Molly scraped a grey-stockinged foot in the dust outside her aunt’s house. She whispered “Auntie Jay?” into her mic.
It was quiet for a moment. She slid her foot through the dust, piling it up, then pushed into the center of the pile with her pointed foot, making a little hollow. The open line crackled, hissed faintly. “Yes, Molly, hello! Come in!” Jay’s voice, warm and welcoming, stretched across the line.
Molly crushed out the little volcano she’d built, wiping it flat underneath her foot. She slipped behind the first heavy curtain of her aunt’s house, and picked up the heavy brush her aunt favored, with its ancient handle worn away to a smooth grey suggestion of itself. It annoyed her to follow this ritual every time; she was impatient to get inside, and little would have stuck to her on the short walk from her own home.
She started at the rounded dome of her head, paying special attention to the back where some of the plating joined and dust could get into the crevices. She brushed under her neck and around her collar bones and under her arms, between her fingers, down her stomach and legs, over the tops and underneath her feet. When she judged herself suitably de-dusted she brushed up what she had shed and tipped it into the small bin kept in the anteroom for that purpose, and then she slipped past the second heavy curtain into the warm, neat room of her Aunties Jay & Lana.
Auntie Jay was a cartographer, and the room bore evidence. On Molly’s left, an overburdened secretary was stacked with atlases, county maps, and tourist guides. The portion of the curved wall behind the secretary was covered in maps, some of them marked up copies and others hand-inked originals, showing locations of useful scrap, potential outpost sites, and areas heavy with contamination.
The center of the room, in front of Molly, was a sort of neutral ground. Several small rugs covered the bare earth floor, held in place by a large, low table. Cushions arranged around the table suggested it was a place one might sit when it wasn’t stacked with empty dining canisters as it was now. The canisters might have issued from either of the heavy black footlockers that divided the room into thirds, or from the large wooden cabinet pushed up against the back wall.
The stretch of wall behind this central area was home to more maps, showing things that were of interest but not of any use - ancient seas, an old continent. It was also home to some of Lana’s paintings, dark and swirling and practically dripping onto the floor. Lana’s paintings spooked Molly - there was something too deep and suggestively wet about them.
Following the curve of the wall to the right side of the room Lana’s paintings dominated, larger and stranger forms stretched out not only on the wall but on her canvases, of which there were three at the moment, in various stages of desecration. Pots of paint littered the floor, and brushes huddled in a cup of filthy brown-black liquid perched precariously on a little shelf carved into the wall.
Lana was not home, but Jay was sitting before the secretary, one leg folded up onto the chair while she sat, studying a map and twirling a pen in her right hand.
Jay turned from the map and stood when she heard the curtain rustle a second time. Molly’s discomfort was obvious, her body all rounded shoulders and inward knees. Jay extended her arms and tilted her head, causing her antennae to bounce slightly, letting her catch a better sense of Molly’s state.
Molly scurried forward and leaned into Jay’s arms, buried her head against Jay’s side. Jay squeezed her tightly and waited for her to speak. “It’s the instar! It’s coming up so soon, it, it felt like it was so far away and now suddenly it’s, almost here and I don’t know about it and I’m scared. Like I get that it is part of growing up but it seems so scary and hurty, to have those things stuck into your head!”
“Oh my little cashew! You know you don’t have to do anything if you don’t want. Let’s sit down and have something and talk about it”
Molly nodded into Jay’s armpit, her breathing too ragged to allow for anything more. Jay guided Molly over to a likely pile of cushions and pushed her gently down, covering her in a heavy blanket. She bent over to open the wooden cabinet and began rummaging, tossing empty canisters behind her onto the table. When her torso was halfway into the cabinet she exclaimed gladly. “Found it! At last. Sorry my lovely, but won’t be a moment now”. Jay pulled the canister out of the cabinet and twisted the bottom, releasing the agents that would react with the food inside to make it warm. After some vigorous shaking she handed the canister to Molly, who squeezed it between her blanketed knees while she attached her mouthpiece. Once she was settled Jay sat down next to her and tugged over some of the blanket, and they sat side by side while Molly drank. Jay could hear her slurping through the line, a quiet, pleasant sound. Molly could hear Jay breathing.
