The Tints And Shades (Frerard)

Do you see the colors?

The coffee shop was busier than it usually is. There was a very tall man with a fedora who smelled strongly of cigarettes and looked very antisocial. Next to him was a table where five women in pantsuits were conversing about some kind of new hotel business they were opening on crystal lake. Two of the ladies were arguing about the price of the rooms and the other three were discussing landscaping and the dining area.

I strolled past them to the front counter where Frank stood smiling at me. That change that Legend referred to as “color” was still in his eyes. The change that I could only describe as “beautiful” was still there. It was mesmerizing. It put me in a trance. I got so lost in the color that I had forgotten what I was doing. I felt like I was floating. I felt as if there was no gravity. I could see nothing but his colored irises. I snapped out of my trance when I heard him calling my name.

“Gerard. Gerard? Gerard!”

“Wha- what?” I shook my head in order to snap back to my colorless reality.

“Here,” Frank said, sliding me my coffee as I plopped down in my usual seat by the counter. I closed my eyes and pressed my palms into them. This whole color thing is driving me crazy.

“Thanks,” I muttered tiredly. I looked back up at Frank with exhausted eyes and yawned. I closed my eyes and opened them and I could have sworn I saw the color in his clothes, but with a blink, the color in his clothes was gone, but the color in his eyes remained. “Hey, Frank?”

“Yeah?” Frank was washing dishes in the sink on the other side of the counter with his back turned to me.

“You’ve been seeing the colors too, right?”

“The what?” Frank stopped washing the dishes and turned back around to look at me. His colored eyes showed that he was confused.

“The colors.”

“Gerard, I think you’re insane. Making up such a thing as ‘colors.’”

“They’re real,” I said softly. “Listen. Have you seen the change. The one that’s basically indescribable, but it draws you in and captures your attention to the point where you can’t sleep at night and drives you crazy and you have no way to describe it because you’ve been stuck in the tints and shades for such a long time, seeing nothing like this change. The only difference in color is the tint of something or the shade of something. The dark of something and the light of something. Nothing ever changes in this place… until I met you… When I met you I started seeing these… these colors. I don’t know what the deal is with them, but I’m racking my brain trying to figure it out. I just want to know that I’m not the only one seeing the colors.”

“You’re not.” His voice was barely audible.

“What?”

“I see them too.”

“You do?”

“Your tie,” he said, pointing at my long, skinny tie. “It changed.”

“I don’t see it.”

“Really? How not? It’s obvious.”

“It didn’t change.”

“Here,” Frank said as he jumped on the counter and slid into the seat beside me. “Close your eyes.” I did as he said. “Now look at it again.” Sure enough my tie had changed. But the change wasn’t the same as Frank’s eyes. It was more vibrant.

I stood up from my chair.

“Come on,” I muttered, grabbing Frank’s wrist.

“Where are we going?”

“To see Legend.”