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They were long, white corridors. The place seemed infinite: wherever you looked, the same identical hallways repeated themselves. If you hadn’t been there before, you could easily get lost. At every intersection of corridors, and in front of every room, there were guards dressed completely in black, armed to the teeth, as if they were protecting something of incalculable value.
All the rooms lacked color. And I know this well, because I have searched for it insistently. This is the institution where I have lived my entire life. Here we are educated so that, someday, we will go out and take control of the world, guiding it toward a better future. We study everything: chemistry, physics, mathematics… and, of course, we are always watched. In theory, we are not allowed to leave our rooms. They keep us locked up to prevent us from forming bonds with others.
Honestly, I don’t care. Although I know that if we were together, we would be stronger. They have denied us names to eliminate individualism, so that we do not feel like people. But I think they forget something: we are the brightest minds on the planet, with a capacity for knowledge that far surpasses theirs. I know that I exist; I know that I am an individual. I cannot say the same of the guards.
Watching them is one of my pastimes. In a cell, boredom is a constant illness. They never show emotion; their steps are always calculated, identical. You couldn’t tell one from another. If one were killed, the next day another would take their place without anyone noticing. For a time, I even thought they were robots. I was wrong.
I have seen them eat, bleed, and even show pain. But nothing beyond that. Which leads me to a new conclusion: they are domesticated animals. They share certain characteristics with me—with us—but they are not the same. Perhaps they understand simple orders or act on instinct, but they lack reflection. If they had it, they wouldn’t be here, doing a miserable job, chained to a meaningless routine.
I know that the people outside this institution are not so different from the soldiers. Some are human, or at least of our same race. Those are the ones that interest me. But the rest… they only live to distract themselves with sports, with mundane problems, without thinking about the political machinery or the propaganda they consume day after day. They believe their ideas are their own, when they are nothing more than echoes of something they heard once.
Those people are made to be controlled. They question nothing, use their knowledge once, and never think beyond that.
The government is full of that kind of people. That’s why the country is falling apart, and that’s why they created this institution: they need strong minds, capable of controlling the masses and the rulers themselves, who are nothing more than puppets. Right-wing or left-wing party? It doesn’t matter. Behind both are the same hands. We do not show our faces, because when a “coup d’état” happens or someone from the rival side is assassinated, the body that falls with a hole in its forehead is never ours, but the puppet’s.
Sometimes I go out to observe my future companions. I look at them through the small windows in the doors. I see them act, solve problems, concentrate. But the most interesting thing is not that, but their skin, their eyes, their mouths, their hair… all of them have so much color.
Thanks to the rotten government, there are hardly any resources left to maintain color. They have imposed a tax on color, as if life itself were a luxury. Everything in this building is devoid of it: the books have no illustrations, the yard is pure concrete. And for some reason no one explains, we have no mirrors.
Perhaps it is so that we do not grow attached to ourselves. By not having an image of our own, literally, we become alien even to our own reflection.
I try to be sociable, or at least to appear so. There is one individual who interests me especially. She has green eyes; she is the only person in this entire institution with that color. I love watching them. They are so beautiful… Sometimes I wish I could keep them in a jar to contemplate them daily, but that would ruin my reputation, and I need it intact if I want to get out of here.
Although that doesn’t mean I won’t look for them at every opportunity that presents itself.
The place tries to be very hygienic. They keep our hair extremely short and we are not allowed to have any possessions, except for study books. Once I tried to keep some strands of my brown hair… I didn’t succeed.
I have two goals in my life. The first is to see the color purple. I’ve read about it in books, but I’ve never been able to actually observe it. They say it appears when blood stops circulating or in bruises, but that is a dark, dull purple. I want to see an intense one, almost magenta. Although I know I will only be able to fulfill that desire when I am freed from this place.
My second desire—the one I can fulfill—is to see my face. I have an idea, although I know it could get me into serious trouble.
Due to lack of budget, we bathe with damp towels, never with real water. Our food is a colorless paste, but with all the necessary nutrients. When someone gets tired of it, they can go receive an IV and continue. But that’s not what matters. In the cafeteria there is water, the same water they use to prepare the paste. And I only need to get close, spill a little on the floor… and look at myself in it.
The problem is that this would bring serious consequences: they would scold me, take away my right to leave my room or to eat solid food. In the worst case, they could let me die for disobedience.
Even so, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make.
I need to know what I look like. I could ask for a pencil portrait, but it wouldn’t be the same. I want to discover for myself the color of my eyes, every detail of my face. Do I have freckles? A mole? What does this haircut look like on me?
It torments me to think that the animals out there have more privileges than we do. They are not deprived of books; of course, the books they are allowed to read are carefully edited by one of our departments. History is manipulated to create nationalism; truth is reconstructed, the past reinvented to suit the State. In addition, they create constant distractions so that people don’t feel the need to read. Why seek knowledge if they have entertainment?
And yet, they can see all the colors they want. They can see themselves.
Damn them.
In these facilities we completely lack electronic devices. The most technologically advanced things are the radios the guards carry. The reason is simple: they don’t want the IP of any of our devices to be traceable. They say that the most intelligent people in the world are here, but they also recognize that out there, among the proletariat, some exceptional humans are born. And those must be watched.
If any of them came to power without being under our control, they could cause a disaster. When they identify them, they don’t try to get rid of them—at least, not always. Sometimes they integrate them into our ranks, although it’s rare. Generally, they assign them other goals that do not interfere with our plans: they turn them into doctors, great businessmen who boost the economy, or, in special cases, scientists dedicated to research. They keep them busy, isolated, so immersed in their studies that they have neither time nor space to question our system.
I’m drifting away from the main point. To complete my plan I need someone to distract the cooks while I sneak away and take one of the plastic bottles of water they keep. I only need one and to run back to my room. And I already know who can help me: the girl with the green eyes.
