Colors of Heaven

"Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with differences."__Lois Lowry, The Giver

The small single-person capsule sliced it's way across the cold, soundless, vacume of space. Inside its cockpit a young man of about 24, Scott Hughes was boiling over with excitement. He was approaching the goal of his starry excursion!

It was designated XP3609 in the boring scientific manner; to everybody else including Hughes it was called Neo Terra. The planet appeared Earth-like so someone was needed to explore it. Scott Hughes jumped at the chance.

Neo Terra, like Earth, was the third planet from its sun. This fascinated the Earthling who wondered if The Almighty made every habbital planet the third from its sun. This train of thought of course assumed the planet was indeed inhabited. He certainly believed it could be.

There were those who believed it might not be. Heck there were still those who believed space was fake and that the Earth was flat. At this moment there were people sitting on the couch at home who were utterly convinced that Scott's entire profession was a sham cooked up in a movie studio by shadowy forces.

The sudden wailing of a sensor brought the space man's attention to a small screen to his left. Three boggies became visible. "Hot Dog!" he exclaimed as he ran a hand through his blond feuxhawk.

He looked out of the metallic cigar's bubble canopy and saw triangular, black objects speeding toward him from near the planet's atmosphere. From the nose of each there was a yellowish flash and then the poor spacecraft was buffeted.

The astronaut realized with a sense of dread that he'd been fired upon! The spaceship became a missile as it dipped downward and plummeted through the planet's atmosphere turning into a scorching hot projectile. Hughes made the sign of the Cross and blacked out.

Hughes regained consciousness to the sound of a dozen beeping, wailing, alarms. He shut them off so he could think. Right now he felt like Fred Flintstone after a long day at the quarry. His hand retrieved a cellphone looking device from a pouch on his spacesuit. He pressed a button and was enveloped in blue beam of light.

He looked down at the read out and was relieved. He'd be sore for a while but had suffered no serious external or internal injuries. The next phase would have been to launch a probe and see if he could breath this world's air but the ship was so mangled the hatch wouldn't open and it took great effort for Scott to open the ship's canopy and when he did tiny fractures formed a network in the glass.

The radio was shot too so no phoning home. With a great sigh the spaceman exited his derelict ship and threw on his heat resistant, orange poncho. Only now did he discover something amiss with his vision that the med-scan didn't register. He could see just fine except there was no color. He felt like he was in a sci-fi movie serial from the 1940's. Everything was in black and white. He'd have to wait until later to figure out what happened to his peepers. He saw a civilization of some sort in the distance. He'd have to make his way there.

He didn't get the chance, for a skiff of some sort zoomed to the crash site and he was grabbed by armored humanoids. He was shocked by this and also that he could understand them. "Farbo-1547 reporting in. We have the shades bearer."

"The what now?" A big beefy hand smacked him to the metallic floor the skiff. He took it as signal to shut up.

Many of his hours later Scott sat alone in a darkened prison cell within the Ministry of Planetary Unity, this world's religious order & governing body. He'd been taken prisoner and was hauled before the beaurcratic clergy. He learned then that his vision was perfectly fine. The words of that hooded council still boomed in his ears.

"Your eyes do not decive you. We rid this world of color long ago, Outworlder. Colors made things look desirable to others and this caused wars and strife.

"If all looks the same then nothing is more desirable than another, thus no one covets what he cannot have. No man is ostracized because he looks different than another man. In this we've eliminated racial division and greed."

So appreance was not the only thing he had in common with the denizens of Neo Terra. They had similar issues throughout their history and were just as eager to make everyone forget them.

"But how did you erase color from this world?"

"We did not erase it! We simply made it unseeable. Our Wisemen constructed a great platform just outside the boundaries of our world's sky it allows our master star to beam upon our world without it creating color.

"Such was the Will of The Cosmic Master."

"Was it his will or the will of a political hierarchy of religious zealots?"

That was the question that had caused him to be dragged down here and beaten until his bones nearly broke. He was a heretic and blasphemer. He was the Shades bearer. This was a universal label given to anyone from "the color worlds."

Scott Hughes got the uneasy feeling that these beings didn't last long. It was plain the Ministry was corrupted or at least sorely misguided. Colors were the devil & anyone who might introduce the concept back into play were demons. Not even the workers at the station above were aloud to see color; they wore lenses that prevented them from doing so.

Scott recalled reading a story one time, HP Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space. it was about a purple fog that corrupted all it touched. That is what he was to these people.

Foot steps on the hard Rock floor ended his contemplation. "Who's there?"

"Chribissa, Daughter of Holy Jailer Gruvod. I come bearing your evening meal, OffWorlder."

She slid it through a slot in the door. He was happy he couldn't see what color it was. "Is it true you are from a world of color?" she asked, her voice inquisitive.

"Yes."

"It must be dreadful."

"No. Color is wonderful. It's so wonderful that we named a fruit after it's color, Orange."

"How can something wicked be so wonderful?"

Yikes. That was a question that cut deep. Scott saw in his mind the first ever woman on Earth sinking her teeth into a piece of fruit that was off limits.

"Color is not wicked, Chribissa. It was created by God to be enjoyed! He even used a prism of colors to seal a pact with an ancient man on my World."

"Who is God? He must be truly evil if he created colors."

"I think your people call him the Cosmic Master."

She grew indignant,"Cease this blasphemy at once. The Cosmic Master willed for colors to be taken away that all might be unified! He wouldn't will it gone if he created it!"

"Haven't you at least wondered what you look like? In color I mean. What complexion is your skin? What hair shade do you possess. Aren't you the least bit curious?"

"No! That is vanity. I'll not be swayed from my faith by a shades bearer!"

She stormed off and Scott tasted his food and discovered it was agreeable.

That night he thought about the irony of his surname, Hughes which sound like hues. Yes! Surely this was no accident. He knew what he must do. He also knew it would mean him giving up his life. His Savior had dine that for him centuries ago so could he be expected to do less?

Days later he managed to escape on his way to final sentencing and he hijacked one of the military craft. He was piloting the alien tech on pure instinct. He wondered as the craft lifted up if was one of the trio that shot him down.

The ship soared into the sky like a raptor bird in flight. It didn't take long for others to pursue but he out paced them. His face was grim and his teeth were gritted. He pierced the stratosphere and saw the space platform he had come to destroy! It was a marvel. It was basically the galactic equivalent to a black and white camera. He rushed forward and crashed into the platform. It exploded into oblivion carrying him and the Ministry's blind devotees into the Afterlife.

Down below color returned to Neo Terra for the first time in centuries. It nearly blinded the inhabitants but their eyes soon adjusted. For 23 Earth minutes the entire planet was silent.

It is the nature of things that when you give someone something they've been deprived of for so long they usually lash out at those who deprived them of it in the first place. Such was the fate Benito Mussolini and such was the fate of the Ministry of Planetary Unity. Their followers turned on them like starving junk yard dogs and red was reintroduced to that planet via blood. Away from the chaos of the burning temple a certain jailer's daughter saw herself reflected in blue pool of water surrounded by green gras s. Her skin was milky and her hair the color of the night sky and she cried out, "I'M BEAUTIFUL! I AM BEAUTIFUL!"