Colors Fiction

Words contain power. They create feelings, stir them, and maybe even destroy them. Certain combinations of words becomes a whole new meaning to any viewpoint and perspective and even alone, they can certainly strike a heart string or two. They connects different persons, resulting to creation of societies and later connecting the whole world, despite the cultural differences as language’s primary backbone is and always will be words and, words turns ideas and thoughts into something to be shared with, resulting a world of different shared perspectives, values, rationality, what is right or wrong, and even retelling what had already passed. It generated stories, a life of another individual in leaves of a book, whether they were significant or not. One can experience another’s lifetime by reading. Soon, people became mesmerized with another’s experiences, especially ones that were unusual. Perhaps it was the hunger for an obscure story led people into creating them, one’s that are not based on a person, but on the figment of their imagination. Then, fiction was born, and now every one of us has known a fictional story. Whether they were fairy tales, movies, T.V. shows, or comics, these have definitely shown us a world that have only been perceived by a person’s mind. It wasn’t real, but we loved it. It would lead us into imagining our own worlds, perhaps even create our own story.

In that sense, long have I wanted to create my own story. When I was young, I read books, perhaps even forgetting what reality had for me at that time. I would read and read, trying to escape what the present wants me to concentrate on. I have slayed demons, faced fears, lost a friend, and became different, all because of reading fiction. I travelled through time into the future simply by reading as hours would fly by with each chapter of the book I was reading. While I did not read all kinds of books, I have learned that each book has its own tale to tell, maybe even a lot. Soon, I began dreaming for the impossible; for anything fictional to happen, a miracle, maybe or even an accident filled with mystery.

Alas, reality is not kind and would not subject to such childish claims. It obviously did want me to stay here, where I would wake up, go to work, go home, and sleep. Only dreams became my only hope to achieving such surreal desires. I have lived my life for twenty years, and I have yet to see a real ghost or even find a time traveller. And then, just like that, I gave up. Before I finished my schooling, I realized nothing was coming from the vastness of space; that a zombie apocalypse is too easy to control, and fiction is always fiction. That was it. It was hard for me to get over it, since my life revolved around the stories I have loved and always love. Whether it was a book, movies, and anything, I had hoped parts of them were true. But I grew up, and like a butterfly shedding its cocoon, I have shed my clinging to fiction. They became a simple pass time, a hobby even.

Throughout my school days, I have learned to create art and even some short stories, few being fan fiction. Years later, bam, I am now sitting here in the office of an unknown television station’s creative service department. What do I do here? Create the commercials ordered by companies. Since this T.V. station is rather under the bridge, companies that come for advertising are more or less unknown companies too, with lots of money to burn. I simply just take my superior’s orders from the customer and voila. Most of the time, I don’t even really do anything, so I end up reading a book to burn the hours by. If there is any work that comes, it usually doesn’t go to me, but if it does, I do it quickly; after all, the boss is really easy to impress.

Right now, I am sitting on my office chair, facing my work computer placed on top of a desk that I am sharing with a co-worker. In a small cubicle that is barely the size of two portable toilet and actually heated up like a sauna, it is hard to believe the company actually owned more than ten air conditioners. My portion of the desk doesn’t have much on it, just my computer, novels I’ve already read, order files, and my graphics tablet that I don’t really use much since people never really need hand drawn things. They are fine with designs based on existing ones, which just makes my job easier. Sometimes I wonder why no one has even filed any complaint about that. Maybe the company is not even that significant. Heck, even I don’t watch the company’s channel and when I did, I turned off the T.V.; it was unbearable.

I just sit on my chair, facing my computer that is turned on, holding a book with both my hands and holding it up my face. The story is getting to its good part when suddenly-

*CRASH!*

I flinch maybe a little, and then looked behind me. It was my co-worker and cubicle mate, Yui. It is quite an odd name, and at times I can’t even say it right, so I just call her U.I. She just dropped her laptop and some papers.

“You alright?” I ask as I turn my chair to face her and lower the book, though in my heart I did not want too.

“Hai! Daij- I mean, I’m okay, yeah, I’m okay.” She replies as she fumbles through her belongings on the ground.  Apparently she tripped herself over, well, something. I check the floor and saw nothing to be tripped over with. She probably just ran. She could be a little careless.

U.I. is the company’s owner’s daughter who grew up in Japan and now wants to earn for herself, from what I heard. So now she works for her dad. For me, I think this is just another way of receiving allowance from her dad. Most of the time, she would reply in Japanese and then immediately translate it in English, which made her like Google Translate with narrator on. We never talk much.

I go back to my reading. I don’t think anyone could be so careless with stuff and yet here she is, clearly stating that there are different kinds of people in the world.

“Oh, um, Gerald-san?”

