The Missing Colours

Night Stories

THE MISSING COLOURS

Once upon a time after time and time again, there lived a special little boy in a very dull and drab world.  The flowers had no bright colours.  They were all grey.  The trees were grey.  The houses all had grey walls and grey slate roofs, and there was no grass on any lawn anywhere, only stones.  There were big stones and little stones and halfway big stones and halfway small stones.  In the distance were grey hills and huge grey mountains.  The rivers had grey flowing water like dirty dish water that moved and tumbled over rocky riverbeds.  When it rained in this dull world, the little boy had to run for cover, because it rained pebbles, grey pebbles, and they hurt when they fell from the grey clouds in the sky.

            The little boy knew that something was missing.  He had dreams of the colour blue and often saw the colour red and the colour yellow in his mind, but no matter how hard he looked in gardens, he could not find the colours.

The buttercups had no yellow in them, neither did the daffodils, and the roses were very sickly looking.  The trees were pale and crooked and had no blossom on them.  Even the rainbow had no colours in it at all, just shades and shadows of grey.

            The little boy’s name was Jack and he lived in the grey house at the end of a terrace of houses that all looked the same.  If the house had not had a

number on it, Jack would not have known in which house he lived.  He lived with his mother and baby sister.  His father was away working in another land and came back to visit them every month.

            “Mama, where have all the colours gone?” asked Jack one day, after he had dreams of blue again.

“It has been so long since I saw colours, Jack, that I have forgotten why they left,” answered his mother.  “Here, Jack, eat this orange,” she said,

offering him a round grey fruit.

“But it is not an orange anymore.  It has no colour.  It tastes sweet though, so I suppose it does not matter whether I see the colour orange or not.  Did someone take the colours away, Mama?” asked Jack.  “Perhaps I can find them and bring them back.”

‘It will take a lot of looking to find them again,” said his mother.  “We have got so used to being without colours that we have forgotten what the world looked like.  All the round fruits look the same and it is only when we taste them that we know whether they are apples or oranges or peaches.”

“Mama, I am sure that apples are not supposed to be grey.”  Jack shook his head.  “There is definitely something missing and I want to find out why we now eat the palest of palest strawberries and stone-coloured bananas.”

“Perhaps if you find the oldest person in the city, they will remember what happened,” suggested his mother.  “Try asking Great Granny Murphy at the top of the very steep hill.”

“Good idea!  Thanks, Mama!”

Jack set off after he drank his grey tea and ate his grey sandwiches.  He packed a bag with a notebook and pencil so he could take notes on what Great Granny Murphy said.  He added some grey apples as a present for Great Granny Murphy.

By the time he got a quarter of the way up the steep hill, the apples were getting heavy, so he ate one of them to alleviate the weight in the bag.  Then he ate another apple.  Eating the second apple at the same time as climbing the high hill was quite hard work, so he sat down under a tree halfway up the hill so that he could continue eating the apple without gasping for breath.

“HEY!  You’re sitting on my tail!” yelled a deep voice, startling Jack and making him jump up and almost choke.

Jack coughed and looked down but could not see anything.

“That’s right!  Cover me in your germs now!  It’s not enough that you sit on me, but you have to cough all over me too.  Where are your manners?”

Jack was bewildered, looking everywhere, up and down the tree, behind the tree, below the tree, and at the side of the tree.

“Pardon me, but if I could see you, I would not sit on you or cough upon you, would I?  Where are you, and more to the point, what are you?”

“Oh dear!  That is very sad if you cannot see me!” said the deep voice mournfully.  “It was bad enough that the world turned to stone, but now I am disappearing too.  This is terrible news.  Something must be done immediately!  We are being wiped out.  Alert the proper authority!”

Jack frowned.  “If I knew what you were, it would be easier to report your disappearance.  By the way, who is the proper authority?  I was on my way to see someone called Great Granny Murphy about another matter entirely.”

“Is this Great Granny Murphy the proper authority?” asked the voice.

“She is the oldest of us all, so I suppose she has the final word.  What kind of creature are you, so that I can make arrangements to have you restored, if that is possible?” asked Jack, peering into the roots of the tree, looking amongst the pebbles to see if there was any faint visible sign of a tail.

