Blue and Yellow: A Short Story by James Cassar

The ballroom was caked in a thin layer of dust, the skeletons of an ancient romance out in the open. Faded streamers hung loosely by their frayed ends, reaching down towards the cracked and splintered floor like outstretched, flailing arms. The remains of glittery balloons were jammed unceremoniously in the bent, exposed rafters of the ceiling, each pipe housing imperfection transparently. Ten years ago, this was the scene of Carver Denton's final homecoming dance. Finality was always a word he didn't quite understand. Sure, caps would soon hover in the air momentarily, echoing the last hurrah in high school, but just because he was ascending the pulpit and snagging a diploma didn't mean he would have to say goodbye to her. He was wrong; the sting of that fact was incredible. That's the thing about being wrong. It hits you harder when you dwell on your mistake. And there he was, wallowing in it like some sick mess. Carver let out a heavy, weighted sigh, each exhale fragmented, punctured by the gravity of his surroundings. Slowly moving around the perimeter, he snapped mental photographs of the closing scene of his wasted youth. Tables were toppled over, their frail legs bent awkwardly. Several forbidden cigarette butts were visible, jammed in the intersection between two ruptured decorative centerpieces. Red cups littered the floor, grainy and peeling. Nothing to see but memories. Nobody sees those, anyway, he thought aimlessly, no one's alive but me. He remembered the blur of madness, the sirens, and the wails of several robotic, detached symphonies. The fragility and sanctity of slowdancing was interrupted forcefully; fear gripped the dancefloor with tyrannical precision. It wasn't until the green light descended from the skies of an unknown god that everyone started to run. Everyone except Carver, and her. The two of them remained seated on the desolate dancefloor. His girl had her legs crossed nonchalantly with her arms hung loose at her sides. Her soft chocolate-brown hair fell in messy waves down to her shoulders; her sighs made her locks bob and sway like palm trees in torrents. She batted her eyelashes frequently as if a rogue moth was obscuring her view, and she bit her bottom lip, dialogue frozen. A sense of dramatics rises. He remembered biting his tongue, swallowing his pride, and spitting out the burning question. His hands shook madly, like an addict aching for another hit. He wanted to feel the rush of acceptance, an invitation to clasp her hand in his, gaze into those cerulean eyes, and tell her he felt light, the worries in his life erased. The worries stayed scorching his insides until she responded. One ear was hearing the subdued longing of Brand New’s Deja Entendu; the other ear was ringing with anticipation, the pull of promise, hope. She bit her lip and let her head bow low, gazing at her feet. Her breaths accented the awkward pause in between his question-marked request and whatever she wanted to be her response, her respiration like a typist punching keys in an empty cathedral. She was writing his alleluia or his eulogy. Her answer would either be his lifting or his burial. You are the smell before rain, his left earbud confessed, you are the blood in my veins. She spoke up as the track faded into nonexistence, the suppressed hum of dead air occupying half of his hearing. I am either the boy who blocked his own shot, he thought, referencing the eponymous song that just ended, or I’m what you want. He closed his eyes, gasped inaudibly, and put one uneasy hand behind his pallid neck. It was unusually clammy, a reflection of uninhibited nervousness. The next minute of uninterrupted nothingness elapsed in a painful, lethargic manner. Carver's free hand was now occupied in a lonely dinner party with his mouth, the main course his roughened cuticles. His teeth cut deep, relishing the distraction as a way to channel pain into a different avenue than emotion. He removed his scavenged hand moments later to discover the battered remains of his flesh, teethmarks visible from yards away. “Hey,” she answered his plea in a voice that was both hurried and beautiful, staccato notes that matched his irregular, sporadic heartbeat. “Why not?” Her question was rhetorical, and she finished her unrequited conversation with a smirk. After Carver let his white-knuckled fists lose their suffocating tension, he held out his hand. “Since you're so keen about taking chances,” he reasoned, “take this.” Her hand melded into his, they took off walking, to no particular destination. But now, their destination seemed more closer to the end of their lives. “This would make for a really great painting.” She looked up at him with eyes that could sink ships and cure cancer all at once, two azurite diamonds in the increasingly emerald world. “The world might be ending, and this is what you're thinking about?” “Might as well go out a dreamer, and not a screamer.” She let out an airy whistle, and twiddled her art pencil between her thumb and her forefinger. Chalky residue rubbed off onto her soft, petite hand. The other hand was locked in his, intent on staying prisoner in the grasp forever. That was the thing about Katelyn. No matter how messed up the outside world was, she always stayed right there, in between daydreams. “Why are you so curious about what's going to happen, if you never know what's happening?” “I do, it's just....” Electricity seemed to surge through Carver's veins as she inched closer to him, her grip on his hand loosening only to return to his jawline. This wasn't the back row of a movie theater; he couldn't hear the reels spinning idyllically, the background to his first kiss. But his second was the last he'd reminisce about, and the last one he'd ever want. She pulled away from him and shot a hard, searching gaze. “Look outside,” she dictated quietly, “see that green light?” Carver cleared his throat, stomach still doing gymnastics. “Mhm.” “The Smiths wrote a song once called 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.' Morrissey was a frickin' genius. He knew about this thing called hope, man. Sure, everyone's going crazy outside, but here we are, tangled up in silence, perfectly fine. The sky could be falling down, we could be falling apart, breaking bones in alphabetical order, I don't know. But you know what?” Carver didn't respond; he was too intrigued to answer. She continued in a hushed, sluggish tone, relaying her words with thick pauses. “I'd rather waste my time