We’ve spent quite a bit of time together (thanks to my obsession with her eyes), and I feel that she trusts me more now. If I ask her to support me, I think there’s a good chance she’ll accept. But first I have to find her.
She’s usually in the yard; she says the confinement overwhelms her, so that’s where I head. It’s not far from my room—just a few turns. A large door opens in front of me; the guards I pass don’t even look at me anymore. There she is, the person I was looking for, wearing the white clothes we all wear. She is reading a book under the sun. From doing it so much, her skin is well tanned. She has black hair, cut to about two centimeters, but very wavy. I don’t understand why she accepts sunburns knowing they could affect her skin in the future; every time I ask her, she just laughs. I don’t understand her laughter.
She didn’t even look at me when I sat next to her; it was the rhythm of every day. But today I had an important proposal.
“I want to talk to you,” I said.
“Mmm,” she nodded without looking at me. “It seems that today you’re very focused on your studies. Too bad.”
“Well,” I began, “I need you to do me a favor. (How do I say this without sounding suspicious?) I need you to distract the cooks.”
She finally turned and fixed her attention on me. She watched me with those green eyes I adore so much.
“It’s strange for you to ask for a favor,” she said. “What curiosity has come over you?”
I loved it when she looked at me like that. She wasn’t so different from me: she had her own obsession—with people’s reactions—and thanks to that we discovered that the guards could bleed like us. That cost us a week of punishment locked up.
“I’d love to steal a bottle of water,” I replied, pretending not to worry.
“Do you want to know how it would feel on your skin? Or in your hair?” she asked.
“No. I have a bigger interest: I want to see my own reflection.”
She was surprised. A click seemed to turn on in her brain; she quickly set her book aside.
“I’ll help you, but I want you to give me part of the water we drink,” she said.
“Sounds good,” I offered my hand.
Step number one, completed.
Now all that’s left is to get the bottle.
Getting to the kitchen was easy, even though it wasn’t our mealtime. However, this is where the real challenge began: getting that bottle. The plan was simple: Green would distract them by pretending she was hurt and creating a big scene, then blame them. They only cared about their precious jobs, so they would try to appease her and convince her not to report them. I would wait for that distraction to sneak in and take the bottle.
We were already in our positions. I was sitting at a table near the corner and the door that led to the kitchen, pretending to study. At that moment, Green was entering. She acted quite normally: she went, asked for her food, and sat at a table in the center of the room. While eating the colorless purée, she slipped a small metal splinter in without anyone noticing and quickly cut her tongue with it. In an uproar, she began to blame them and scold them, showing her wound. The cooks, terrified, rushed to attend to her, since, for some strange reason, this had already happened more than once. While they were all stressed, trying to calm Green down and keep her from saying anything, I quietly slipped into the kitchen.
The kitchen was large. There were huge refrigerators along the entire wall and, on the other side, stoves where the cooks heated the purée. Their job was easy: take the already prepared purée out of its packages and heat it in a pot. And yet, they made mistakes. Sometimes it came out too dry, so they used a splash of water to give it texture.
At the end of the hallway was what I was looking for: large shelves holding at least fifty bottles of water, five hundred milliliters each. I quickly grabbed one, but it wasn’t enough.
The door I had entered through opened. I had to hide in a closet next to the shelves. They kept some cleaning utensils there: rags and a broom hanging at the top. There were no mops (due to the lack of water), but they had a special robot that did the same job.
I heard voices outside.
Some of them had come back in, I don’t know why. My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding; they were symptoms of fear. This was the first time I had experienced it. I had never been afraid of death or experiments; when you get used to this monotony, the very meaning of living is lost. Almost nothing surprises you anymore. I know they wouldn’t harm me, but I am terribly afraid. I feel trapped, like a small animal.
It was probably because I was so close to fulfilling my desire, and I knew that if they discovered me like this, they would forbid me from the kitchen and my goal would probably never be achieved. I was clinging with all my being to this bottle. It was the only thing that mattered right now. I don’t know how I would live with the defeat of losing it.
No. I’m not going to lose it.
Under the closet door I see shadows moving. They’re getting closer. The voices grow louder, but I can’t make out their words over the sound of my breathing. I can only cover my mouth to avoid any noise.
One more step.
They’re inches from the door.
They grabbed the door.
It’s as if the world is in slow motion.
I see every movement.
They’re opening it.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!
No, please!
I close my eyes. I can’t take it. I don’t want to see it.
A piercing scream is heard.
It’s not me.
It’s Green, my savior.
I don’t know what she did, but the cooks rush away quickly. This finally lets me breathe. I’m safe and I still have the bottle. I’ll have to think later about this rush of emotions, but now is not the time: I just have to escape.
I leave as fast as I can. I don’t even pay attention to my surroundings. It’s as if I’m in a tunnel. Out of the corner of my eye I see that all the cooks are surrounding something (probably Green), but I don’t care right now. I need to escape! I don’t remember how, but I made it to my room. It’s as if my body was on autopilot. At last I can take a deep breath; it feels like I had forgotten to breathe the entire way. But now I’m closer to my goal.
I can only stare—adore—the bottle. It seems almost unreal. Almost fantastical. I hold it carefully, as if it were made of glass. I look at it and shake it. It’s beautiful. I open it delicately and finally pour the water onto the floor—only half.
It’s almost crazy to see it. The colors aren’t very clear, but I see myself. I can’t make out many details, but I have a mole under my eye. I can see how my hands trace my face. I can see who I am. I can see myself. It’s me.
It’s an adoration I’ve never felt before; something beats in my heart, a new sensation. I feel like an animal, incredulous before its reflection. I don’t care about the punishment; I think I can live with this single memory.