I didn’t hear her. Apparently, I am currently in a gruesome battle between aliens and the human race. I cannot be disturbed.

“Gerald-san?” She started poking my shoulder.

I feel annoyed, and I think that is an understatement. Hearing her use san at the end of any person she meets just seems wrong for me. She’s not in Japan anymore. I don’t have the gall to tell her that though, or I just didn’t care enough. The thing is, I am not really sure.

“Yeah?” I lower the book once again.

“New orders from Chief. She wants you on this one.” She hands me a sheet of paper, and I take it.

“Right, don’t you want to do this?” I ask her as I put my book onto the desk.

“I don’t think they want a newbie doing big time stuff.” Her voice was weak, but audible enough to hear, while she stared at the floor.

I look at her. She is wearing an orange t-shirt that shows a picture of a guy wearing a mascot character, or armour or something, a dark green pair of pants and to finish it off, a pair of neon green sneakers. Hideous. Her hair is short, bob cut at that. Her eyes are another reminder she came from Asia. Another thing about her is her scent that is vanilla. She probably puts on perfume.

Obviously, she wanted to do more work, but they never really gave her anything serious, perhaps due to the fact she’s the big cheese’s little girl. I don’t blame them, her dad can actually be very strict and scary, and the fact he cherishes her more than his Mercedes Benz, and everyone in the building knows how much he loves that shining silver mode of locomotion. He would fire anyone that touches it, exceptions to U.I.

U.I. thinks she’s not getting much work because she’s inexperienced and probably not skilled enough. I don’t blame her for thinking like that.

I read the paper given to me. So, they want me to make a poster for a late night show. Gosh, who watches that crap?

“Did they give anything for reference, or pics for the poster?”

She looked at me quizzically, as if I just asked her if she is on her period.

“I’ll be right back!” And there she dashed off from the cubicle. And went back to drop her laptop to her desk and dashed off once again. I shrug and went back to reading. Ah, to be back in fiction…

It wasn't long before came back, panting while holding a flat flash drive that contained all the files needed. Catching her breath, she held her open palm with her arm stretched towards my direction.  I took it from her sweating hand.

“Thanks,” I say to her. I wanted to say she didn't have to run just to get the files, but she probably didn't want to disappoint me or something. Besides, I already tried telling her that before, and she still runs around the office.

“Sorry it took long.”

Dearie, me, that took long? It took about like thirty seconds and I wasn’t even in a hurry. She might as well be the Flash for that, not that I want her to get hit by lightning, that would be terrible and that it won’t give you powers, just burns and possible end of personhood.

I plug in the flash drive and copy the files onto my computer. The files consists of pictures and a logo. I am no photographer, but at least I can say these pictures, or if you can even call them that, are a professional’s nightmare. The shots were blurry, the model was doing a weird pose, and even the camera was in a weird angle. There were also shots that the camera was not focused at the model, but rather at the background. I don’t even get why these get approved by the higher-ups. They could be blind, for all I know. I have seen cell phone camera shots that are a lot more proper that these ones.

Great, I have to edit them first before I use them. Just great.

After picking the ones that looked least disgusting, I loaded the images into Photoshop, the master of making pretentious things disguising as photographs into real ones. And they say Photoshop makes everything fake...

After beautifying the said ‘things’, I immediately created the layout for the poster. I think about how I should design this thing. It supposed to be an advertisement for a small clothing line, focusing on teenage clothing. Looking at the photos, I can say they, at least have decent clothes.

U.I. just drags her office chair behind me, and sits. She always watch me whenever I work on something unless she is working on something too, which quite rare. As I work, I sometimes ask her for opinion, but she often say whatever I do, it is good. She just underestimate herself too much, and the company isn’t exactly helping her get rid of such mind set.

After deciding the design, I start, yearning for a quick finish. The poster was not even a challenge, so I quickly finished the image and saved it. U.I. on the other hand, was just watching me doing my work. Soon, more orders came, and I had U.I. do some of it. She seems to be overjoyed receiving work, as she never stopped smiling even after I gave her portion of work. As she worked, her smile became plastered to her face.

I don’t get her.

I asked her if she had done a different job before, and she said she just do art commissions on the internet. According to her, many likes her art, so she usually gets more than enough. I don’t like the idea of freelancing, though. She stopped focusing on her computer and faces me.

“Do you draw, Gerald-san?”

Not with the san thing.

“Not really.” I did not even face her. I want this thing done.

“Why not?” She tilts her head with a confused look, then straightened up, smiling. “Do you have some works I can see?”

“Go to my online portfolio,” I automatically answered.

With that, she looks up my name in Google, which yields my portfolio in the first result.

“Nothing much there,” I say to her.

