Chapter Five

Colours

Time did pass by rather quickly, Richard finds. By the time he realizes it, five months have passed by since he arrived at Seablite. His life has been boring as heck and so far nothing suggests that it's going to get any better than it already is.

He stomps down on his shovel and lifts another pile of muck into the sifter. He fills the sifter to the brink and leans the shovel against the sifter. He rocks the sifter back and forth until the black pearls emerge from the piles of black ooze. He grabs them with his gloved hand and drops the few black pearls into his filling sack.

He looks over at Peter who is set up beside him. He signs to him quickly. Hey, Peter, what time is it?

Peter looks over and shrugs. What makes you think that I know?

Don't you have a watch or anything? Richard imagines Peter rolling his eyes. Peter shakes his head and reaches for his shovel again Richard does the same.

Sign language didn't take all that long to learn. It was easy to memorize the different actions but now that he has all of them memorized, there is nothing to occupy his time on the weekends.

He steps on the shovel and dumps the muck into the sifter. The light seeps through the waves and down into the ocean, illuminating Seablite. It's a brighter day today under the waves. He has his crown light on the lowest setting. He looks up for a moment at the sea above him. A dark shadow twists and turns above him. A shark, he supposes. He watches the magnificent beast pass overhead, completely unaware of the humans below it.

A sharp poke brings his attention back to the sifter. He looks at the guard in front of him and notices that the guard has a shock prod out and at the ready. Richard gets the point and returns to work. So far he hasn't been shocked by a shock prod or threatened with a harpoon gun or locked in the hole. He's been on his absolute best behaviour. He's heard that good behaviour in prisons gets you somewhere. Like being able to leave prison a little bit earlier for example. Now living Topside doesn't seem so bad anymore. At least he would be in school learning and doing something with his life other than panning for black pearls.

A guard radios in and tells the inmates that it's time to come in. Richard walks as fast as he can to the bottom of the moon pool and kicks upward. He grips onto the edge of the moon pool and hauls himself onto the edge. He stands up warily but doesn't wait for the shackles to come over. He waddles over to the nearest bench and sits down immediately. He tugs off his helmet and takes in a deep breath. The Liquigen evaporates. The other inmates all climb in and tug off their helmets as well. Richard closes his eyes and takes his time before he has to go into the medical showers.

A guard unlocks the shackles and leaves with them in hand. Richard has considered escaping a few times while panning. The shackles wouldn't inhibit him too much from escaping. It would be a little difficult at first moving with the shackles but in water you can do practically anything you want, moving in all six directions. The only thing that can stop him from escaping is the guards. They have harpoon guns that will spear him in a matter of seconds. He wouldn't be able to escape without being injured or being killed in the process. He gave up on ideas of escape. He'll just have to wait until he's released, whenever that will be.

He eventually takes his prison jumper and a clean towel out of his locker and stumbles towards the medical showers. He finds one that is not yet used and steps inside the stall. He pulls off all of his dive gear and sets it down on the ground with the jumper on top. He pulls off the white t-shirt and white shorts he wore underneath and turns on the tap. The warm water pours out of the faucet, instantly dousing him from head to foot. He holds his hand underneath the soap dispenser. It drizzles a fair amount of the white soap into his hand. He scrubs the soap into his hair and rubs the lather all over his body. The constant beeping just outside of his shower stall monitors his heart beat and everything appears to be normal, just as it always reports every single day.

With his body squeaky clean, he takes the towel and makes quick work of redressing into his prison jumper. The stupid orange colour makes him feel dull and the same as the others. He wants to be different. He wants to be noticed as a young man not an inmate who has to be rehabilitated, as Eli would put it. He's not a psycho. He's a teenage boy who loves his sister. That's all he is.

The dive gear is once again placed neatly into his locker and the wet towel is tossed into a laundry hamper to be washed this weekend. What day is it today again? Friday? Richard groans inwardly. He's signed up for laundry duty this weekend. That means he'll be spending both days in the laundry room, washing, drying, and folding mountains of laundry. He hated laundry duty.

He steps into his cell and climbs back onto his bed to stare at the small picture of Gemma. Eli is too engrossed in his comic book to care and Peter could care less about what Richard looks at. Wouldn't it be her birthday soon? Her tenth birthday? That was a big milestone. Ten fingers old and her first birthday alone. He would've bought her gift and then snuck into one of the quality time rooms for a little fun and games. It would've been great. It would've been fun. It would've been just him and Gemma together like a family should be.

"Hey, Richard," Eli says and shakes his arm.

Richard rolls over on his side. "What?"

"Dinner time."

Richard nods and climbs down off his bed. Eli waits for Richard to catch up. He eventually does and follows Eli to the line of boys, waiting to receive their dinner tray.

"Why do you look at the picture all the time?" Eli asks as they wait in line.

"What picture?" Richard asks and stretches.

"Don't play dumb with me. You look at the little picture beside your bed every time after the second round of panning. You stare at it for hours until dinner. What's with the picture?"

"It's my kid sister," he answers and picks up his tray and a drink before leaving for his table. "There's nothing much to say about it."

"You miss her?"

"Yes. Do you have any siblings?"

"Nope," Eli answers simply and sits down on the bench.

