleness of the sky above, empty and shedding no light on this world's miserable existence.
There wasn't even a point in going out now, there wasn't a point in looking around. There was only a bleak horizon, a fuzzy landscape in shades of shadow. The wood of the temple had lost its colour, tired, creaking. The stories he could have told were now mourning complaints of a past now gone, when dreams still existed.
The colour today was grey, a constant palette painting his world in dust and smoke. Will it ever change ? Will the days one day end looking like each other, repeating themselves over and over again ? He couldn't tell mornings from afternoons anymore, nor nights from days. Even the temple chime, which used to rhythm his life, had now been replaced by an ever-ringing bell, resonating in his mind to the point where he couldn't follow conversations anymore. They were there, their faces as blurred as their voices, and at the same time, they weren't. They didn't live in the same world anymore. Theirs had colors and sounds, a joyfulness now alien to him, who lost himself the day he lost his arm.
A moment of inattentiveness, that's all it took for him to fall over the edge, losing along with his arm, his purpose, his reason to live and the respect of his colleagues. His swords weren't even hanging at his waist anymore. What was the point ? Everyone knew he couldn't wield them. He was a lesser warrior, a lesser man, a lesser being. Sometimes, he couldn't even feel the pain crushing his heart and was just wandering in indifference, or staying in his room for hours, days or weeks, maybe, hard to tell in this grey world without space and time. Other times, he was feeling out of breath, like a fish gasping, floundering in the fishing net that would undoubtedly make him meet his end.
He wasn't even craving death. He just didn't care. He wanted the gods to send a storm upon him, just to feel something, to see that time was passing… Anything instead of this loud silence that he was both despising and lolling into, like the vermin he was.
The colour today was grey. There was no end to his suffering, coloring him in shadows. The darkness was protecting what remained of his past gentleness, deep inside of him, locked so that he wouldn't lose more pieces of himself. Was he still the colonel of the Shinsengumi ? Was he still Sannan Keisuke even ? Even him couldn't know the answer to that question, basking in the fumes of what used to be his life. He couldn't see clearly, couldn't think clearly, not until the dark veils were drawn. But who could do that if not himself ? And there wasn't a « he » anymore. Waves after waves, the somber ocean of his sadness was washing the shores of his heart, a little bit more everyday, until his soul would end up completely immersed.
But if he couldn't see the rainbows anymore, if he was condemned to a life of shadows even in the lighter hours of the day, if the kamis couldn't reach him… Then he should reach them. Tightening his fist on the leaf and crushing it in his hand, making it crack and fall in pathetic little pieces of colourless fade sprinkles, he made his decision.
The colour today was grey. Just like yesterday but not like tomorrow.
The colour tomorrow was red.