grey.

——————

They started the new version of this country all full of hope. But as with anything, things fuck up.

Some billionaire got interested in the place and for a good, undisclosed price, bought it over.

Things started changing.

The guy was into hippy dippy new world shit, and had managed to sell a lot of it. He got so caught up in his own sales pitch he decided to run a whole country that way. He wanted the economy to be rated on something called the general happiness rating (GHR). From the outside that looked great; putting the citizens happiness first. 

Being grey is the opposite of being happy. So I was poor from the beginning.

The rich had the advantage from the start. They had enough money to invest in their happiness.

All the best psychiatrists got bought by the government and kept for the wealthy... for the people who actually had the money to access them.

And any protests about the new system of care were just laughed off and patronisingly rebranded as “community bonding”.

“You all gathered here for one cause, lots of people joining to do something, don’t you feel better now? Aren’t you cured? We fixed you!” the Prime Minister announced to an angry crowd, hiding behind armed police, bellowing from a megaphone. 

The protests ended soon after that. We resigned to our fate. 

We waited. Endured. Ended.

——————-

A lot took their lives, not wanting to continue on in a world where you were punished for your affliction.

Late at night you would see them. The clean-up teams would have them gone by morning, making sure everything on the streets looked clean and normal and okay. It would be bad for the economy otherwise.

Their bodies lying lifeless. In abandoned parking lots, street corners, public parks.

The worst ones to walk past were the ones covered in bright red blood dripping from their veins. They still had parts of them untainted by the grey. There was still hope for them. The clean-up teams always made sure to get rid of them first.

Those with grey through and through, grey blood seeping from their bodies, they were already gone. They didn’t have a chance. They had let go and wouldn’t suffer anymore. You could only pray that they had finally found peace.

Anyway. Those who took their lives in the early days probably had the right idea.

——————-

They started the Census last year. It got rolled out in the rural areas first so they could collect and tally the data in a matter of hours before travelling onto the next small village. Sometimes they could complete four villages in a day.

We had no clue about them then. Rural areas keep to themselves - they avoid the online world due to it’s negative economic side effects. We had no chance of being warned.

Then the first Census arrived in a city. They didn’t know what to expect. They went around homes, asking questions, assessing hues. They wrote down numbers and ticked boxes and made comments. Then they left.

It wasn’t until that first city got their evaluation through that we found out what it meant.

Households who didn’t reach the cut off for the HI (Happiness Index) were deemed as an ‘economic risk’ and had sanctions brought against them. Wages were cut to save the economy that was being damaged by their poor HI level. Pensions were cut. Some had televisions, laptops, mobiles taken from them to boost their HI for the next Census.

Landlords started throwing out grey tinged people out their apartments to save them from facing any repercussions from housing low HI people. It was “too much of a financial risk”.

The first posts appeared during the evictions. People live blogging, filming themselves being forced to leave. Some spoke about their families no longer having enough money to feed everyone because of their illness. Panic struck those of us afflicted with grey.

That’s why I had to leave.

——————-

My genetics were meant to prevent this.

Swedish and Scottish genes met together to create a red haired, blue eyed baby.

When you read up on what I am, it’s said that those who have features close to the primary colours are far less susceptible to becoming what I am. I guess I’m the exception to that.

And trust me, I didn’t choose this. Nobody in their right minds - excuse the pun - would choose this.

In a world filled with colour you don’t choose to be grey.

——————-

You notice it slowly.

A bad day and your feet tinge grey.

A couple of weeks and your legs have turned too. You can feel the drained colour dragging you down as you walk along the street.

Then, as you get worse and it takes over, and your whole body becomes grey. You can try hide it with clothing, but when it’s really bad it taints those too. You become a full grey being.

——————-

I was doing okay. Only my feet and hands were grey, better than the months before.

Then the first posts of the sanctions popped up on my feed. I felt like I was drowning. The grey storm cloud was swirling above my head, covering my body, seeping into my veins, submerging me. Months of progress lost in an instant.

See? The internet is bad for a GHR based economy.

I immediately ran a bath to try and calm down and do my exercises. To go through the motions of ridding myself of this grey cloud that could drag me down.  

I got in, the heat of the water stinging my tinged skin. I grabbed my supplies to help me feel better.

The ruby red nail polish was my go-to. It was a present from my mother when I first started becoming unwell. It was the one thing that worked. Primary colours are the best way to help those afflicted by the grey. I really needed it to save me now.

The polish came out in a gloop. I submerged it in the water and shook it. Merely sticking some colour on my nails wouldn’t help. It was about the rhythm, the concentration, the process of painting them that helped to calm me.

I watched the strokes of red leave the bottle and hit my grey nail. You could see the red dulling on impact. I had to work quickly and efficiently to make sure that the grey didn’t taint them. That I had the bright, beaming colour to focus on. The red would be completely gone in no time in this head space.

I tried to focus. But the red kept crackling away like a broken TV set. Fizzzzz-pop. Fizzzz-pop. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t get that red to stay red. The static would come and turn it back to grey.

I burst into tears. I was too far gone. Reading about the sanctions, the evictions, the starvation… it had all been too much for me.

That’s when I decided I had to leave.

My family would only be able to survive without me.