What Color is the Sky today?

contains references to drugs (marijuana) and former drug abuse, and heavy mentions of hallucinations/Psychosis symptoms

Lara walked from the door of the Blitz Cafe and Dispensary, coffees in hand, pre-rolls in pocket. The Cafe and Dispensary was her last stop before heading into the studio- she thought to bring Frances a coffee to stay on her good side, as recording was already behind. It wasn’t her fault, though, but it was still always good to be on your editor’s good side, she supposed.

Frances was 70 and was an acclaimed satirical author herself before disappearing for about 10 years and returning, transitioned and sober. She wrote a few more books under her new name and retired to become an editor, bullying new young hungry artists like Lara herself. For a second, Lara pondered the ethics of buying a sober person a coffee from somewhere that sold substances, but it’s not like the coffee was laced with weed, was it?. The pre-rolls were for her to deal with the stress of whatever insults Frances would inevitably throw towards Lara’s manuscript.

. As she walked the sidewalk swirled in a muted rainbow, like an oil spill with a sepia filter on it. She found herself stopping to gaze between the cracks, wondering if they had always been this black and this deep. Sometimes the world appeared either too bright or too dull for Lara. Today it was too dull. The sidewalk was dull, her skin was dull, even the clear blue sky instead appeared a dull gray. Earlier in the morning, she asked her wife Beth what color the sky was to her.

“Hey honey, what color is the sky for you today?”

“It’s blue. Clear. No clouds. What color is it for you?” Beth peeked out the bedroom window as she got dressed, yawning her answer.

“Like a… gross brownish gray. Like it’s going to rain. It’s not going to rain today, is it?” Lara replied, also looking out the same window.

“No, not today.”

“So it’s just me then?”

“Yeah.”

Lara was constantly double-checking what she saw with Francis, or Beth, or anyone else who was next to her. Sure there was a plethora of medications to quell the hallucinations, but funnily enough the thing that helped the most was the weed. Frances, straight-edge as she was, often scolded her for her substance use. You’re killing your brain cells, Lara. You need a real psychiatrist, Lara. It’s not going to help you write better, Lara. She always found herself ignoring her editor’s qualms. What could a psychiatrist do for her? She had already spent most of her childhood loaded with pills, and all it did was make her a zombie. Gazing back down at the cacophony of colors by her feet, Lara smiled to herself. It was kind of beautiful,

A loud ahem broke her out of her thoughts, and Lara realized then that she had been standing in the middle of the path looking down at the sidewalk for at least five minutes. The ahem came from a disgruntled man trying to pass. She was going to be late to her meeting, and more people were looking at her funny. Still, she thought, I should double-check. She mumbled an awkward sorry to the man and everyone else glaring at her, stepping off to the side. Then, she hastily took out her phone and snapped a picture of the rainbow sidewalk and the dark, deep crevice. The picture showed a normal beige sidewalk, speckled with bits of gray, and a normal-amount-of-black crack with a few tufts of weeds growing out of it. Then, she took a picture of the muddy grey sky, confirming what Beth had said that same morning- the true sky was a cheery bright blue, not gray at all. It was mid-June, a comfortable 72 degrees, a near perfect day.

Lara wasn’t colorblind. She knew this because sometimes the colors were normal, and sometimes they were fucked in a different way. Yesterday the sky looked greenish. Sometimes it was more of the stereotypical type of hallucinations: things out of the corner of her eye, little whispers coming from inside of her skull. Sometimes it was faces, melting.

The office door was up ahead. When Lara entered, the lobby was dark. This wasn’t too unusual-it was an old building with shoddy lights. What was strange, however, was the smell. Rotting meat. Was this real? There was nobody else in the building who could tell her if they smelled it too, and it’s not like she could snap a picture of a smell. Maybe it was a dead rat, or a gas leak. Lara continued to the elevator despite the lingering threat of a potential gas leak. As she persisted up the creaky stairs to the third floor, the smell only grew stronger. She checked her phone for the text she sent Frances earlier saying I’ll be there by 12:15. No answer, no read notification, but Frances never checked her texts anyway. She decided to call anyway, just to let her editor know she was here. The phone rang a few times, and it became clear nobody was going to pick up. Ok fine, she doesn’t have her phone on her. The smell permeated her entire body as she tiptoed into the second floor hallway, assaulting every orifice and seeping straight into her brain. It made her nose sting and her eyes water, big droplets escaping her tear glands as her head pounded with the ferocity of a hurricane. Even with the physicality of it all, Lara told herself it was all in her head. The brain produces physical sensations all the time, right?

Frances’ office was the third door on the right. Her door was unlocked and ajar, which was odd. Typically, Lara had to knock on the door a few times before Frances would let her in. She peeked through the entryway, feeling like one of the kids from the Blair Witch Project. The smell, god the smell; one time, as a child, Lara remembered visiting her great aunt, who had dementia. The old woman, who lived alone, had left a frozen rump roast on the counter to thaw and had forgotten about it for a week. When Lara visited she saw the slab of meat on the counter, covered in maggots and dripping with a viscous snot-yellow slime. That’s what the office smelled like now.

“Frances? Do you smell that? Hello?” Lara could hear her own voice shaking as she called out to her editor like a frightened child. “I got you a coffee, I’ll-I’ll leave it here for you.” She placed the coffee on the desk, mindlessly brushing scattered papers out of the way. Maybe she’s running late, Lara thought. She’s a busy woman, I’m not her only client. After a few seconds of quiet, Lara’s stomach dropped. She stifled a gag as she peered to the left, but the rotten meat smell was interrupted by a chill of uncertainty. She had the feeling that she should turn around. The sinking feeling that the smell was not a hallucination, that she should either turn around or run or call the police or pull out a pre-roll. She didn’t move. Behind her, she knew from her years of meetings with Frances, were two armchairs and a table. Frances would usually be sitting on one of the chairs, beckoning Lara to sit on the other as they went over Lara’s book draft together. On the table there would be even more scattered papers, a tin of cookies, and a novelty paperweight from Puerto Rico. If she were to turn around, is that what she would see? Would Frances come rushing into the office late, apologizing for the delay, and taking a seat on her typical armchair?

Lara gulped and turned around.