Letters from the Graying Vale

Fiction

Dear Elias, The collectors arrived on Tuesday. They did not use force, only these heavy, velvet-lined canisters that hummed with a low, metallic frequency. I watched from the porch as they walked through the north field. It happened in a wave. The wheat did not wither or die; it simply ceased to be gold. Now it is the color of wet ash. When I touch the stalks, they feel thinner, as if the hue provided a structural density that is now gone. The wind sounds different too, flatter, without the resonance of brightness. Dear Elias, The sky went today. It started at the horizon, a pale bleach that crept upward until the zenith collapsed into a dull, leaden ceiling. It is difficult to describe the tactile sensation of a colorless sky; it feels like living inside a charcoal sketch. Mother has started buying vials from the traveler in the woods. They are tiny, illicit things: a single drop of ochre, a smear of cobalt. She paints a small circle on the kitchen table every morning just so we remember what warmth looks like. The pigments are expensive, and they fade within hours, leaking back into the air like steam. Dear Elias, They are coming house to house now. The canisters are fuller, heavier. They are no longer satisfied with the landscape; they want the pigments that live in the blood and the iris. I have started wearing my heavy wool shawl over my head, even indoors. I keep my gaze lowered, staring at the gray floorboards. I can feel the collectors' hunger; it is a vacuum that pulls at the edges of my vision. I am terrified that if they see the green in my eyes, they will take it, and I will forget the smell of crushed mint and the sight of the spring canopy. Please, write back. Tell me the mountains are still purple.