The Colors They Forgot
Jane
traced her finger along the dusty book spines, leaving a clear trail on the
plastic jacket covers. When she had
pried the two-by-fours from the doorway and stepped into the building in search
of useful items to restock their dwindling supplies, this wasn’t what she had
hoped to find, but a faint smile upturned the corners of her lips. It had been a decade since she had shared a
room with so many books or idled in the stacks at a library. She pulled a random book from the shelf,
flipping through the pages and marveling at how well the collection had held up
despite the turmoil of the world.
Lifting the book up to her nose, she inhaled the slightly musty and
familiar scent of paper and ink. As dust filled her sinuses, she let loose a
mighty sneeze that echoed through the dark library.
“Mom?”
her daughter called out from somewhere deeper inside the building. “Are you okay?”
Jane
picked her way over the debris from another time as she followed the sound of
her daughter’s voice. Drawers from a
card catalogue were overturned in the aisle, and index cards scattered the
floor like windblown leaves. Art
supplies, broken keyboards and monitors, and everything else deemed useless in
the days following the asteroid strike littered her path. It seemed a miracle that the books were
largely untouched. Most paper products had long ago been scavenged and thrown
into fires for cooking and warmth. The volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and
tsunamis that consumed the planet in the asteroid’s wake had left little room
for leisure or learning. Jane still dreamed of the weeks and months when volcanic
ash drifted from the sky like dirty snow, sealing the country into an eternal winter.
“Aww…
there you are!” Jane said as she rounded a shelf and found her daughter sitting
on the water-stained carpet, staring up at the stacks in the dim gray light.
Like most children these days, Anne was scrawny and small for her twelve years. She was travel dusty, but her warm, layered clothes
were carefully patched and her long dark hair, close to the same shade as Janes
short-cropped ebony locks, hung down her back in two neat braids. Her pale skin
had never been touched by sunlight, and a smile lit up her face like a luminous
little moon under the shadowy shelves when her mother came into view.
“I
can’t believe we found all of these books, Mom!” Anne gushed as her eyes
scanned the titles of the shelved books.
She pulled a fat tome down and held Melville’s Moby Dick out to her mother.
“Look at this one! I had to see how many pages it was, it looked so
long.” Anne reshelved the novel and gazed up at the multitude of book spines
that towered to the ceiling. “It’s so
peaceful to sit here with all of these books.
The colors on their covers are just so beautiful,” Anne concluded, her
voice a reverent whisper.
Jane
pulled another book from the shelf, gently brushing her palm across the smooth
cover. It was chick lit, and the bold,
hot pink and brightly colored cover reflected every bit of dull, dirty light
that trickled through the cracks in a large, plywood covered window. It was a beacon in this gray, ashy world
where the sun hadn’t blazed in the sky for ten years. Anne’s words about the
peace and beauty of the library echoed in Jane’s head. The
world would start to be alright again if we could just bring this back she
thought as she turned to walk toward the exit.
“Wait,
Mom! Look at this book. It’s my name!” called Anne excitedly behind her. She held another book out for Jane to see.
Jane
took the book and grinned down at the cover. “It really is your name,” she said. “We named you after Anne of Green Gables. It was one of my favorite books when I was
growing up.” Jane stowed the book in her pack to read later and gestured to
Anne. “Come with me! I’ll show you who my mom named me after!”
They
walked toward the exit and stopped when Jane saw the letter B marking a shelf.
She scanned the authors and titles, then found what she was looking for. She pulled the book from the shelf and held
it to her chest in a fierce hug before turning the book over to Anne. “Your grandmother loved Charlotte Bronte and
named me after Jane Eyre, another
beautiful book. She loved reading as
much as I do, as much as I wished you had a chance to when you were younger.”
“I
think I have room in my pack for this one, Mom,” Anne said as she solemnly
settled the book into her own bag.
Suddenly,
a gruff voice called from just outside the open doorway, breaking through the
stillness. “You best come out of there now, you hear? Come out slowly, with
hands where I can see ‘em.”