“I am supposed to be a dog, and a handsome dog I am too, as far as dogs go, but as you can see or not see, I have been wiped out of existence.  I still have feelings though, and you did sit on my tail.  That hurt my feelings.  Oh, and by the way, my name is Rover.”

“Rover who?” asked Jack.  “You must belong to someone.  What is your last name?”

“Last name?” asked the invisible dog.  “Mackay, I believe.  Rover Mackay is my name.  I lived with my owner Mister Mackay at house number five, but somehow or another I disappeared under this tree.”

“Rover Mackay, I will find your owner and inform him that you are invisible, but first I must see Great Granny Murphy.  It is a matter of urgency that we stop anything else being wiped out.  Here, Rover, have an apple.”  Jack tossed one of the apples onto the ground and watched as it disappeared into thin air when it was scoffed rather quickly by the invisible dog.

“My favourites,” said Rover Mackay, “grey apples…mmmmm.”

Jack reached Great Granny Murphy’s house at the top of the steep hill, long before the grey sun had set.  He knocked on the grey door and looked at a lovely trailing rose bush on a trellis against the wall of the house.  The roses were perfect except they had no colour and looked forlorn.  He knew they should have been pink.

Jack heard the clackety-clack of a pedal and the whirring sound of the belt on a treadle sewing machine inside the house.  He knocked again and the sound stopped.  Footsteps came to the door.

“Hello Jack,” said a friendly white-haired old lady who came to the door.  “I was expecting you.  Come in.  Sit down.”

Jack entered the house and sat down in front of a hearth fire with a crane and crook.  A kettle hung from a hook, and grey smoke spiralled up the chimney.  The flames of the fire moved and danced in the fireplace, jumping in different shades of grey.

“Great Granny Murphy, here are some apples for you.  Mama sent them.”

“Thank you, Jack, your mother knows all my favourite treats, bless her.  Now, what brings you here?”

“Mama thought you might know the answer to a question.  Where have all the colours gone?” asked Jack.

Great Granny Murphy cackled.  “Gone?  Gone?  My dear Jack, they have not even ‘been’ yet, never mind ‘been’ and ‘gone’.”

“We have never had colours?  Mama said you would know, being the Elder and one of the first ones here.  Why have we never had any colours?  I am very worried because I sat on Rover Mackay’s tail, Mister Mackay’s dog, and he has just been wiped out.  He is no colour at all now, not even grey.”

Great Granny Murphy was startled at this news. 

“Jack, this is very serious.  You must do something.  I am too old to travel to be of much help.  You will have to undertake a journey to the edge if we are all to be saved from being wiped out now.”

It was Jack’s turn to be startled at the weight of responsibility placed upon his shoulders. 

“Me?  My goodness!  Where is the edge?  It sounds very precarious, and I am not sure I have a head for heights.  What do I do when I get to the edge?”

“You call out a name, very loudly, through a megaphone that I will give to you, and do not turn back until you get an answer.” 

Great Granny Murphy rummaged through a box and produced a cone-shaped megaphone. 

“You see, Jack.  We are in a special world that has not been finished yet.  We are in a pencil drawing.  The artist, Mister Mackay, who created us all, has been very depressed because of the loss of his dog, and so he decided not to finish his painting.  Because of his unhappiness, he feels he is not good enough and that there is no life in his drawing, so we have been left suspended in this grey world of the pencil drawing, but it seems by the disappearance of Rover, he has decided to rub us out.  We could all be erased in no time!”

Jack jumped up.  “I found his dog!  I found Rover, his dog!  I will ask Mister Mackay to finish the painting.  Where do I find the artist?  Where is the edge?”

Great Granny Murphy handed the megaphone to Jack.  “Stay calm, Jack, and do not draw attention to yourself.  We don’t want you getting erased too.  The edge is in the west of the drawing beyond a treacherous blank space of grey.  Be very careful crossing this grey expanse.  There is no shelter.”

“I will, I will.”

