Dave was a successful man of frivolous action. To him, everything seemed bright, colourful, and joyous. The grey car he used to drive down the dark grey pavement to the faded grey corporate building he worked in were his gleeful rainbow. On the way, he would even see the potential smiling faces, bright and ecstatic, of every beaten, dirt-covered person without a home on the grimy grey sidewalk. Every chance he got, Dave left one of the weary individuals just enough money to make the ideal smile he had discovered in his head, or as close as was possible.

Everything in Dave’s dark and dreary world was filled with sunshine and colour. Once he reached his workplace, he looked the oppressive skyscraper up and down. His view of the building was in the in the infinite reflections and possibilities its dull surface showed to him. As he entered the grave interior of the building, he grinned sincerely to the stiff receptionist who refused to reciprocate the optimism. Rather the receptionist pointed out to Dave that he was late, and it would be in Dave’s best interest to hurry. Dave took this as a playful remark, and proceeded to speed up, not noticing the dark circles under the receptionist’s eyes for more than a second.

The music in the poorly lit elevator was an opera to Dave. He heard the bright exuberance that he felt in the repetitive and tuneless noise. The elevator doors opened with a ding. After a short walk through a blank hallway that appeared bright, Dave came to a door. The door led to a room. The room was filled with faces that Dave grew to realize would be angry. He opened the door and was right. Apparently his coworkers shared the sentiment of the weary receptionist. He was late, they whispered, building to open accusations. All Dave heard was of his lateness. The words did not get him down, they couldn’t. Even from their accusations Dave sought something positive, but for the first time that day he could not. Walking to his simple, grey, hard pragmatic chair, Dave dropped his briefcase and sat.

The meeting proceeded, which Dave was supposed to keep track of. When asked for research he gave research. When asked for numbers he gave numbers. Dave did everything asked of him exceptionally, with a strange fervor. The more Dave gave numbers, however, the more his fervor died. Piece by piece, number by number, Dave’s smile became less wide and he heard the serious voices around him grow more monotone, as they actually were.

Dave’s fingers tapped: tap tap tap. His legs shook: tap tap tap. His body shuddered: tap tap tap. The rainbows he saw in the grey room around him began to melt and drip and pour off of the walls like his pretenses. They left only the reality that he was forced to face. The colours of his own individual vision gathered on the ground and swirled together turning into a whirlpool for only a moment before darkening to black. That black became an empty void, no longer any colour to fill it; no light. Dave succumbed to the void, lost in its blackness. He could not pull himself out: it was involuntary, an irresistible drag down.

A break was called in the meeting, abruptly pulling Dave out of his head. He was the first to be out the door. Dave ran through the now black hallway, which grew tendrils that wrapped around him, tried to drag him down, tried to steal the precious cargo in his briefcase. He stumbled through the bathroom door clumsily. His footing was off as he loudly lurched for a stall and the door of the stall flew open. Careful to quickly slam the stall shut, Dave sat on the closed toilet lid. The briefcase he placed on his lap, the combination was already correct, to open quickly. He opened it. Inside he saw light. He saw colour come out of the briefcase and overflowed in his vision, spilling onto the floor.

Dave grabbed one of the objects within the briefcase, taking only a second to admire it before desperately pressing it into his arm.

The dark tendrils dissolved, replaced by tendrils of light that dashed about gleefully. Dave exhaled in relief. He felt the rainbows rebuild, his mind became whole again. His pretenses, his beliefs and understandings coated his brain again and everything he saw was simple and black and white with no grey while being beautiful with bright colour that illuminated his existence from his perspective and his perspective alone.

Dave pulled the needle out of his arm and placed the syringe back in its place in the briefcase.