Jane
gently nudged Anne behind her, and the two made their way out into the
eternally cloudy afternoon. A man stood
on the crumbling roadway outside the library.
His lips were tight and grim beneath his salt and pepper walrus mustache,
and icy blue eyes peered at them from under bushy eyebrows. He was tall with a stocky frame, though it
was clear he had lost weight over the years of hardship by the way his clothes
and skin hung loosely on his bones. Jane
was relieved to see that his clothes were well cared for and his hair carefully
cut and brushed. These signs of civility
usually signaled that an encounter would go peacefully.
Holding
her palms upward in a passive gesture as she walked down the steps, Jane gave a
friendly grin. “We’re just passing through, sir. We didn’t mean to disturb anything. This town
looked so quiet, we didn’t think anyone was here. So many small towns like this have been completely
abandoned,” she said gently, hoping to sooth the man’s nerves.
“Just
you and the girl in there?” the man asked sharply.
Jane
nodded. “Just me and my daughter. My name is Jane Wilder, and this is Anne.
We’ve been traveling for a few years. It’s hard to find a place to call home
with the world the way it is. We can
move on right away, if you’d like,” she responded.
“Hmph,”
the man huffed with a shrug. “Naw, you
don’t need to go so soon. My wife would
skin me alive if she heard I turned a woman and young girl away without any
welcome. Please stop by our home for
dinner and to stay the night if you like.
We’re close knit in this community, always have been. It’s how we
survive. I happen to be the mayor, and I’ve found hospitality wins us allies. My name is Wilford Tucker by the way, and I’ve
been the mayor of this town for around about twenty years.”
Anne
elbowed her mother and smiled up at her.
The promise of a meal in someone’s home was usually a treat. Especially
in small, rural communities like this, some people had success with green
houses where they grew vegetables and managed to sustain keeping livestock for
meat or dairy. Whatever the fare turned
out to be, they were practically guaranteed to eat better than their usual
meals of MREs and ancient canned goods.
They
followed Wilford, and with an ambling gait, he led them past a few blocks of
the small town’s shuttered business district.
He took a residential side street that showed more signs of the hard
decade that had passed, leaving this town and thousands like it across America
as mere skeletons of their former glory.
It was clear that many houses were now vacant, and these had been
stripped of any useable parts. Windows
looked like empty eyes minus their glass panes, timbers had been stripped for
firewood, and Jane knew their insides had been gutted of copper pipes. Massive tree stumps lined the cracked
sidewalks, accusing remnants of the ancient oak trees that once shaded the
street. Not too far from the library,
but at the edge of town where the paved street gave way to a gravel country
road, Wilford took a walkway up to a timeworn but still beautiful Victorian
farmhouse.
Jane
and Anne exchanged eager grins as they took in the bay windows, wrap around
porch, and gabled roofline with its faded ginger bread. The clapboard was weathered silver under its
chipped coat of white paint, and the yard and flower beds were the same dead
and ashy expanse that had replaced every lawn across the country, but something
about the property spoke of care. Emotions
surged with Jane’s blood as she looked up at the house. For the first time since that terrible day
when the asteroid devastated the planet, Jane felt hope.
Wilford
swung the door open and ushered them inside as he called out, “Deloris! We’re
going to need to set two extra plates for dinner. I found a couple of young ladies passing
through town, and I told them you’d want to have them stop by for dinner.”
A
woman who must have been in her mid-70’s stepped through the doorway at the
hall. Her skin was dry, wind-worn, and
wrinkled, and she had steely hair cropped to her shoulders. She looked thin and birdlike, but her spry
steps carried her lightly to Jane. She took the younger woman’s hand into a
strong shake. “We don’t see travelers in
these parts very often anymore. May I
ask your names?”
“I’m
Jane, and this is my daughter Anne.
We’ve been on the go for the past few years, ever since the law was able
to get most of the bandits under control.
