All the Colors of the Dark

by Chris Whitaker

She saw books stacked floor to roof. “Best education you can get,” he said. “See through someone else’s eyes and you understand more of everything.”

Patch knew right then it was an act, and that death when it came was not light or confession, forgiveness or peace or fire. It was that cold piece of time before you were born, that glance into history books that told you the world went on before and would go on again, no matter who was there to witness it.

At ten years old he realized that people were born whole, and that the bad things peeled layers from the person you once were, thinning compassion and empathy and the ability to construct a future. At thirteen he knew those layers could sometimes be rebuilt when people loved you. When you loved.

“You’re tough,” she said. “I—” She placed a hand on his cheek. “You are. We sense our own kind. Kids dealt a losing hand. We look at others with fucking trivial problems, and we think how long they’d last with a taste of our childhoods.”

“When you make it out of here no one will know how you lost everything, how you stared at an ending they can’t comprehend. It’ll give you power. It’ll make them wish they never fucked with you.”

And I wonder what exactly a mistake is. A thing we should not have done, right? But if learning is built on trial and error there can be no mistakes, only rungs on a ladder to someplace better.”

“Don’t rush. Sometimes it’s the notes you don’t play,”

His skill was nascent, but undeniable. Patch would not think of it as a gift. A gift was given. He ground his competence out. Slow and hard.

She had sat in his childhood bedroom and noticed laundry neatly folded, the bed sheets freshly made. His mother had knocked on the door with oatmeal cookies. He was the kind of boy who would become the kind of man that needed tending.

“The bad are the few, but often they shout louder than the many. Don’t mistake silence for weakness.”