Prism
Disclaimer: Sands is not mine.
Sands/El if you look really hard.
Sands misses the color green. He remembers the rolling hills in Virginia, and the misfit trees that stood imprisoned in their square concrete boxes, designed to break up the unending concrete sea that was the parking lot at Langley. He remembers a green sweatshirt he had, plastic Christmas trees, crisp hundred-dollar bills, bowls of leafy lettuce and cucumbers and broccoli. A picture on a calendar of a forest in the month of May. A new belt buckle worn just once, the day the lights went out.
He misses bright primary yellow. Crayola paint and little chairs at little tables for little kids. Pale butter melting on rolls fresh out of the oven. Warm pools of sunshine, but in winter, avoid that yellow snow. Baby blankets and ski tags hanging off the end of your jacket and traffic lights begging to be run. Lemonade, which is what you're supposed to make when the world hands you lemons, but all he has managed to make so far is vinegar.
He misses the color of cinnamon dental floss, corporate ties, cherry Kool-Aid. His car was red. He's always driven red cars. Now a car comes for him every morning, and drops him off at home again each night. He remembers Coke cans, fuzzy Santa hats with white pompoms, fireworks on the Fourth of July. Red is the color of blood, the color of life. He is still alive, but he there is no red for him anymore.
He misses the dark velvety sky that hovers over the last vestiges of color after a sunset, waiting to descend on the world. The Atlantic Ocean. A suit he wore to interviews as a kid just out of college, the one he wore when he met with the CIA recruiter the first time. The thin stripe of cobalt that encircled his dinnerware, and the pastel blue in the paper towels that always had to match.
He even misses black. Being blind does not mean he lives in blackness. He lives in a world where there is no color, none at all. It is indescribable, and utterly terrifying. He remembers about oil slicks and greasy licorice whips and T-shirts with the names of obscure rock bands. The road at night just beyond the splash of headlights, and the sky when that beautiful dark blue has given up its claim and surrendered to black.
He is thinking about going back to Mexico. He doesn't think he belongs there, but he sure as hell doesn't belong here. Returning to the CIA was a mistake. He sits here all day, headphones over his ears, listening to the recorded conversations between other officers and their agents. And then he writes up his analysis, typing by touch, a slow search for each key whenever his fingers slip off the reassuring bumps on the f and j.
In Mexico, he never worried about his lack of color. Things like pink and yellow and orange didn't really seem to matter. There was always something else to take the place of his missing colors. Music and tequila and smoke and the whir of cicadas at night. Blazing heat and ocean tides and long, long nights.
He's not even sure why he came back. It sure as hell wasn't for the thrill of passing through five security checkpoints every morning in order to arrive at his desk. Or for being the CIA's poster child for "we hire all types, even those with disabilities." Or the traffic, or the snotty punks who like to try to steal his cane when he walks down to the grocery store. The kids here are all mindless, self-centered idiots, and he'd like to shoot them all. None of them ever tries to sell him bubblegum.
He doesn't honestly remember making the decision to come back. He wonders if it was over something stupid, like the need to prove himself. Which is complete bullshit. He proved himself just by surviving, when no one thought he would make it. When they talked in hushed voices over his head and touched his arm gently and even the jingling chains were muted. So he clung to his hatred and he survived, but why on earth he felt the need to return to his old life is beyond even his ability to figure out. Certainly he doesn't fit here anymore. It's like trying to make a puzzle piece fit even though it's missing two of the necessary holes to match up with the other pieces.
But he made his choice, and here he is. He types up his reports, and he doesn't even bother inserting little witticisms like, "It is the opinion of this analyst that you are fucked in the head," because no one will probably ever read them anyway, and why should he waste his time? It's not like he's being paid by the keystroke.
So he sits at his desk all day and he listens to the words of others, and he daydreams about color. Mostly, he misses green.
END
Author's Note: This is what happens when I read too much Tom Clancy. I thought to myself, Okay, I want to write a story where Sands is back at the CIA. Instead, this is what came out. Sometimes I wonder how my brain works.