The Colour of Consciousness by Kateryna Udovychenko

I am drowning in sunlight,

the scorching hands of the afternoon dragging me down into a troubled sleep. I hear the steady whisper of the sea, nagging at my senses, eating away the last bits of consciousness I have left. I drift in and out of slumber. My throat is dry, my tongue is begging for water. The vast emptiness of the beach stretches endlessly into the horizon. There is no soul in sight. Even the seagulls have ceased their laughter in the weight of the ruthless heat. Grains of sand cling to my back, like tiny soldiers lifting me up to the sky.

And when you lie like this, you become one with the beach, with the restless murmur of the waves, with the sun that presses down on your neck with a suffocating force. But even so, you come here every day, escaping your mother’s tiresome demands. You lie and you rest; you begin to rethink your whole being, watching the story of your existence play out like one of the movies they show in the cinemas of Algiers. No longer yourself, you dissolve into the screen – a mere observer drifting between memories.

One could say my life is orange.

The type of flaming orange you see when your father is driving you home, and you close your eyes, and bright rays of daylight pour through the window, glowing behind your eyelids like a forest fire. You wait for the day to end, to feel the blue coldness of the nighttime close around you. You imagine yourself drifting through the gleaming sea that always whispers, steadily, nagging at your senses, eating away the last bits of consciousness you have left. And so, you finally come home to find almost everything packed away, the walls stripped of their character, pale and sad. You don’t want to go to the mainland. But no one asks. The decision has already been folded into suitcases and boxes. And then appears your mother, her gaze heavy with quiet disapproval, after yet another day of your running away. You already miss the beach, glowing orange with the sinking sun.

Sometimes I find myself strolling aimlessly through the marché. I look at the vibrant stalls, filled with fruit, sweets, or other useless goods. I walk further. There is this one corner, plastered with advertisements layered so thickly that you can barely read the ones buried under the rest. I stare at them. That’s when I realise that maybe my life is not always the colour of fiery beams.  Perhaps, it is the type of rusty orange you find on old, yellowed posters, poorly glued to the walls of poorly built market shops. Every time you see them, you try to carve the image of these prints in your mind. Deep down, you know you don’t have much time left in this town. Soon enough, you will leave it all behind. For good.

I wish a lot of things would stay in my young memory forever. The way everything stops before a haboob hits. I marvel at the dark orange dust that covers the sky when you know the storm is coming, an immeasurable cloud of sand against the horizon, larger than the endless beach. I hate storms, but I crave that calm doom you feel before the brown blizzard swallows every building on its way. The dust seeps through every crack in your window. You wait. And instead of the roar of the wind, you want to hear the steady whisper of the sea, nagging at your senses, eating away the last bits of consciousness you have left. Outside, day turns to orange night. You will miss this. The strange beauty of it all.

A hot tear slides down my cheek. My head is throbbing. Today, the evil sun has finally worn me down, burned through me with its unforgiving light. But I would rather not get up. I open my eyes, and everything I see is orange – the sand, the water, the fingers on my hand. I have no idea how long I have been here, melting into the beach, slowly turning into one of the grains that scrape against my back. I give in to the tiredness that tugs at my limbs. I am drowning in sunlight, the scorching hands of the afternoon dragging me down into a troubled sleep. I hear the steady whisper of the sea, nagging at my senses, eating away the last bits of consciousness I have left. I drift in and out of slumber. Then, through the restless dream cuts the voice of someone calling my name.

‘Yvonne!’

My mother. She has found me at last.