Richard notices that Peter isn't at the table yet. He looks at the line and doesn't seem him their either. "Where's Peter?"

"Talking to Doc," Eli answers and picks up his fork. "You didn't notice him leave?"

Richard shakes his head. "He's very quiet. I didn't hear him leave."

"He's been talking to Doc for a while now," he says and looks towards the door to the medical lab. He looks worried.

"He'll be fine," Richard says. "Doc is a trustworthy man, more trustworthy than the rest of the guards here. Has he talked to you yet?"

Eli nods. "Once. He seemed like a nice man, he just seems creepy."

"Creepy, how?"

He shrugs. "His beard throws me off. I don't like people with beards. They scare me," he whispers.

Richard laughs a little. That's the funniest thing he's heard since he came to Seablite. "How do they scare you?"

"Most evil villains have beards," he explains.

"Like who?"

"Blackbeard the pirate, Captain Hook, Mangiafuoco, I could go on."

"Mangia-who?"

"I'll tell you later."

Peter does join them a bit later. He shakes his shaggy blond hair out of his eyes and settles down on the bench beside Richard.

"You know, you can get a haircut here," Richard suggests and slices into his fish fillet. "I've gotten one, Eli's gotten one. There is nothing stopping you from getting a haircut."

"You can cut your hair but I don't want to," he answers. "It's my hair. I can do anything I want with it."

"What'd the Doc ask you?" Eli asks.

Peter shrugs. "Same stuff as you guys. Nothing new, I guess. Same old, same old." He digs into his meal eagerly, something Peter usually never does eat that quickly or that much.

"Hungry, Peter?" Richard asks.

"If you forgot, I didn't eat lunch. Of course I'm going to be hungry."

Richard pushes his empty tray away from him. "I'm on laundry duty tomorrow," he says mournfully. "I'll be stuck in the laundry room all day long."

"Weren't you on laundry duty two weeks ago?" Eli asks.

Richard shakes his head. "That was Peter. I was helping him out, unlike you."

Eli raises his hands in defence. "Sorry I was sleeping in. You could've wakened me to help but you didn't."

"Yeah well, you can help me this weekend, Eli," Richard says with a fake smile. "We'll have so much fun together. We'll be washing and folding laundry all day long."

Eli pouts. "Please say it ain't so."

"It's only fair, Eli," Peter says and pushes his hair out of his eyes. "It's your turn to help out."

"Yeah, and just you wait, come my turn you guys won't help me." Richard and Peter say nothing and look down at the table. "Just as I suspected. You guys really do suck."

Richard smiles. "Don't worry, Eli. We'll help. It'll keep me occupied during the weekend."

"Same here," Peter says. "It's not like I got anything to do on the weekends."

"What time do I have to wake up again?" Richard asks.

"You get out of your cell at regular time," he answers. "Start after breakfast. It'll help when your stomach is full."

"Thanks for the advice, Pete." He meets Peter's icy gaze and corrects his mistake. "I mean, Peter." The blond boy turns back to his meal and Richard rolls his eyes. Peter was very particular about what his name should be. No nicknames or name calling. It's either Peter or nothing else.

Richard brushes his teeth in the bathroom of his cell. His mother always told him to take care of his teeth before she died. That's one clear memory he still has of her. He doesn't have many of his dad only vague shadows. He knows his dad was a tall man with a kind smile. His dad was gone a lot. He remembers that. He was always gone looking for jobs, trying to support their small family but everybody was looking for jobs then. There was a down turn in the economy. His dad was laid off and was in search for work. He took every small job he could find. Most of them were far away. Dad was always gone but Mom was always there. Until the train crash. Then they were both gone and there was only Gemma.

He rinses his toothbrush and leaves the bathroom. He flicks off the light and climbs up onto his bed and touches his fist to his heart. He wishes he could send letters to Gemma and let her know that he's okay. But the guards are very strict about their zero contact policy when in Seablite. No matter how much he pleaded or asked them they all said the same thing, no.

Once Peter and Eli are fast asleep, he swings his legs over the ladder and silently drops to the ground. He assumes his regular position on the floor and presses his palms on the cold ground. Tonight will be push ups, just to change it up a little.

He straightens and tenses his legs and slowly pushes himself off the ground. He lowers himself after a short moment and pushes off again. He continues until his arms are sore and he's exhausted. He sits against the wall and pushes up his prison jumper sleeves to cool off. He places his hands on his knees and closes his eyes. He wishes he could see a different colour other than orange. There is no life in the colour orange. He looks like a pumpkin. He hates the colour orange now. After wearing it for five months, you would hate the colour orange too. He wants something different.

He opens his eyes and is about to stand up when he sees something on his arm. A spot of colour. He runs his hand over the spot where he thought he saw a spot of colour. He looks down at his arm and concentrates. Maybe his sleep deprived brain is playing tricks on him. That would happen since he hasn't gotten a good sleep in months.

It happens again. A spot of colour appears and then disappears as fast as it appeared. He concentrates really hard and brings the colour back. It probably is his sleep addled brain since all the sudden other colours appear at random, curving and forming a small rainbow on his forearm. He closes his eyes, trying to stop tears from forming. Of all the things his mind could trick him on is to show him colours that exist only in his mind and will be gone by morning.