Monochrome

"It's getting kind of late now. I think I'm going to be headin' home."
"Nah, c'mon Dino, it's hardly past twelve. Have another one!"
        I look over at the clock; 1:53AM. The bar had emptied as slow as the fat, lazy, mid-summer sun had set last evening. There is still a faint scent of cigarettes and of body odor left behind by patrons, now gone home or off to more late-night exploits that I care little about.
"Alright, I'll have one more but then I've got to head on home. There's work in the morning, or have you already forgotten, Dalton?"
"That' a boy! Hey, Havel!" he motions at the bartender, "Two more Beefeaters for the road."
"No problem. ‘ere you are, Mr. Land"
I take a swig, get up, and put on my jacket. "I'll see you in the morning then."
"Take it easy, Dino."
        I give the bartender a twenty-dollar bill on my way out and bid farewell to all. The air outside the Wild Rooster is crisp and the balmy envelope of humidity around the traffic lights illuminates the otherwise dim street in revolutions of red, yellow, and green. I head toward Merle Avenue and turn right onto Oceanview Boulevard. By far, of all the streets in Diest, Oceanview is the one I adore most. Not only because I've lived there since I was a child, but because of its sheer beauty in a town mostly made up of concrete landscapes.
        Walking along the large flowerpots that dotted the street, I stop to smell a bunch of Azaleas. I am not one to admire flowers, but they add to the warm and comforting feeling one gets while walking down Oceanview. Looking down the street toward my house, I get a familiar feeling of content. Maybe it's the warm orange glow of the street lights overhead, maybe it's the wind blowing through the palms, or maybe it's all the spirits still idling from another night of obligatory drinking at the Wild Rooster.
        I walk up the steps onto my doorway at 461 Oceanview Boulevard. I fumble with my keys for about a minute while looking for the right one. It's dark and cold in the house. Irma had left the air conditioning on all night again, of course. I hang up my jacket and make my way up the staircase. It's quite dark, and the fleeting moments there is any light in the house comes from the headlights of cars passing by on Oceanview Boulevard. Lurching upstairs, I hit my knee against the end of the banister. "Ouch- Fuck!" I yelp, at the top of my breath, in a recognizable drunken slur. I get that strange feeling one gets upon hitting their funny-bone, when you'd see blue spots and get that metallic-like taste on the roof of your mouth.
"Dino Brucllo, get your ass to bed", she mumbles semi-consciously from the next room "what time is it anyway, one in the morning?"
        I walk into the bedroom. I take off my vest and plump down onto the bed. Irma had fallen fast asleep in no time after my disturbance. I lie under the covers for a few minutes trying to submit to sleep, but am too distracted by the street lights outside. ‘Damn bright lights,' I fall asleep thinking, ‘shining right in my eyes'.
        I wake the next morning to the sound of the alarm clock. I hit the snooze button and rise to the sound of songbirds, as I have every morning this summer. It seems unusually dark around for this time of year, and I look over at the clock. It's 7:10AM. I rub my eyes, but still, something is wrong. Something is different. I flick the switch on the lamp on my nightstand. I look around and panic besets me immediately.

Everything in my sight
Is coated black-and-white.

