Descriptive Experiment

[icarus_chained]

An old exercise of mine, aiming to link three concepts, of colour, eyes and death. I called it the 'Dying Eyes' series. Eight snippets, describing eight different eye colours in a negative light. Some are ruthless, some tired, some evil, some simply uncaring and unstoppable. It was an ... interesting experiment, just an exploration of the dark side of colour imagery.

Title:  Dying Eyes Series
Rating:  PG
Summary:  Blue, Green, Grey, Brown, Yellow, Red, Purple, Black.

Dying Eyes Series

 

I

His eyes were blue. Not summer's day blue, or cornflower blue. They were the colour of ice, lying miles thick under a thin veil of snow. The deep, dark blue that spoke of endless, freezing depths that would slowly close their frigid, aching hands and crush the life from you. The blue of those vast, numbing tracts that drew power from the darkest depths of the sea and the coldest, whitest winds. Ice blue.

II

His eyes were green. Not grass green, or the green of a sunlit forest. They were the vibrant, iridescent green of a swamp, the colour of those treacherous weeds that lie invitingly, calling you to trust your weight to their support, all the while hiding the clinging, smothering depths. The green of bright, laughing treachery, that promises sun and light and sparkling jewels of rain, and gives only the bitter taste of the mud as it claims your breath. Swamp green.

III

His eyes were grey. Not the luminous colour of silver, or the rich grey of rain. They were the colour of old stone, massive and weary, uncaring of the tiny lives that cross its face. The colour of the ponderous weight that slides inexorably down the mountain and crushes all foolish enough to stand in its path. The colour that remembers birth by endless fire, and the passing of eons, and cares not at all for our brief lives. Stone grey.

IV

His eyes were brown. Not the warm brown of good earth or the rich colour of chocolate. They were the dull, wasted colour of baked ground, cracked and smothered in pale dust. The colour of unyielding, unforgiving land, barren and lifeless and utterly empty. The brown of earth that had once been rich and moist and full of life, and now is merely a grave clinging to the memory of what had once been. Hard, barren brown.

V

His eyes were yellow. Not gleaming gold, or the warm colour of amber. They were the colour of the burning sands, drifting over green lands and swallowing them whole. The colour of the desert's inconsolable grief, that wept away all tears so long ago it can barely remember their moisture, the colour of sand-filled winds that sting tears from your eyes in vain effort to ease the thirst of a land that the tears of a thousand men could not appease. Dry, burning yellow.

VI

His eyes were red. Not the bright red of winter berries, or the rich red-brown of jungle earth. They were the colour of rust, of the red stain that weeps onto the strongest of metals and leaches all their vitality until the barest touch can crumble their pride into dust. The red of age and weariness and a life of exposure to the worst weather. The colour of man's tools, of war and peace alike, lying fading and dying as surely as the people who once wielded them lie faded and dead. Rust red.

VII

His eyes were purple. Not the shy, flirtatious colour of violets, or the mystic tones of amethyst. They were the colour of a livid bruise, marring pale skin, the colour of violence. The colour of a bruised sky before a storm, heavy with the expectation of pain and fury to come. The colour of one who has felt the touch of violence, and lives in weary terror of its return. Bruise purple.

VIII

His eyes were black. Not the shiny colour of a blackbird's wing, or the yielding, reflective darkness of a deep pool. They were the colour of the voids between the stars, the infinite, gaping face of eternity. The colour of emptiness, the all-devouring dark that no star or sun can ever hope to dispell, that blackness that pulls all life, all brightness into its vast, echoing maw in a futile effort to satiate the hunger of nothingness. The colour of hollow despair. Void black.