No place has felt quite like home to us.
I’ve always had itchy feet, and now seems as good a time as any to keep
on moving. Who knows. Maybe someday we’ll find the place we’re
supposed to be, so we just keep moving on until we find it.”
Deloris
gave a sympathetic nod. “Well, do us a
favor. Stay for dinner and for the night before you move along. Fresh stories and news from travelers is
about the most exciting entertainment we can hope for these days.”
Anne
edged closer to her mother, but smiled up shyly to the older woman. “We’d love to stay for dinner!” she finally
exclaimed. “Something smells really good!”
A
few hours later, they sat down to dinner in flickering candlelight. As good as the food did smell, the thing Jane
couldn’t get enough of was the joy in her daughter’s eyes. Between the library and this meal, it felt
like Jane hadn’t seen her daughter enjoy a day better since poor Anne had been
a toddler, before the earth went to ruin.
Deloris loaded their plates with cornbread, roasted chicken, and even
fresh greens sautéed in bacon grease.
Nothing was from a can, and everything tasted exquisite.
“What
did you do before?” Wilford asked as he speared a bite of chicken with his
fork.
Jane
sighed sadly and said, “I was a high school language arts teacher. It’s not a very useful trade these days, though
I’ve spent time teaching in the government camps, especially in the early days.
But the safety was never worth the chaos and the crowding. As soon as Anne was old enough to travel, I
just knew it was time to move on.”
“A
teacher, you say? My Deloris here was our art teacher in town! And she is quite
a talented painter,” Wilford said, winking at his wife. “You know, Deloris, I found these ladies
breaking into our library, of all places!”
“Huh. The library, you say. I guess you didn’t find anything of use in
there,” Deloris responded after a morose sigh.
Jane
frowned at the way the little woman seemed to shrink a little when her husband
mentioned she was a painter, and all of the animation and color completely fled
Deloris’ face at mention of the library. Some instinct told Jane to push on
this moment. “On the contrary,
Deloris. I was delighted to find the
collection intact and in such excellent shape.
I doubt there are many book collections as complete as this for hundreds
of miles around. You’ve got something
special here.”
“That
library can’t feed people,” Deloris pointed out. “The building couldn’t house many, but that
would be a better use than it sitting there boarded up. The books would be worth more as fuel than
they are sitting there, collecting dust.
Wilford should have let the town take them years ago when they wanted
to.”
It
was shocking to listen as this woman, who had seemed so cheerful and kind only
a few minutes before, spewed such painful feelings to her guests. Anne looked as though she were on the verge
of tears, but she spoke up despite her obvious anguish. “But Mrs. Tucker, seeing those books today
was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in my entire life. Like I’m sure your paintings do, it added
color to my world that has always been coated in gray ash. If I could, I’d live in that library and
share it with everyone I could. And I’d share
your paintings too.”
Deloris
gave her silver hair a sad shake. “Child,
my paintings are all locked away now and all of my paints and brushes with
them. There’s no use in art in a world
like this.” With that, the old woman rose from the table and slowly left the
dining room, defeat echoing in each of her footfalls.
Wilford
put one hand over Jane’s hand and the other engulfed one of Anne’s small, tense
fists. “It’s okay,” he said as he
listened to his wife’s steps carry her up the stairs. “Learning to survive has been hard on all of
us, and, I think, it’s especially hard on the artists. Turning away from something that always meant
so much to her was hard for my Deloris.
I’ve tried time and again to get her to pick up her brushes again these
past few years, but she’s become dead set against it. My wife is strong, but she lost something in
her spirit during those long years when everything was a scramble and those of
us who made it through, survived hand to mouth.”
“I
understand completely, Wilford. All of
us survivors lost more than our possessions, friends, and families when that
asteroid struck. We lost a spark that
made us a true civilization, the thing that was always the most beautiful thing
about being human. We lost our joy in
seeking knowledge and creating with no other purpose than to lift the
soul. Today, for the first time, I feel
like it’s time to bring that back, and I want to be a part of it. I want to start a Renaissance in your little
town.”
