The Rainbow Man
He'd found it.
He stood transfixed by its beauty, so close, he could almost touch it.
The prize, the reward for his hard work and perseverance, and an unshakable belief that it existed.
He'd found his rainbow.
It had started as a childhood fascination, how after the rain, came brightness and the multicoloured spectacle that could only be natures handiwork. It had had a profound effect on him as a boy, and his parents were always finding the pictures he drew around the house.
His fascination turned into a mild obsession during his teenage years, and when the time came to work with his father at the telecommunications company he owned, he thought of little else. He adorned his office with pictures of rainbows from all around the world, which soon earned him the name 'The Rainbow Man'. But despite all this, he was wise enough to keep his mind on the company, and when his father died, he took over as chairman and steered the company to ever greater heights. And he kept a vast portion of his salary (and some carefully managed company funds) aside, for he knew one day he would have to go in search, no matter what it took, of his own rainbow. Not to possess. Not to try and lay a claim on, but just to see, to feel, and to know that he could be at one with the colours that had taken him so as a boy.
He'd married, a beautiful and patient woman. They'd divorced an age ago, his obsession had cost the marriage dearly. But in the better times, she'd found a rainbow brooch on a market stall. It was only small and cheap but she knew he'd love it. And he did. It had the brightest colours and he wore it everyday.
She was long gone now, but he still wore the brooch.
He'd been gone for two months. He'd stepped down from his company role after he'd hand picked the best in their field to take over while he chased his rainbow. He'd travelled the world, studied meteorological charts to try to ascertain the most likely places he might find the thing. He'd lavished money at it, which was actually starting to run low. But he couldn't stop now. He'd taken a couple of days downtime in America, but he still travelled, for he loved the place. He found himself in Florida, where he couldn't help but think what an ideal place this would be for rainbows, with its daily precipitation and spectacular storms, followed almost instantly by a sub tropical blistering heat.
And it was here, after all his studying and spending, and a lifetime spent obsessing at great personal cost, and with no small measure of luck, that he found it.
He'd been sitting in the Bahama Breeze, a bar off International Drive, sipping a beer and watching the most intense and incredible electrical storm he'd ever seen. He was sitting on the veranda, watching as the rain seemed to be bouncing back up to the sky, it was falling so hard. It was unusually early for such a storm, normally the heat of the day causes them to arrive in the late afternoon or evening, but it was another of natures great sights, so he ignored the rain falling into the veranda and on to his feet, ordered another beer and carried on watching.
Things suddenly got lighter. He glanced up, and could see the sun was shining in another part of the sky. He put his beer down, and looked out and upwards. He was getting soaked, but he didn't care. For there, in front of his eyes, was the most majestic rainbow he had ever seen. It was huge, the biggest and brightest ever, he thought. He instinctively touched the brooch and smiled. This is it, he thought, and knocking his beer over where it mixed with the rain on the veranda floor, he ran out from the bar. Unbelievably, the end of the thing seemed to be touching down directly onto the roof of his motel.
All that money, and scientific research, had all boiled down to luck and being in the right place at the right time. He'd ran into the lobby, barging past the concierge ignoring the mans polite 'Good evening sir', and found the rear staircase, hurling himself up it two steps at a time. He was out of breath and panting hard by the time he'd reached the door which led to the roof. It was unlocked. He paused a moment to regain his composure, and gently pushed the door open. What he saw took the air from him again.
He'd been right.
He'd found it.
As his eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped, his hand went automatically to the brooch his wife had bought him all that time ago. He realised what he was doing and smiled. In front of him, and most definitely touching the roof, was the rainbows end, all seven colours shining in bands merging into one another, but distinct nonetheless, shimmering and beautiful in the warm fat Floridian rain. He didn't notice the brooch fall from his shirt as he clasped his hands together and felt that same fascinated rush he'd felt when he was a boy wash over him.
He smiled.
It was time.
He stepped into the rainbows light, noticing that he couldn't physically hold it or touch it. Instead he stood with arms outstretched, eyes closed and head to the sky, and just felt the rapture as it washed over him.
Red took him first.