          Plain and simple, everything I'm seeing is just like that of an old movie. I rub my eyes again. Still, everything I look at is just a shade of black, white and gray. Colour has gone. ‘What's happening here?'  I think. I look over at Irma, lying comfortably in bed, her usually striking blond hair matted against her pillow. A shade of brilliant, yet unfamiliar, white.
        My mind can not believe what my eyes are seeing. I am sure that I am not dreaming, as I've never really dreamt before in my life. And certainly never such a lucid vision like this one. I panic once again, I don't know what to do. I get up from my bed and make way for the bathroom. What was before a collage of green, blue, and purple, is now a muddle of colours that I could best describe as light gray, dark gray, and light black. I walk to the sink and, looking in the mirror, behold myself in all my monochromatic glory, my brown hair now a sullen and tarnished shade of charcoal. A cloudy sable now replaced the majestic hazel that filled my irises only the night before. I run my fingers across my chalk-white lips, now drowned of their padded rouge hue. I stand there in amazement, truly shocked.
        I sit down on the edge of the bed. ‘Maybe it's just temporary. I am sure these things happen all the time. All the time, nothing out of the ordinary' I assure myself.
‘Still, I should probably see a doctor about this after work. Best not to worry Irma now. Yes, best to just keep quiet about this right now.'
        I eat breakfast and then dress for work. Irma usually wakes at 8 to leave to work by 9, so that meant I could avoid seeing her this morning. I walk downstairs and open the closet to get my jacket. Everything is definitely much darker in the shadows now, and much brighter in the light. My pupils are not used to this contrast. I open the front door to see Ms. Swedenborg, the cleaning-woman, walking up the path towards the house. Her usual blue skirt now a deep shade of gray, and her usually striking red hair robbed of its luster and burnishing shine.
"How are you doing this morning, Mr. Brucllo?"
"I'm doing alright Clara. Feeling a little off actually, but off to work nonetheless."         
        I walk down the driveway to my car. I pause and look across my shoulder down the street towards the traffic lights. ‘Nah, I can't do this' I think, ‘I'm just going to call Dalton. There is no way I could drive the way I am now.'
        He arrives about fifteen minutes after I called him and told him that my car couldn't start and I was in need of a ride to work. He drives that car that everyone else seems to have. I can't recall its name, but it's one of those cars from Japan. And if it wasn't for the dent in the front-right corner of the fender, I probably couldn't recognize his car in my current state. When he finally drives up into my driveway, I get into his car.
"What's wrong with your truck there Dino?"
"Nothing's wrong with the truck, actually. There's something going on with me."
"Not feeling too well, eh? Hell, I'll tell Browne you've come down with something, it's alright."
"Well, it's not exactly that. Actually, I woke up this morning and I-"
"Come down with the bug?"
"Well maybe, but then this has got to be the worst flu I've had in my whole life." I rub my eyes again. It has been about an hour since I've woken to find myself in this terrible situation, but I still have that optimism that if I kept rubbing my eyes it will just go away, it will just fix itself.
"You think it's from last night? You're not hung-over are you? Men our age shouldn't be hung-over anyhow, what kind of message would we send out to the younger ones? I'd love to stay in one day on a hangover myself, take a mini-vacation, but the shit I'd catch from the missus would make going to work much more worth my while."
        I laugh, sardonically.
"No it's worse than that. I actually woke up this morning and- I woke up and there's something wrong with my eyes, it seems like. Do they look any different? Does my iris look scratched at all?"
"Hey, I'm no expert, Dino. Looks fine to me, though. You're worrying over nothing."
"Well, I don't think it is fine. I woke up and everything I'm seeing now is in black-and-white, and that's no good. I don't know what's wrong with me. It's like I got a set of lens in my eyes that I can't get out."
        He seems amused by this.
"Wait, what do you mean- black-and-white? -you sound like you'd be fit for a straight-jacket right now, buddy."
        He begins to chuckle, but then pauses to look at me, and realizes the genuineness of what I'd said.
"Are you being serious here?" he asks.
        I give him a long, hard look. His usual dark, black moustache still looks the same. His tanned and rough skin, now a dim gray. The whole world in my peripheral is nothing more than grayscale. I glance down Oceanview Boulevard towards the corner-park and I am taken aback by the sight before me. What once was a scene of epic green iss now deprived of the gifts of magnificent tints and dyes that coated this once noble landscape. Instead, it is now painted in myriad gray, black, and all other colours of industrial art. It is like nothing I have experienced in my life, an absence of something so elementary that once you've been robbed of it you become witness to the splendor of the divine creator. The miracles that are the simple things in life, the seemingly insignificant things that make our lives that much more colorful and make the passing of each day less of a labor and more of a joy. I feel humbled by this realization, but this does not diminish that inner-sense of obligation and responsibility deep inside my being.         
"Yes. Everything I see. Don't really know how I'm going to work today, but I think it's best if we keep this to ourselves right now. I can't miss any work, money's getting tight at home. Living in Diest is not as cheap as it used to be."
"Nah, it ain't."