“And
how do you propose to do that?” Wilford asked.
“First
of all… do you have some sort of town government or meeting where you vote on
things the community needs?”
***
A
week later, Jane sat on stage in the old school auditorium as people from the
town and surrounding countryside filed in and took their seats. She tried to take calming breaths and put on
a confident veneer, but her leg shook uncontrollably. Nothing before this
moment had felt so important, and at the same time, a goal had never felt so
impossible to achieve. She would be
arguing to build this community into something stronger through a path that was
not focused merely on survival, and she would be fighting to make this town a
home for herself and her daughter. Jane
thought a glimpse of Deloris might calm her nerves, but each time she scanned
the incoming crowd, she was nowhere to be found.
For
the past week, Jane and Anne had stayed with the Tuckers. Despite the tension
that ended their first dinner together, Deloris treated them like family. Like
every other survivor, Wilford and Deloris had lost many of their loved ones as
the world collapsed, and their guests seemed to fill some of the holes left
behind. Deloris especially doted on Anne
with a grandmotherly affection the girl had never experienced. The two cooked and cleaned together, and Anne
was delighted to learn to garden in the greenhouses and care for the
chickens. They never brought up the
library or the old woman’s paintings, and it was like the brief argument at
their meeting had never happened.
For
Jane and Wilford, the week was a whirlwind of planning and discussions. He saw potential in Jane’s vision for the
library. “It will be a hard sell,” he
told her as they sat in the kitchen with mugs of hot mint tea. “The town meets every Wednesday, and we’ll
try to get everyone on board. Two new
outsider mouths to feed on top of a plan that will seem pretty frivolous… but
I’ll back you up as best I can. Deloris might be resistant right now, but I
think it would break her heart to watch you, and especially Anne, move on.”
Jane
snapped back to the present as Wilford pounded a gavel, and a hush fell over
the room. His voice rose above the
echoes of shuffling feet and muffled coughs as the crowd turned their attention
to the mayor. “Before we carry out our
usual business, I’d like to introduce you to a newcomer, Jane Wilder. She and her daughter are passing through, and
I would like to propose they stay. Jane
has an unusual proposal for her contribution to this community if we allow her
to take up residence. I’ll turn the
floor over to her now so she can explain her plan.”
“Good
evening! As Mayor Tucker said, my name is Jane Wilder. I was a high school English teacher before,
and I have spent many years over the past decade teaching in the camps. This week, as I was passing through your town,
I found something that you have kept safe that has the potential to put your
town on the map in the years to come.
Your little library and collection of books is like nothing I’ve seen
during my years of travel. You might as
well be sitting on the Library of Alexandria for all the books left in the
world. The asteroid took so much from
us; our loved ones, our homes, our security, and a whole generation of children
who have grown up without the knowledge that was once at our finger tips. When
I saw your library, I knew it was time.
We have spent so long just trying to survive, but now, it is time to
bring back learning and the arts. It is
time to remember how to thrive.”
Jane
paused and looked out over an astonished crowd.
It was clear this was not at all what they had expected to hear
tonight. The silence seemed to stretch
on, but finally, a voice broke through the room. A middle-aged man with gray streaking through
his brown hair snatched a baseball cap from his head, twisting it in his hands as
he yelled out, “But how is the library really going to help us? How is having someone here to pass books out
to the kids enough to justify adding two more mouths to feed? I know we have
fared better than many places, especially better than the big cities, but we’re
still just scraping by, and this is after so much loss.”
“I
completely understand your hesitation,” Jane replied after a pause. “Mrs. Tucker has been showing me how well you
have all done with greenhouses here. Despite the cold and the gray that has
taken over our weather, you have eked out enough growth to keep yourselves and
your livestock alive. Your ingenuity has
saved your lives, and we could spread what you have learned and save so many
more. Your library is a key to
uncovering so much more information. If
you open the library, I won’t just be handing out fiction stories for kids to
read before bedtime. You’ll be accessing
books on science, engineering, and mathematics.