Jack set out immediately to find ‘the edge’.  He thought he had already reached the edge when he came to a vast white space beyond the last tree in the woods.  Jack looked out, alarmed by the blankness and whiteness before him, and he turned quickly on his heel, deciding that the way back was much safer.  At least he had guidelines there.

“Hey!  Watch where you’re stepping!” shouted a familiar voice.  “Twice in one day is not good enough!”

Jack rolled his eyes. 

“Rover, if I could see you, I wouldn’t step on you, would I?  And anyway, what are you doing skulking up behind me like that?”

“Skulking?  Me?  Never!  I take umbrage to that!  I was merely following you to make sure you didn’t get lost, and this is all the thanks I get… a sore paw and a reprimand!”

Jack felt sorry for the dog that could not be seen.  “Rover, I would not dream of hurting your paw or scolding you either if you were visible to me, so I’m sorry if I hurt your leg or your feelings.  I’m grateful that you were worried I would get lost, and to tell you the truth, I would definitely get lost going across all that white wilderness space to find the edge.”

“I will go with you.  Dogs have extra senses, you know, even dogs that are invisible.”

Jack shook his head.  “How will I know if you’re beside me?”

“I have a collar on, but no lead.  Do you have a belt?” asked Rover.

Jack slipped off his belt.  “Luckily this belt is just for show and is not necessary to keep my trousers up, so we can use this.  Come closer so I can find the collar.”

Jack groped across the dog’s back and up to his neck until he felt the collar, and he slid the belt through and buckled it, so he had a handle.

“Right, lets go, Rover!  Don’t pull too hard.”

“I’m well trained.  My master taught me to walk beside him, almost at heel.  I could have won all kinds of prizes, but my pedigree let me down, I’m afraid.  They don’t give rosettes to mutts, not in the big shows anyway.”

“Sorry to hear that, Rover, but if I had a rosette I would give it to you now, for bravery.  I’m quaking, having to walk across this blank space, and I tell you now that I couldn’t do it without you beside me.”

Rover sighed.  “I guess I’m more comfortable about it, knowing that I can’t be seen.” 

The two friends wandered across the open space, Jack feeling more vulnerable by the minute.  He felt very tall and big because he was the only grey thing to be seen in all that white.

They had walked for some time when Rover suddenly stopped.  “Oh dear.  I hear something, something I don’t like at all.”

“What? What is it?” asked Jack in a panic. 

“Shhhh!  Yes, that is it!  Quick, you must hide.  It’s the thing that made me invisible.  I’d know that noise anywhere, a sort of brushing sound.  I just thought someone was brushing my coat!”  Rover growled.

“Hide?  Where?  I’m the biggest thing here!”  Jack looked around frantically, and then stared at a huge shadow of a square block held by a giant hand that was descending upon the blank space.

“Down!  On your knees!  Quick!” shouted Rover.

Jack fell to his knees obediently.

“Hands too!” shouted Rover.

Jack was on his hands and knees, and then he felt Rover stand on his right, beside him.

“I’m hiding you from that thing that will try to rub you out,” said Rover.  I am already invisible to them, and you are now hiding behind me so you cannot be seen.  I am like a white shadow shielding you.”

Sure enough, the square object was hesitating and then moved off behind them to the grey world they had just left.

“Oh no!  We must hurry to the edge!  If we don’t get in touch with the artist, our whole life will be wiped out and it’ll be as if we never existed.  My poor mother, our home, the woods, Great Granny Murphy, everyone who lives there!  Quick, Rover, quick!”

Rover growled again.  “No, don’t get up!  He’ll see you.  You must crawl on all fours beside me.  That is the only safe way.”

The duo crept forward, Jack trying his best to keep up and keep hidden.

All seemed well until Jack somehow tripped over the belt around Rover’s neck and ended up flat on his belly, while Rover’s head got pulled down.

“Hey!  You’re choking me!  Let go!” shouted Rover.

“Sorry, Rover, sorry!”

Jack tried to hide himself behind the dog again, but it was too late.  The great square shadow attached to the artist’s hand was upon his feet in a minute and rubbing him out.