After another while Molly’s drinking slowed and her breathing had steadied, almost-but-not-quite matching Jay’s. Jay lifted an arm behind Molly’s head and began petting the top of it gently. “Now what’s wrong?”
“It’s… it seems like something that will hurt, and, and like it is some big thing you are missing out on if you don’t, don’t have it. But I don’t — don’t feel like I’m missing anything now.”
“A h h h, I see. You’re very astute you know — you really aren’t missing anything exactly. You are a complete being just now, as you are, no antennae needed. But being complete doesn’t mean being finished — doesn’t mean there isn’t more to have or to want”
Molly turned towards her aunt, trying to read her sitting figure better. “What do you mean?”
“I will tell you a story.”
The King’s Colors
A long time ago there was a king, whose closest friend was an artist, whose use of color was unusual and inventive and wondered at the world over.
One day while they were walking through the king’s gardens, the king asked her friend “How do you decide what colors to use in a painting? How do you look at the red of a rose and choose such a shocking orange to depict it?”
“My lady?” the artist replied, confused.
With these two questions experiments began, with many objects and many lights, and eventually it was discovered that the artist could not see any color at all. She saw black, and white, and shades of grey, and her inventive paintings came from mixing pigments to be the right shade, without any regard paid to color.
The artist was overwrought. “My lady” she sobbed “my life’s work has been to set down the things I see with accuracy, to study and lay down nature’s beauty that all may enjoy it, in times and places far removed from here. And now I discover my work is a fraud! The beauty I have captured is a twisted half-vision of everything. My own eyes betray me! You must find a way for me to be able to see these things of which I am now am ignorant! I must, or I shall surely die.”
“Dearest friend, closest confidant, do not despair!” cried the king “I will find a way.” So the king sent for her best scientists to study the artist’s eyes and devise a way for her to see that which she could not.
After many months of study, during which the artist did not paint and hardly slept for weeping, and during which the king was much disquieted and all the land suffered for it, the scientists came to an understanding of the cones in the eyes which allowed them to perceive colors, and the absence of those in the artist’s eyes, which deprived her of them. They adapted small machines they used for healing to create the cones, and put the machines into a solution that could be dropped into the eyes. When the solution was prepared, and had been tested, the scientists requested an audience before the king and the artist.
“O just king, O loveliest of artists” the head scientist began, hands thrust nervously into their pockets. “We have labored these many months and have created this solution” — the scientist thrust forward a vial from their pocket, a cloudy liquid that appeared green to the king and grey to the artist — “that can give the artist the cones, and the colors, that she lacks”.
At this the artist cried out in joy, throwing down her weeping rags and reaching out towards the vial, shaking with a need of infinite depth. The scientist leaned back, held the vial more tightly in their hand. “O artist” they began, with a catch in their throat “we fear this solution cannot provide this perception without a cost. The process takes weeks, and great suffering is inevitable and unsoothable over that time, as the very eyes are remade. It is not without risk, also. Though we have strived to minimize the danger it is possible all your sight might be lost, that you might become insensible to light as well as color.”
The artist reached further forward, and clasped the vial, and pulled it from the hand of the scientist, who resisted only briefly. “Four drops in each eye, O artist” they whispered, and the artist tilted back her head and bathed her right eye in the solution.
The pain began immediately and was intense. By the time she began on her left eye the artist was screaming, a wordless scream that shook the king and the scientist to their bones. But the artist’s hands were steady, and she placed the solution in her left eye also.
For seven days and seven nights the artist screamed and wailed, her voice failing on the second day left her screaming silently, writhing in pain, ripping her bedsheets, as tears streamed down her face and the machines did their work, reshaping her eyes. The king sat beside her each night, for her duties to the kingdom kept her away in the daylight hours.
