Disclaimer: I own nothing except my mind. I mean that quite literally, you can check.

A.N. I discovered the joys of notepad and decided to rewrite this as the original was a bit of an embarrassment, for obvious reasons. Lets just say there were some major problems with everything, but especially tenses. Please re-read and re-comment and try not to groan as I probably would when you notice I've reposted this.

RED

Version 2.0 

Herr God, Herr Lucifer,
Beware
Beware.


Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

-- Sylvia Plath 
 Lady Lazarus

My first moments in the real world were spent with the colour red. When I first awoke I felt like it was everywhere and with my useless nails tried clawing at first seen flesh as I was still fighting the reality of it all. I succeeded in ripping open tissue to reveal reams of flowing red blood. Denial is everyone's first reaction, or so I'm told. I was no exception. I held onto the belief that it couldn't be real, that I'd just have to wake myself up. Ironically it was the red that finally convinced me. In that I mean it made me almost want to discover the world that couldn't be reality. I'd never seen the colour more vibrant, more intense. I'd never, in fact, seen any colour. In the same way that I'd never before seen anything, and yet my mind recognised it all the same. It was thrilling to me. I'd never before felt something was so significant. The first real thing in this world, and it was red.



When I think back, I've always had a fascination with all things crimson, scarlet, burgundy, ruby, cherry or any shade really. My first love had hair of the brightest tint of red imaginable in nature. I've often since wondered what that colour would look like outside of the matrix. If she'd be as beautiful without the mask she'd hidden behind when I knew her. We'd shared a computers class in my senior year. Sometimes I'd glance over my shoulder in the middle of some major hacking escapade that I was so fond of in those days, most likely it was during my constant search for an answer to the only question. I was watching my back, making sure the old computers teacher wasn't paying any attention, It was routine. I hadn't expected that I'd notice her, eyes crinkling up, assessing me as if I were some deep mystery she was just then becoming aware of, her bright lips curving into a knowing smile. And yes, it was red.



I think back to those times and I wonder about that girl. About dark closets and those red lips pressed to mine and I wonder if it wasn't some kind of dream. If she'd really been beautiful or if my matrix infused mind had dreamed her to be. Maybe even now I'm remembering everything about her in the extreme, making her a goddess that she'd never been. In my teenage hormone ridden mind I'd forgotten everything for moments with her. I've never since, even in the true world, found anyone who touched me like she had. She'd been everything back then. We'd had a lot in common aside from our love of computers. She'd known too much, that girl. I should have figured it out. After all, she was red.



My first few years of life inside the matrix were spent aching for something I'd never quite understand. My first years outside were spent much the same way. I chose not to think about it and instead I spent my time creating a red woman to stand out in a black world. I couldn't bring myself to give her that red hair, betrayed as I had been by the colour. Still I called her the lady in red, hoping if I named her so it would change something that could possibly be nothing. I tried to fool myself into thinking she could be everything and never quite succeeded. I replaced thoughts of anything significant with thoughts of her. I realize now that I was avoiding a truth I couldn't quite face at that moment. All I knew then was that it would be red.



So I spent those years squandering a thousand moments with a lady in red that wont ever exist and wondering if she could be the only real thing in this world. I waste far too many seconds still aching for a different red woman who was nothing in that world and everything in mine. Because surely my life wouldn't have come to this, right? Spending each second just waiting for the next second, the next moment when I wont need that colour. Waiting for something that I don't even know if I believe in. I'm not that pathetic. I couldn't acknowledge at the time that I was nothing but a pawn in a war I don't even know if I wanted our side to win. For now I'm just hoping it wont be red.



Every morning in this world I found myself surrounded by dull non-colour. It makes me think now that this resistance isn't quite what we all expect it is. I used to wonder sometimes if I even believed in what we're fighting for. Then I do what I do every time and try not to think about it. I remember once I had been so passionate about answering the question. I just wanted everything that was real and to escape the confines of everyday life. I thought that all I needed was a purpose and life would be worth living. I didn't realize that I had never known living. I didn't realize it could be this hard. Sometimes I think I was more alive in the matrix then I am in the 'real' world. Denial, they still call it. Apparently I'm Holding on to false memories and false emotions. But yet the resistance is still a grey world waiting for vivid red.



I never expected that it would come in my lifetime despite the fact that I'm young but old before my time and that in another age and another world I could have expected a long life. I never would have predicted that a black and white man with a quiet calm would make me tense, clench my hands whilst waiting for him to complete a feat that none of us had yet accomplished. I watched his jump from one building to the next, allowing myself to hope just that one time that he could be the dream saviour we'd all been eager for. I watched his fall then in that moment and felt my heart plummet along with him. The man with all the shadows. I thought how stupid I had been, that I should have known shadows could never revive us. But then he'd woken from his almost sleep in that dream world, blood leaking from the edges of his mouth. In that minute my heart had leapt at the sight of it. Because I knew it, he was the one. Because it had been red.

Now I wait in a dull room for the others to return, once again trying not to think. I'm spending the time before my last moments staring at a lady in red who isn't my red lady. And I know it. But what I'm thinking of is red hair and red lips and red fingernails on hands that drag my head to hers. There's a glitch in the matrix and I'm distracted as she's all I can think of. In my last seconds, watching the bullets tearing through my body, I'm smiling. Because I'd always known the end would be red. Because she was red. Because red is everything. Because finally I understand and maybe its because of her. But it isn't her. It isn't the colour. It isn't the moment or the blood or the woman. It's everything that can't fully be felt in the matrix. It's what makes us human and beyond complete control. It's love, it's life, it's reality, and it was worth every second.