You’ll be taking a step toward retrieving the way of life that feels
lost forever.
“People
will travel here for your library, and they will bring more books… and
trade. Centers of learning have always
brought more to communities than scholars.
Economic growth comes too. This
is a chance for this town to flourish.
“I
know we don’t talk about it much, but each year is warmer than the one
before. The sun is coming. Summer is coming. If you start today, that library will leave
you poised to take full advantage when the world comes back to its full color.”
Jane
paused as she heard someone in the crowd rise and shuffle toward the door. It was Deloris. She had been there to see Jane speak. Jane watched as the woman walked out the back
door, letting it swing shut and slam behind her, not bothering to look
back. Feeling bereft at the older
woman’s retreat, Jane tried to think of something else to say, one more word
that could turn the community in her favor, but she just stood there, working
her jaw open and closed.
The
man who had spoken before crammed his baseball cap back on his head. “I just
don’t see this working out,” he grumbled.
With that, he rose and followed Deloris out the door. The room full of people began to mumble and
shift in their seats. It was clear the tide had runed away from the
library. As the townspeople got up and
filed out the door, Jane let a single tear track down her cheek.
***
“Don’t
worry, dear,” Deloris said to Jane at the breakfast table a week later. “I have a feeling things will turn out just
fine.”
It
was hard to keep an edge of bitterness out of her voice when Jane replied,
“Even about the library? I’m grateful to
you and Wilford for taking us in, but I still feel like I need something more. It’s been a nice rest for us, but I think
it’s about time we moved on.”
Anne
popped in from the hallway, tears already glistening along the lower rims of
her eyes. “Leave?” she burst out. “I wanted to help in the library, but even if
we can’t have that, I really like it here.
Can’t we please stay?”
Jane
took her daughter’s hand and looked her in the eyes. “If we keep looking, we’re going to find
another opportunity. We’re going to change the world for the better, you and
I.”
At
that, Anne pulled away and stomped up the stairs to the guest room and slammed
the door. Jane slumped into her seat and
dropped her head into her hands in defeat.
A
few hours later, Deloris came to Jane, drawing Anne along behind her. “Before you two leave, I’d like you to come
back to town with me. There’s something we need to do.”
Jane
groaned inwardly. “Isn’t the town
meeting this afternoon? I’d really
rather not.”
Deloris
patted her shoulder. “I understand,” she
said. “But there really is no better time for it.”
Anne’s
beseeching eyes met Jane’s. “Please, Mom?” she whined as she took Jane’s hand.
Jane
gave in with a sigh, nodding silently as she followed the pair outside into yet
another chilly, cloudy day. They walked
down the main street, and Jane held her dismay inside as they turned toward the
school building and fell in step with a few other townspeople who were headed
toward the meeting. Just as Jane was
preparing herself to endure walking into a room of people who had turned her
away, Deloris came to a stop.
They
were standing next to the library. “Look!” Anne shouted as she pointed down the
side street that ran beside the library.
Jane’s gaze followed, and she couldn’t stop her jaw from dropping open
at the sight that met her eyes. Along
the library’s brick façade were lined stacks of old paint cans and an extension
ladder laid on its side. A rough sketch
was chalked across the wall; a girl with twin braids sitting under a tree reading
a book. Speechless, Jane turned to
Deloris.
“I’ve
spent the week crawling around in abandoned basements and cellars to find
discarded paints,” Deloris said. She wouldn’t meet Jane’s eyes, but stared
ahead at the library. “Sometimes a
picture can do what words cannot. I figured maybe we could remind this town
what we’ve been missing. We can paint a
picture of how the world once was, of how it could be again. Don’t just stand there, girls, go grab a
brush!”