“NO!  My toes!”  Jack looked horrified as he saw little grey curls of dust flying across the white expanse.  “He’s rubbed out my toes!”

Rover quickly got into position to hide Jack.

“He thinks he has rubbed out your toes, but he hasn’t damaged them.  You still have them.  It’s just that he can’t see them, and neither can I, but you can still walk!  We must get to the edge quickly now.”

Jack was in shock.

“What will my mother say?  I have no toes!”

Rover scoffed.  “You’ll have no mother soon if we don’t hurry.  We’re all in danger now.”

Jack was determined more than ever to reach the edge.  What he would do when he got there was another matter entirely.

The boy and the dog came abruptly to a halt when they reached the edge suddenly and without warning.

“Good grief!  I nearly fell off!” exclaimed Jack.

“That was a close call,” said Rover.  “Now, what do we do?”

“We must keep to the edge and get to the bottom.  There will be a step there, and maybe some writing.”

“You’ll have to deal with the writing,“ whispered Rover in embarrassment.  “My skills are limited. Have you ever heard of a dog that can read?”

Jack smiled.  “I think you underestimate yourself, Rover.  Have you ever heard of a dog that can talk?”

“Quite so,” answered Rover.  “I suppose I can surprise myself.”

They carefully reached the bottom of the page and sure enough there was the writing, and the step.

“What is his name?  Or is it a ‘her’?” asked Rover.

“Great Granny Murphy suggested it was a ‘he’, and that he might be depressed because of the loss of his dog, and that is why he is taking it out on us.”

“I can understand that perfectly,” said Rover.  “If I lost me, I would be very depressed too and liable to bite anything around me, I shouldn’t wonder.”

Jack tried to read the writing.  “His name is… well, what do you know?   His name is Jack, just like mine.  Jack Mackay, just like yours.  Right.  We need to let him know we are here.”

“How do you propose to do that?” asked Rover, a bit dubious about the whole adventure now.

“You get onto the step and bark as loud as you can,” said Jack.

“Me?  But that’s rude.  I only bark at intruders, and to tell you the truth I’m not comfortable getting off this page and onto that step alone without you.”

“I’ll be right beside you.  You see, once we are on the step, he can’t rub us out,” reasoned Jack.  “The step is part of his easel.  We are a pencil drawing, you see.”

“Speak for yourself, Jack.  I’m invisible and you’ve lost your toes.  Hardly the impact we hoped to create here.  How can he take us seriously?”

“Rover, just bark!  I’ll do all the talking.”

Rover began barking and barking, making such a racket.  Jack stood beside him and waved his hands frantically, then called through the megaphone that Great Granny Murphy had given to him.

“Mister Mackay!  Mister Mackay!  We’re here!”

Suddenly Mister Mackay was alerted to a movement on the front of his easel.  In astonishment, he peered at a small boy waving his arms and calling through a megaphone, and he thought he heard the faint barking of a dog.  Jack Mackay thought he was seeing and hearing things.  His depression had been frightening lately.  Perhaps this was the start of his delusions.  It might be best to ignore what he was seeing and hearing.

“HELP! HELP!” shouted the boy.  “Mister Mackay, we’re real!”

Jack Mackay used a magnifying glass and peered through it, almost jumping out of his skin at the sight.

“Yes, yes!  I can see you and I can hear a dog that sounds just like my Rover!”

“Rover is beside me, Mister Mackay, but you rubbed him out.”

“Yes, I regretted that.  Who are you?  With whom am I speaking?”  Jack Mackay demanded to know the identity of the boy in front of him.

“I am Jack.  You drew me and then rubbed out my toes while I was on this journey.”

“I wondered about that.  I saw some pencil marks appear on the right hand side of the unfinished painting and knew I had not drawn on that bit.  It disturbed me a lot.”

“Not half as much as it disturbed me when my toes went flying off and rolling down the paper,” retorted Jack. 

“Oh dear, all part of my depression, I’m afraid,” said the artist.  “I never quite got over Rover dying.”

“Dying?”  Rover was alarmed.  “I am dead?”  Rover whined.

Jack tried to comfort him.  “You’re not dead, are you?  You’re here, immortalized in this drawing.  Quit the whining!”

