Pigment

by B. York
March 10th, 2006

Stretching his thin arms, Xytherzuk slipped into his council chair, the last of nine to be seated before the chamber of balance. The high-council glared down upon the little grey being staring up with black eyes that were nervous and begged for mercy. A being in robes stood at the table and looked down to the little one standing beneath the eyes of the council.

“Eth, we have watched your experiment for seven cycles of the star system. Your efforts to weed out this humanoid evolution by pigment have failed.” The being sat slowly as the others began to whisper amongst themselves. The small being known as Eth spoke up.

“No! It is not too late high-councilmen! Let me explain! Their prejudice grows… it will eat at them and destroy them.” A loud boom shakes the sound within the room to a halt.

A smaller grey being leans forward. “They are inspired by the colors you have given them. This virus of yours has caused them to see their world with shades and hues. Yet it has also caused them to expand!”

Eth whimpered and in his squeaky voice tried to make due with his case, “They have racism, high-council. And they have prejudice against colors that do not match. Given time this will cause more war and more hatred.”

“We are done with waiting, Eth. Already our scouts are identified by their grey skin. Could your virus not have given us a better sensory projection than a mottled grey? And of the skies… you made the skies look as such and they have ventured forth to go beyond it. This, we cannot allow. We are cutting the experiment.”

In truth, Eth never really wanted to argue much with the council. He knew his experiment was doomed to failure from the beginning and yet somehow hoped everything would work out. As he was escorted back to his chamber he thought of the reactions of pigment to the human race and how it had blossomed into more than he could have imagined.

Imagination, it seemed to Eth, was something missing from more than just the humans. He sat within his chamber cell and waited for the guards to leave. Underneath his pillow he slipped a hand to retrieve his hidden vice. A small booklet colored with an amber hue rested in his three-fingered hand. He pulled it open to reveal a slew of what was known to the humans as photographs.

Sitting back against the wall, his small body heaved with a long, drawn-out sigh. They would remove the color from the world, but the virus remained within him. Plucking a photo from the group he looked at the vision of his grey form coated in paint and behind him a smearing of color across a brick wall in a dilapidated city block. Eth sighed and smiled. The colors were his to enjoy.