On the eighth day the pain abruptly stopped, leaving only a dull ache in its wake. The artist fell into a deep slumber, and slept another seven days and seven nights.
On the fifteenth day the artist awoke beneath the worried gaze of the king, who held her hand and stroked her face, afraid that her devotion had killed her closest friend.
Tears welled up in the artist’s eyes, her breath choked back in awe. “My lady” she whispered “you are so beautiful! Your eyes — “ and the artist began to sob.
For three years after this the artist travelled endlessly and painted ceaselessly, capturing all the colors she had so long missed. Her art was very different, capturing mood and detail and meaning that she had always intended and that took the breath away from the king and every person lucky enough to see her art.
At the end of the third year the artist returned to the king’s court, and after a celebratory feast sat quietly with the king, staring deeply into a drink. Even after three years apart, the king understood her friend to be discomfited. “O friend, who has captured such beauty as I could never have imagined, what displeases you, that I might make it right?”
The artist looked up, meeting the king’s eyes steadily. “O king” she began, speaking slowly. “I have traveled these three years to capture for you as much beauty as I could now perceive. And in this time I have come to realize something — there is more yet to see”
The king’s brow furrowed. “There are many lands still yet to visit-"
“No, my king, not lands to see. More colors.”
The king gazed at her beloved friend confusedly. The artist’s eyes sparkled with a determined light.
“On my travels I met a woman, who described to me in perfect detail a color between two shades of purple. She could see it and perceive it as clearly as I perceive any color, but it was invisible to me. After this exchange I corresponded with your scientist who provided to me the solution that gave me sight of colors. And they explained to me that there were three cones that I lacked, which the machines gave me. But there is no inherent reason to have only these three cones — it is only what is most normal. There are more colors to be perceived, but only with the addition of more cones.”
It was utterly silent. The king understood what the artist would not ask aloud — she wanted another solution, that would give her more cones and more colors, and more days and nights of suffering. How could the king condone this suffering of her closest friend? How could she condemn her friend to a deprivation of perception, and keep her from fulfilling her life’s work?
And so a second solution was made, and the king sat with her friend through seven more nights of suffering and of sleep. And again when the artist awoke she cried with joy, for in her beloved king’s eyes she saw new and more subtle colors, more shades of evocation and more meaning. The whole world held similar new beauty for her, and again she traveled for three years.
But the work she produced in this time appeared no different to the king, or to any in the court, than her earlier work. It was beautiful, yes, but no different. Only the old woman, now nearly dead, saw the new depth and subtlety of her colors and praised them.
At the end of this third year the artist again returned, and there was again a feast, and afterwards the artist was again troubled. “O king” she began “I see that you nor any member of your court praise my newest work more highly than the work before, despite its great superiority in detail and subtlety. I have realized that you cannot see the new colors I have found and captured, and I weep for the beauty of which you are deprived.”
“I am hurt also” replied the king “for I wish to perceive the beauty of the world and of your work as perfectly as possible.”
The king met the artist’s eyes, and the artist swallowed, and spoke about something she should not have dared. “O my king, most noble lady, I ask this of you: that you would partake of the solution, and of the seven days and nights of suffering and of sleep, for the beauty of this world of a million more colors cannot be described.”
The king loved the artist dearly, and could not deny her anything. And so the king appointed her head minister to watch over the kingdom, and placed the solution in her own eyes. Being a king, she bore pain silently and stilly, but bore it also for seven days and seven nights and slept as long again.
When she awoke to the face and ministrations of the artist, the king was silent and still at first, and then uttered quietly “you were right, my dear. There is so much beauty.”
After the king’s enlightenment many members of the court partook of the solution, and all praised the bravery and skill of the artist, who had undergone it twice and whose work so brilliantly captured the million colors to which they had all been insensible before.
Eventually the artist bore a child. In that time it was traditional for a child to carry on in the trade of their parent, and this brought great concern to the artist. She could not imagine her child becoming an artist insensible to so many colors, and thought of how much greater her skill and work might have been if she had learned to see more fully earlier.