The whining got louder.

Jack turned to Mister Mackay.  “Now, look what you’ve done.  You’ve upset Rover.  He thinks he’s dead!”

The artist was alarmed.  “I couldn’t bear to lose him twice.  What can I do to help him?  I can’t even see him.”

Jack sighed.  “You drew him and then rubbed him out.  Your real dog died, and we are sorry to hear that, but then don’t immortalize him in a drawing and in a fit of depression kill him again by rubbing him out.  You tried to erase us all because of your mood and temper.  I am here to plead with you, sir.  I have a mother, a great grandmother, a father who is away and needs to come back…goodness knows what you did to him, and we are all scared now because having created us, you have failed to finish your masterpiece and left us all in a grey world without colour.  How would you like to live in such a world, eh?”

Mister Mackay became very excited.  “You mean you are real?  I never thought anything I created was real, and never in my wildest dreams did I think my creations could communicate with me.  Jack, you have restored my faith.  I’ve been a half-blind old fool living in just such a grey world myself.  What can I do to restore things?”

“You could start by thinking of us.  We’re tired of eating grey apples and grey grapes and munching grey biscuits.  We’re tired of eating grey bread and drinking grey tea.  I no longer want to wear grey socks, especially now when I have no toes to put into them.  Poor Rover here is tired of not being seen.  He doesn’t even have the chance to be grey, having been erased and being made a ghost in our world.  You could finish your painting and give us some colours.”

Mister Mackay jumped up to open his paintbox and grab his brushes.  He placed his palette through his thumb, and laughed aloud, startling Jack and Rover.  He held the palette under the step at the front of the easel.

“Hop on and I’ll take you home the fast way!” he said, chuckling away to himself.

Jack grabbed Rover by the collar and they both jumped onto the palette, a bit wobbly.

Jack Mackay carefully brought his other hand up to gently stroke the invisible dog with his finger. 

“Are you sure you are real?”  he said, his voice unsteady. 

He could feel the dog’s fur.

“I wish you were big again.  I loved you so much, my Rover.” 

He smiled sadly.  He had tears in his eyes.

“I wish I could be seen again.  You rubbed me out,” said Rover.

“You are real!  Rover, my very own Rover, you will be restored as soon as I get you back on the drawing, and your friend Jack here will have the finest toes and the finest shoes in all the land!  I shall also bring his father back.  And, if there is anything I can create for you, Jack, you only have to ask me!”

“Really?  Yes, I’d like one thing, Mister Mackay.  I’d like to have Rover as my dog in the painting…  of course, he will always be your dog, but I can look after him at my home, if that is all right?”

Rover did not protest.  He was rather pleased to know that he was going to be restored and have an owner as well.  “Pardon me? You look after me?” he teased.  “I think it may well be the other way around.”

“Oh,” said Jack, “One other thing.  Please give Rover a whole cabinet full of rosettes and prizes for being the bravest and best dog in the land.”

“You bet!” said Mister Mackay.

Rover was embarrassed.  “That’s far too swanky, far, far too swanky.”  But he was pleased, well pleased, and licked the side of the artist’s hand.

Jack Mackay still had a tear in his eye when he finished his drawing and began painting beautiful colours, but it was a tear of happiness now.  He had felt Rover’s lick on his hand!  Life had changed dramatically once he knew he had some control of his creations.  What a wonderful feeling to be able to share his world.  He threw away his eraser at the first opportunity. 

Jack was happy to see his toes emerging and his mother was happy to have her husband back home again.  The whole world was beginning to look more colourful.  Jack had adopted Rover the lovely dog that was very obedient and won all kinds of prizes.  Great Granny Murphy seemed brighter and younger than ever, despite her great age, and it was certain she would be around a lot longer.  Yes, life was good, and Jack munched on red strawberries and pink apples all day.  It was good to see the end of a long grey winter.  Jack’s mother kept her thoughts to herself that it seemed to have changed overnight.  Who was she to question the nature of things?  Great Granny Murphy had something to do with it.  She was sure of that.

THE END.

Dwina ’07.   xx