As he brought his outstretched arms back in, an unbelievable and uncontrollable rage suddenly set in. He didn't understand, and when his confusion mixed with his temper, it got worse. He looked at his hands and he reached boiling point as he saw that his skin was turning red. Rolling up his shirt sleeves, he could see the crimson stain all over his arms. He shouted, screamed in rage, though he didn't know why. He was just angry at everything. And then as soon as it had arrived, it passed. His fury had completely gone, and so had the red of his skin. He looked around in disbelief, but he was alone. What the hell...?
He blinked hard, and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. When he looked, his hand was orange. So was his arm. Panicking, he quickly rolled up a trouser leg. His leg had turned orange too. He'd been guilty of overusing the sun beds from time to time, but this was silly. As he looked at his hand again, it was turning back to its normal fleshy colour. He shook his head. What on earth was going on? As he tried to make anything out of this strange situation, and remembering the colours that had stained his skin, he started to feel afraid. Afraid? Him? He'd never backed away from anything in his life! What was he scared of? Here he was, on a Florida motel rooftop, alone, and fulfilling a dream! Yet he felt so, so terrified. He covered his eyes with his hands, and when he took them away again, his skin was yellow. The cowards colour.... A kind of realisation dawned on him. Red. Orange. Yellow... Richard Of York... Anger, cowardice...
Just as he thought he had a grasp on the situation, and was wondering what would be next, he suddenly doubled up and was violently sick. Sick with jealousy. As he finished throwing up he was aware that he'd become insanely jealous. Of everything. Anything. Of people wearing dry clothes. Of the man who owned the beat up Chevy truck he'd zoomed past on the interstate earlier. Of whoever had made a life with his ex-wife...
He looked, although he could hardly bare the sight. His skin had turned green.
And was fading rapidly. By now he'd guessed that blue would be next and that the small lulls between each sensation were where the colours slightly blended with each other.
Blue duly arrived with a flood of tears and a wave of melancholy. He'd never felt so sad or regretted so much. As it stained his skin, and the tears mixed with the rain, the overriding thought in his addled brain was that it would stop soon. Only two more colours. He wondered why there wasn't a gap between these feelings this time, and as his skin turned a deeper shade, to indigo, he was strangely reminded of his one failure in business, when he'd taken over a record company called Indigo Blue. As his tears fell, he remembered how he'd managed to sign prestigious acts through the strength of his name alone, and how despite throwing immense amounts of cash at the thing, the excesses of the record industry had become too much, resulting in all his major artists leaving, and the suicide of a childhood friend whom he'd made the manager of the company.
Gradually the indigo stain on his skin faded. At last. Wiping his eyes, he took a small pleasure in the lull before the final colour came for him.
Instinctively he reached for the brooch. It wasn't there. And as he noticed his skin starting to take on the final shade, he started to feel relief.
He could also feel that his clothes were slightly large for him. And getting larger by the minute.
The realisation came horribly fast. The rainbows power was showing his true colours, and as his clothes fell away from him, and the rooftop rushed up to meet him, he was aware that it was revealing him in his basest state. Something that he thought he'd successfully hidden behind the money, the power, his bravado.
He was, quite literally, a shrinking violet.
Minutes passed and he became lost among the folds of his own clothes.
More minutes passed and he found he could swim in the rainwater without touching the rooftop with his toes.
Bewildered and beyond all reason, he grasped the inevitability of his ever decreasing situation, and through his tears he thought he could see the rainbow, in the sky but alarmingly close, its majestic beautiful multicoloured arch gleaming brightly and softly bathed in an ethereal violet light. But he couldn't. It was the brooch, now many many times larger than himself, glinting cheekily as if to say maybe it's me and the one who gave it to you that you should have been chasing all these years.
The Rainbow Man. Oh the delicious irony.
Despite his plight, he smiled at the thought, and as he finally turned into atoms, he was thinking of her.
With that, the rainbow lost its power and gently faded away. The rain stopped, and the sun came out and shone brightly, as if nothing had happened.
His disappearance was noticed and his movements traced to the motel where he'd been last seen by the concierge he'd almost flattened. The police searched the motel, but could find nothing. Eventually the idea he may have been suicidal came to their collective minds, and the rooftop was investigated.
Here they found a sodden pile of clothes and a pair of shoes, which were positively identified as his. As there was no trace of him, his death was recorded as a suicide, and the clothes were bagged and duly removed from the scene.
No-one noticed the brooch, as it sat twinkling its pretty colours in the Florida sunshine, maybe a lasting reminder of the one and only time a rainbows end had been found, and what had been lost...