The Colourful Life of Calum McCall

During the early years of his life, Calum McCall was surprised to find himself
waking up every morning in a winter country of darkened tenements, black railings
and streets of pitiless traffic. There seemed to be only one sun in the Scottish sky,
and it wasn't even striped - which perhaps explained the look of perpetual
disappointment he could see in the faces of the men and women who lived there.
Every so often he tried asking his parents: 'What has happened to the
multicoloured suns that used to bounce across the sky, and to the colours that
trailed after like rain?'
'Aye right’ said his dad.
'Elbows off the table,' said his mother.
At school his teacher told him to sit up straight and pay attention — that way he
would get ahead.
When he fell in love for the first time he told the girl — she was called Alice — that
her kisses brought back all the colours he had known so early on, and which were
now faded almost to nothing in his memory. Alice said he was sweet, and a few
months later she got engaged to an up-and-coming dentist.
Years later, Calum married and had children of his own. One day his baby son
pointed at the sky and gurgled with pleasure. Calum followed the pointing finger, but
could see nothing particularly special up there - nothing that was visible to him,
anyway.
That night he slept badly for the first time.
Now that he was in a position of responsibility, he could not afford to turn up at his
office dishevelled with lack of sleep, not among his ambitious colleagues. His doctor
gave him a packet of brightly coloured pills.
Every morning now, Calum is up early, ready for the day ahead. Every night, he
slips from one utterly dreamless world into the next.

© Ron Butlin 2007
From ‘No More Angels’
Published by Serpent’s Tail 2007
ISBN 978-1-85242-954-6
www.serpentstail.com