And so, without the consent of the king or the head scientist, the artist stole a vial of the solution and placed it into her child’s eyes. The child wailed and slept for fourteen days, and was weak and near dead at the end from hunger, for in the pain and sleep the child had been unable to eat.
But as the child aged, and began her own training as an artist, it was clear that her ease and knowledge of the colors lately gained by her parent was infinitely greater, and her work even at eleven was infinitely more beautiful than the artist’s, and she became a great painter in her own right.
When word of the artist’s actions spread amongst the court, it became common to give infants or young children the solution, that they might better perceive and portray the colors which their parents had been so long denied.
“That’s terrible!” Molly cried. “They were children, and their parents put them in danger for some colors? It’s horrible!”
“It is deplorable to put an insensible child in harm’s way” agreed Jay. “But you also have never properly experienced sight deprived of those many colors. We no longer need a painful solution; the goggles you gained at your second instar, when you were still learning to see, provide the benefit without the pain. Have you ever played with the settings on them?”
Molly nodded a negative, slowly. “I thought it was very strictly not allowed”
“Well, it is, because you might damage them, but I’m an old hand. First, let me find something that will make a good comparison.” Jay slid out from under the blanket and strode to the footlocker nearest her side of the room, flung up the lid and bent behind it, rummaging. The lid obscured Molly’s view of her aunt, so she stared at the lid and sucked on her drink, listening closely through the open line as Jay muttered and rustled. “Damn thing must be in … a, ha! There it is”
Jay emerged from behind the lid with an old glass bottle balanced in the palm of her hand, all sensuous curves. The bottle was corked and full of a shimmering liquid, purple-blue and iridescent, glimpses of other hues visible as particles within the bottle caught the light, thrown into motion by Jay’s movements. She brought the bottle closer, and handed it to Molly, who balanced it on top of her right kneecap. Jay moved behind her, and popped open a panel on the back of Molly’s head. “Now hold still while I do this, and keep your eye on the bottle”. Molly obeyed, staring intently at the liquid while her aunt breathed quietly and fiddled. Suddenly the color shifted, and the bottle was full of a dark black liquid, dull and flat. Startled, Molly looked around the room, back towards Jay, and was overwhelmed with the wrongness of everything in the room.
“What have you DONE?” she cried
“I’ve turned off the thing that allows you to see more colors than your cones would naturally allow, so now you’re seeing something like the artist would have seen before the solution.”
Molly turned back to the bottle, staring at it in horror.
“You see now why an artist might be willing to suffer, might even be willing to make a child suffer, to escape a perception so dull?”
Molly looked up and nodded, hesitantly.
“We are able now to give the perception of color without pain, so we do it when you are young. The antennae give much more than additional color — they give whole sets of sensations and perceptions we cannot have without them. They make it easier to perceive what others are feeling, because you can pick up the hint of pheromones and of sweat through their suits. They make it easier to explore the overworld because you can sense vibrations imperceptible without them, and they let you sense the chemical messages and warnings left by others, and a host of other things besides.”
Molly gazed up in wonder, but Jay gently turned her head away and began fiddling with her goggles’ settings again, returning them presently to their proper functioning.
“Unfortunately we do not have a way to implant them without some pain and some risk, so we do not do it to insensible children. We wait until you are old enough to have some understanding. Like the king, you cannot fully know what you are missing until you have it, but we, like the artist, know that you must have them young to allow your mind to make the best use of them. We have tried to find a balance, to choose an age where you can consent but still assimilate them well. It may not be the right answer. You may choose to wait, or not have them at all. But most people choose to get them eventually, and most that choose to wait regret that delay after. But, the choice is yours - and the artist did create work that was beautiful before she could properly ‘see’”
Jay finished her fiddling, closed up Molly’s panel, stepped over the cushions, and sat beside her again, pulling her close.
Photos from Unsplash by Jens Riesenberg (beetle), Andrew Neel (maps), Pawel Czerwinski (paint), Compagnons (iridescence), and Shelly Pence (jar).