For a while, she didn’t say anything. I keep working. After a few minutes, I look at her. She is staring with her jaw dropped. I don’t think my works are that good?

“Uh, U.I.?”

She doesn’t respond. I stood up and look at what she is burning her eyes at. It was a stained glass with different fantasy themes in it, like angels, dragons, swords, wizards, elves, and even science fiction featuring robots, laser guns, and other things. It was one of my works that I really cherished, since it really represented what I like; fiction.

I poke her shoulder, which made her flinch.

“Oh, sorry. It’s just that I really like this particular art you made.”

I look back at my old work. I really like it too, but I don’t see it very amazing. Seeing other works on the internet made me realize I am not the best out there.

“You really should do some commissions! You can charge big for these.”

“I already have a job, no thanks.”

“You’re a great artist! You should do more of these.”

“Too busy for that.”

Upon hearing my answer, U.I.’s face fell to a frown. Besides, I didn’t like the idea of doing another’s fantasy. I only made art for my own satisfaction, and I don’t trust an online account holding my money.

It is almost time to go home. At last, relaxation and carelessness will be my only activity, and nothing will get in the way. Actually, I just read a bit more at home and watch a bit of T.V. It is a simple ritual I enjoy. U.I. is just working hard, squinting her eyes at the screen as if she was defusing a bomb. I wonder if I look like that whenever I worked.

“Hey, aren’t you going home yet?” I ask my ever concentrating co-worker.

“Mou chotto owaru kara. Saki ni kaette te mou ii you,” she says as her eyes move quickly and her right hand dragging the mouse around. I have no idea what she just said, but I’ll take it as ‘You can go ahead.’

“Alright, turn off everything before you leave.” I pick up my coat and suitcase.

Her head bobbed, nodding to my asking. I turn around and walk out of the cubicle.

“Ki o tsukete!” She calls out.

I stop walking down the hallway and go to the window, just to check the weather. They did say it will be raining. I look outside the gigantic pane, seeing the clear clouds and the sun setting. It looks so peaceful.

I can’t help but think about my old art work. I was full of free time when I made that. It was so much fun, thinking what things I like that I can cram into the digital canvas. Throughout my school days, I spent my leisure time doing art or reading, though reading was more done in the classroom as I try to burn the time away from the boring lectures. I do miss making art, but work made it seem impossible to have many hobbies at the same time.

I was going to contemplate some more until I hear a loud thud in the window, followed by a squeaky sliding sound. I look up and wonder what I am currently seeing with my eyes.

It is something cyan colored, four-legged animal, though I could not really describe it. It stopped sliding a second later, stuck in the glass. I look around me, thinking this may be a weird prank by the other co-workers. I see no one. I look back at the weird animal before me, and I noticed the rainbow colored hair and tail. I opened the window and pull the weird creature from its position, holding it in my arms, then I notice its hooves.

It was a pony. A cyan-furred pony with rainbow mane and tail. Whoever owns this must have taken some sort of weird drug, or they must have a daughter with a liking for rainbows and ponies. It is still breathing, with its face showing it was hurt from the bump. Why would it bump itself? But I knew that can’t happen. It just can’t, we are on the fourth floor after all. So who would toss this poor equine up so high?

I should bring to a vet or something. Why must this happen to me? Oh yeah, I always ask for the impossible, and now here it is, in form of a multi-coloured animal. The pony started to wake as I walk.

Its eyes are huge. When I say huge, I meant as big as a slipper. It blinked a few times, then its eyes shrank, as if it realized something. It jumped off my arms and flew in mid-air, matching my height. Wait, it flew. Something is very wrong. My mind tries to register the fact a pony has a pair of wings on its back, hovering like a humming bird.

“My head hurts,” the pony said in a raspy female voice.

Okay, now my head hurts too. The pony is currently flying and just said something. What does that point to?

“A Pegasus…?”

“And you a human, duh,” the pony retorted back with its right foreleg pointing at me.

“How is this even possible?” I shake my head slowly in disbelief. “I don’t know.”

“Right. I don’t either. This dimension travel is more of Twilight’s thing,” it said in an annoyed tone.

I am talking to a Pegasus. I haven’t read any fiction about talking horses.

“Hey! You okay?” The pony poked my forehead with its hoof.

“Yes. I must be either high, or a really weird dream.”

“You’re not dreaming, let me show ya.”

And just like that, it hovered closer to me and smacked my head with its hoof.

“Ow! What the hell!?” I flinched away and hold the spot it just hit with my hand.

“Feeling better?”

“Obviously not!”

The pony landed on its hooves and looked around, as if scouting for enemies and being alert.

“Is it just you? Where are the other hairless monkeys?”

“They all went home.” I rub the pain in my head. “What are you?”

