Dove put a handbag over her shoulder, tucked a kerchief into her pocket, and gripped her umbrella like a cane. She took a last look in the mirror by the door to check on her thinning puff of hair. Not a strand out of place, light gray framed her face like a halo. Flat feet plunked down the handful of steps to the curb as Dove left without even bothering to turn the key in the doorknob behind her. She fought back a smile on the bus ride to the train station, even though no one offered up a seat for her old bones.
On the train, an infant babbled, swaddled in gray, but ruddy cheeks and garbled chattering hinted at color. Dove waved. The father quickly covered the stroller, his face flattened out and emotionless. Gray embarrassment, Dove called that expression. She gave him space by turning to look out the window and stuck her hand in her pocket. Running her fingers along the smooth silk of the kerchief inside, she imagined all the colors that decorated its surface. She could not remember the names of most of them, but she remembered how they looked. Beyond the fence, she hoped, she would see them again.
More gray covered the horizon along the train's path. Concrete buildings, smokestacks, faded asphalt, all gray, but if Dove pushed up her oversized, square glasses and strained her eyes to look out the window toward the front of the train, she could see the faintest glimmer of something else.
By the time the train reached the end of the line, almost no one remained. Dove climbed off the train last. As her feet landed on the platform, she caught another glimpse of something other than gray. It was faint, and still very far away. Dove found a bus timetable and studied it long enough for two police officers and a transit agent to ask her if she knew where she was going.
Each time, she answered, "Yes, I know exactly where I'm going. I'm just sorting out how I'm going to get there." She selected a bus which, by coincidence, traveled most in the direction of the glimmer. On this train, several people offered up a seat for Dove, because the grayness in the countryside was lighter than in the city. She accepted so that the grayness would stay away. As she sat, she kept a fist wrapped around the kerchief in her pocket.
A light drizzle pelted her head and shoulders when Dove stepped off the bus and held up her umbrella, listening to the sound of the pitter patter on the canvas. She had no map for this town, but she did not need one. She just followed the glimmer. Her journey slowed as she navigated through neighborhoods, careful not to touch property. Dove almost tiptoed down empty, gray streets flanked by gray-green hedges that concealed the houses behind them.
Eventually, Dove consigned herself to the dampness in favor of using the umbrella as a walking aid. She followed the glimmer to a long staircase built into a retaining wall. She stopped for breath four times on her journey down the steps and another four times to look beyond the barbed wire fence that had grown out of the retaining wall. It blocked the end of the street where asphalt turned to dirt. The glimmer was there, but the color she expected had not yet appeared. Military officers stood at attention at the base of the staircase and the gate at the end of the road. Gray uniforms blended into the sidewalk. Dove squinted, looking past their bodies, into the grayness beyond. She had been so certain. For years, whispered assurances that the grayness gave way to color at the gate had met her ears. Could she have found the wrong gate?
Voices floated around her, mixing with the memories, old friends who bent their heads close to hers and murmured promises of color. Old friends she had never seen again. A hand gripped her shoulder, and she remembered every morning her mother hugged her, tied the brightly-colored kerchief onto her own head, and closed the door behind her. She remembered the morning her mother traded the technicolor kerchief for a grayed scarf. The birthday her mother handed Dove a gray box with the beautifully bright hair covering inside. The next morning, her mother hugged her, tied it onto Dove's head with a reminder to never wear it outside the house, and left for the last time.
Dove pulled the kerchief out of the depth of her pocket. She held it to her face, studying the color and smelling its perfume. She had to brush the solder's hands off her arms in order to tie it on her head. The voices grew louder. The hands disappeared as the soldier backed away. Then, quiet. Dove looked down from the gray expanse beyond the fence to her own gray jacket. A flower, crimson, bloomed across the lapel. She smiled. At last.
Color chased away the grayness.
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