with you.” “Even if we're almost dead?” “That makes me want to even more.” Her hand drifted down to meet his once again, and her grip locked their arms in place; a moment suspended in time. A hum akin to the whirr of fan blades shattered the beauty of the spectacle. The abrasive yelp of several horns and buzzers awoke the fear that was only subdued within Carver moments before. The cops? A likely hypothesis. Some kids never learned. But one thing Carver never learned was to expect the impossible. The dusty scene that surrounded Carver only made him lonelier. The paint that was sliding off the drywall mirrored his spirits; the mercury in his emotional thermometer downscaling to new, frigid lows. He brushed his unkempt brown hair out of his piercing green eyes, and looked at his hands. Maps of unknown cities were inherently scrawled on their surface, a world that he couldn't access or travel to. He had this suppressed wanderlust, a desire to scavenge the world for its worth and its purpose, but he knew it would prove fruitless. Katelyn gave him meaning, a song in his heart, and he let her go. Nothing was sound anymore. Just static. The haphazard whoosh of wind seemed to gradually overtake the atmosphere, choking it in its vicelike ice-cold grip. Papers were flung across the hardwood randomly, and the force of the storm was so great that glasses scattered across the area started to lose their shape, breaking into a million indistinguishable pieces, lost in mania. Carver's thought processes became slurred and sloppy, but one clear, concise proposition rang from his mouth so confidently, so coolly that the imposition of the sentence seemed to shock him more than he intended. “I think we should run away.” “You're kidding. After that rad inspirational speech?” Katelyn gave her companion a rough, sardonic look. “I don't just mean from this dancefloor.” “Then what do you mean, exactly, hm?” “See that green light?” “No. I see blue and yellow. The component colors, they mix and blend to form green. Two blobs with different backgrounds and hues clash together and make something beautiful. I know that that bond exists between them, but I know that it's equal, that both of them are in this together, burning brighter than the sun.” As if on cue, a brilliant streak of light seemed to break its way through whatever remained of the structure. The roof had since caved inward. The light seemed to hover to directly where Katelyn was planted firmly on the dirtied and dilapidated ground. It was calling to her. Carver knew this couldn't be a routine police protocol. Carver digested this amid the chaos, and then began to stitch together words. “Let's escape this together, Katelyn. Let's find a place to hide. We can slowdance on some empty rooftop somewhere and I'll let you paint your crazy pictures. We can be almost dead together. We're not gone, but we're living like that light is almost out, everyday, just you and me,” he exhaled mightily, “blue and yellow.” From under unruly long brown hair he saw a smile creep across her face like a welcome virus, infecting the whole deserted room with happiness. “Look who's living for today now.” Katelyn clasped Carver's hand, using his body to support her journey to an upright position and jumped up excitedly. “Let's go waste time.” They exited the ballroom with a brisk pace, not hesitating to look back at their previous location. After all, why would they? Carver knew he'd make her happy some way or another. That's all he ever wanted, to have something to hold onto. That hand was more than enough. Outside, the sky was on fire. The horizon seemed to be exploding in several different shades of blazing orange, leaving Carver temporarily blinded. His hearing also seemed to disintegrate automatically; the sirens a deafening timbre with crushing vibrato. His touch never faltered; all he knew in that moment was to hold on. It wasn't until they came down from the godless skies that he couldn't help but break his grip. He couldn't tell what they were; the glare from all the unnatural color blocked his vision. All he could process were garbled screams, and when he reached up to touch his ear, he felt the unpleasant stickiness of fresh blood. And then he realized what he had done, and before he could fix it, they seized her away from him, breaking his plans up in one fleeting moment. Blue and yellow became just blue, the intrusive, brooding ocean that separated him from consciousness and his heart. Scores of pubescent bodies started floating. Gravity seemed to disappear. Soon, Carver could feel his feet lose touch with the cracked, worn earth. He was ascending far above the world he once knew, the planet in which he had found the only girl he could've ever fought for. He already let her fight for herself. Carver was only waiting for the final bugle blast at this point; a signal that the war was lost. Compliance seemed obligatory, life had proved meaningless. If Katelyn could see the world she was leaving, what a tapestry she could paint... Carver could barely focus on the objects that were beckoning him towards where no god was stationed. He made note of the shapes of the foreign vehicles, like elliptical discs, vessels of horror, unfathomable malice. That was all he could process. The world grew hazy, he was weightless, his consciousness was slipping away. Wherever I end up, I hope it's with you. A pinprick of light pockmarked the charcoal sky, Carver was falling back to earth. They had taken their fill. They had taken everything but him. He was the boy who blocked his own shot. He could've kept her if they just stayed put. She would've painted this world with a whole different viewpoint; the lone color scheme of blue and yellow. The ballroom was caked in a thin layer of dust, the skeletons of an ancient romance out in the open. It all looked the same to him, decadence put on display. He stood up to leave, but he thought better of it. Hands shaking, he started breathing in more irregular bouts, his lungs in an eternal boxing match. He spoke aloud, slowly, methodically; he couldn't hear what phrases were spilling out. “I left you once. I let you go. I looked away from what I wanted for two seconds and lost it all. But I won't lose this. I won't lose that blue. You won't lose that yellow. I'm almost dead. And until I die, I'll always remember what you showed me. I wouldn't want that light to go out in any other way.” Should've said something, but I've said it enough. By the way, my hands were shaking; I'd rather waste my time with you.