Ficlets

Four Color Life

Back at my apartment, a dreary room in the statutory beige, I carefully peeled the pages open, glancing in awe at the rich colors on the paper.

There was a knock on the door.

“Wh-what? Who’s there?”

Panicking I slipped the magazine under the bed pulling back the yellow covers to make it look like I’d been sleeping. I quickly stripped, threw my clothes, shoes and all, in the red chest of drawers, pulled on my pajama pants.

The knock on the door repeated, insistent.

“Wait up, wait up, I’m coming,” I moaned, trying hard to look like someone who’d been pulled out of sleep – not like I’d just been sneaking around in a curfew.

The knock came again, more urgent, sharper.

“Keep your hair on,” I yelled. Damn, they’d found me. Probably been following the dealer for months, picking off the junkies like me. “I’m coming.”

Reluctantly I opened the door. A terrified woman thrust it open, dashed in, shut it behind her.

She was also dressed in the most beautiful non-regulation colors I’d ever seen.

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