A
grin lit up Anne’s face, and she dashed to the jumble of paint cans and
brushes, sifting through the mismatched array of colors. She held a can at eye level, then turned
toward Jane and asked, “The sky was blue once, right?”
Jane’s
eyes misted with tears as she took faltering steps toward her daughter, then
curled her fingers around a paint brush. “It was blue, Anne. It still is above
the clouds,” she whispered.
As
Jane helped Anne pry the lid form the cerulean paint, she noticed that the
trickle of people on their way to the town meeting were pausing behind Deloris.
Stoney faced, they watched as Anne climbed the ladder and made the first stroke
of bright blue across the dreary brick façade.
A few minutes ticked away as Anne worked the paint into the pock marked
tan brick and the dusty gray mortar, giving birth to a brilliant sky over the
lifeless wasteland.
As
they so often do in times of change, the children lead the way. One by one, they broke free of the gathering
crowd, brandishing paint brushes like swords forged to slay the apathy and
defeat that had been with them for their entire existence. They began painting the grass, flowers, and
leaves they had never seen, but knew through instinct, the stories they had
heard, and through faded photographs that still remembered the world as it had
been before. The parents joined them at
last, adding their own memories of an extinct beauty that lingered in their
hearts.
Jane
stood back in awe as the community came together with their paint brushes, and
the mural blossomed to life with the colors they had all forgotten. She turned
to Deloris who watched from a distance with a satisfied smile on her face. When
Jane caught her eye, she offered a wink and nothing more.
***
On a late June day, Jane and Anne walked through the morning drear to the library’s front doors. Anne had put on some weight over the past few months. Deloris was constantly pushing food at the girl, and a steady diet with more fresh vegetables had given her hair a bit more shine. There was a lot to smile about, Jane thought as she unlocked the door and pushed her way in. After the long years of cold volcanic winter, the temperature was steady in the low fifties, her daughter finally had a home, and today, Jane would open
the library to the public for the first time.
Natural
light poured into the space through the tall, glass windows. The mildewed
carpet had been removed, and the hard wood floors they found beneath it gleamed
with fresh polish. Jane watched Anne
march proudly down the stacks, inspecting her handiwork and ensuring not a
speck of dust remained to greet their first patrons.
“We
have one more thing to do, Anne,” Jane called after her. Anne skipped back to
the circulation desk, her braids bouncing against her shoulders.
Together,
they reached into Jane’s weathered ruck sack, each pulling out a book. They gently placed their stolen copies of Jane Eyre and Anne of Green Gables on a table in view of the entrance labeled,
“Librarian’s Favorite Picks.” They smiled at the display of their two most
precious books, settled in their place like orphans that had finally found
their home.
Anne
gave a satisfied nod, then rushed to the door.
“Come on, Mom! Let’s get outside so we can welcome everyone in!”
While
they’d been inside, a wall of people had gathered beneath the mural. Wilford and Deloris were waiting there, and
two children with a ribbon between them moved to hold it across the door as
Jane and Anne exited. The crowd quieted and Wilford began to speak. “Two months
ago, these young women came to our town and proposed a way for us to prepare
for a better future. It’s hard to
believe our resistance at the time, but the way this town has shown up to make
this moment possible had made me so proud. Jane, would you do us the honor of
cutting the ribbon to open our beautiful, new library?”
Jane
stepped forward to applause and cut the ribbon.
As the satin strands snapped in two, a startled hush fell over the
crowd. The world seemed to explode with
light. Jane gasped as she turned around
and faced the mural. The rainbow swirl
of painted on monarch butterflies, summer wild flowers, and emerald tree canopy
seemed to blaze more brilliantly than ever before. The pale girl with ebony braids sat under the
tree reading her book as she had for months, but this morning, she seemed to
glow. Shielding her eyes, Jane lifted
her gaze skyward. A ragged hole in the
clouds had opened, revealing pale, delicate shreds of blue sky and letting
through a precious beam of golden light.
The sun was winning the fight.
Color had returned to the world.
By Rebecca Clarke
