Two people standing in the woods, bright acrylic greens and reds surrounding them in royal sunbursts, cocooned by colour. There's a pause between them, a distance that could just as easily be a breath as a chasm. One speaks five words, the other does as they are told. Fade to grey.
A figure splayed across the ground, shattered glass lying in specific patterns around them, the last fragments of their broken wings. Hair like flames - not like? - and eyes green enough to dance in, dance until your feet bleed, red swirling with green. Fade to grey.
A crowded dance floor here, two terrified teenagers here, but there. Fog swirls and twirls, mimicking the dancers or perhaps drawn by them, impenetrable either way. The teens jump, no way of knowing what lies beyond. Fade to grey.
A flicker of a city, a flicker of a man writing on a train. The man could be in the city, but he could just as easily not. There is the warmth of the sun, dividing his face into light and shadow. The light writes apologies; the shadow does too. Fade to grey.
The seeds are planted, ideas coiling tight around the brain stem, some brighter or bolder than others. If you grasp at them too soon they shirk away, slowly smothered by the light of attention. They must be left in the dark to morph, find the shape they want, the face they will show the world. Then they will allow themselves to slowly uncoil and breathe on their own, and only then can they
Fade to grey.
No.No no no.
Clutching at one, forcing its tail down, there is a burst of colour before it fades to grey. There is colour here, he KNOWS there is, but the shell is all a harsh, dead grey. He digs his fingers in, tearing apart the carapace, finding the entrails so vibrant in hues and piling them end to end along the paper, but the hues fade from the visible spectrum, the intangible not meant to be given form, not like this, and at the end with heaving breath and bloodied hands all he is left with is grey.