“Name’s Rainbow Dash. Listen, I don’t have much time, I need to borrow you for a while, maybe even longer.” She keep looking around. “Am I even at the right place?”

“Huh?”

“Here.” It- er, she extended her hoof, ignoring my confusion and as if she is expecting me to shake it or kiss it.

“Um-”

“Just hold the hoof, won't ya!?”

I kneel down and take the little hoof like a handshake. Is this even called a handshake? Or hand/hoof shake?

“I promise I won’t harm your body!”

The pony named Rainbow Dash closes her eyes and began to say something. I was about to ask her what she meant by borrow my body, but my hand holding her hoof began to glow that continues to become brighter. Soon, it filled the whole room with a sound effect that sounded like it came from a Harry Potter movie.

I soon feel my body itching, like a lot. Slowly, I open my eyes and realize I am lying on the ground. Something felt wrong, besides that my body feels like being eaten by fire ants.

I stood up instinctively, shaking my head as if the shake off the light-headedness from me.

“What just happened to me…?” I ask to myself as I rub pain that was on my head, only to realize the pain was long, and felt instead a hard material that had hit the particular spot.

Confused yet again, I look at my hand. A cyan hoof greeted me, as if mimicking my hand’s movements. Then I realize, where the hell is my hand? I move the hoof away from my and then back close, checking that this is the hand I am looking for. This could only mean one thing. I have to look at myself.

I look down, expecting a human body, but instead I saw the floor. I turned my head to my side until I can see my rear. Humans can’t turn their heads like this. I can see my new cyan-furred body with a weird tattoo on my new flank; it was a cloud spitting out a three-colored lightning bolt. I can also see my new wings, folded neatly like a bird.

I’m a Pegasus.

I’M A RAINBOW PEGASUS!!!

I feel so confused again. I keep getting confused, I notice, but who wouldn’t be? I don’t know whether I should be excited that pegasuses (or is that still pegasus?) exist, or that I became one.

One more thing I discover is that I am half of my original height. Everything looks too high for me.

“Right, because I’m walking on four legs.” This is too surreal.

The feeling of walking on four legs like how a normal person would when imitating a dog, except this feels more natural. Am I an animal now? I tried to walk forward, but instead I went tumbling forward and crash my face into the carpet.

This is going to take a while.

After falling and tripping a couple of times, I have learned to walk briskly. This is probably how babies feel like when learning to walk. Goodness, it was excruciating and painful, but at least I can walk. It would take another hour to learn how to run. Or is it gallop now?

I pry myself against the wall and look around the hallway, making sure no else is in the floor. I need to get home and settle this. I probably have to hide before someone else can find me. God knows they’ll probably take to an animal shelter or vet or worse, keep me as a pet. No, scratch that. They might even sell me. I walk down the hallway and stop in front of the elevator. The lift is on the first floor, so I reach the down arrow button with my right front hoof. And I didn’t reach it. Damn it, why do I have to be small?

I look down the staircase beside the elevator. It is eight flights of stairs before I can reach the ground floor. I only learned to walk, so the thought of taking the stairs is apparently not a good idea. I jump a few times before I finally hit the button with my hoof with an unsatisfying crack. The tile around the button cracked due to my reckless attempt to press it. Well, better than never. I have to remember that hooves are hard as rocks.

I enter the elevator and pressed B for basement, and upon reaching the wanted floor, leave the elevator and go straight to my car. I was going to jump for the car door this time, but then I realize two thing I have forgotten; one is that I don’t have my car keys and two: how the hell am I supposed to even drive?

“Shit.”

Then I hear footsteps. Someone’s here. I feel panicked. I have to hide. I look around the parking lot, and notice they weren't even much cars beside me to hide with. On instinct, I ran to the nearest car and pressed myself on the car door. What do you know, I can run. Or gallop. This is too confusing. Confusing is becoming the word of the day.

I noticed the car door is slightly open. I push the door with my head and go inside. I can hide hear for a while, until that guy is gone, perfect. The car smells oddly like vanilla.

I hear a few more footsteps. And they were getting closer.

What if this was his car? More importantly, what should I do!?

Maybe I can reason with him, tell him I just need shelter. I’ll sound like a runaway, no doubt, so no. Maybe if I pretend to be a normal horse? No, he’ll take me to the animal shelter right away. Maybe-

The driver’s seat door opens and the woman sits inside. Wait, she looks familiar…

“Sa, kaero ka.”

U.I. Great. I might freak her out. I don’t how she’ll react if she saw me. I look around and saw a pile of jackets in the sit. I dive inside it and hear the engine roaring to life. Why didn’t I recognize this is her car!? I think I’m still forgetting something.

The car suddenly thrust forward, hurling me to the hard back of the driver seat and rendering me unconscious once again.

Now I remember; U.I.’s a bad driver.