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Colors	By : geneticist Category: DC Verse Comics > Watchmen Views: 1554 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Watchmen, and I do not make any money from these writings.

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(This is still a real work in progress. It’s choppy and a bit disjointed in places. Please have patience. I’m an artist, not a writer. The writings below were inspired by a drawing I did and I’m still putting them together correctly. It starts out as a dry explanation of my drawing and has since developed into something I'm enjoying writing. Once you get past the bumpy beginning, it should be smooth sailing. Expect changes. I just put this here because I figured there would be others who would enjoy it as much as I have been.)

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She’s leaving work late that night. A redhead is present sitting inside the Gunga Diner. She crosses his sight through the front window. She’s just another person. She looks sad, but so do lots of people. The worn corners of a small, folded stack of singles and fives is waving to the world out of the top of her pocket; a lump of change anchors them in. It’s undoubtedly this evening’s gratuities. She’s carrying a white plastic sack of take-out boxes. Leftovers. A group of knot-heads seem to be following her, about half a block behind. He’s got a bad feeling.

Cue Rorschach, a “uniform” undoubtedly pulled from under a pile of garbage in a nearby alley. He keeps within sight of both parties while keeping out of sight for the time being. No sense in causing a scene if it’s nothing. They’re heading towards his apartment building. He recognizes her from the hallway. She smells like the shampoo that tries to make a statement. He remembers where she lives, roughly.

He makes a point of beating both parties to the apartment. It’s past 3 in the morning and he’s on her side of the building. He’s waiting for a light to switch on before he makes a move. A couple of windows flicker blue in the light of television sets, casting dim hues on the adjacent wall in the alleyway. A light turns on. The window frame is filled with colors. It looks like a melting collage. The light cast on the brick wall is still yellow.

The grappling hook is shot, aimed at the fire escape. It’s not in front of her window, but it’s the closest he can get from the ground. There’s a row of bricks sticking out of the wall further than the rest. It’s a ledge, for him. There’s enough room to scoot towards her window without falling. He peers inside.

She’s undressing. Walking out of her clothing. There’s a trail of laundry indicative of a routine. Her legs are bare. She’s unbuttoning her white shirt; there is a black tank top underneath. It hugs her like a second skin. Her underwear is small, and matches. His upper lip curls into a sneer under his mask. He feels nothing. He waits. Someone knocks on her door—he knows who it is and she does not.

There is a moment of hesitation as he considers the situation. As her hand is about to hug the door knob, he taps on the glass with two gloved fingers. Startled by the impractical greeting, she turns in favor of investigating her window. She’s immediately frightened. Standing less than a foot from the wooden door, she says his name.

“Don’t open the door. Thieves and rapists.” His voice is muffled behind the glass. His name echoes in the hallway under the guise of different voices and a handful of boot steps disappear down the hallway. Chains can be heard slapping against their hips. They assume she must have done something terrible and they were not going to be present for the repercussions. Rorschach was her problem. Punks these days are stupid as all hell.

She turns to the door, opens it and looks down the hall in both directions. There’s a cigarette still burning on the carpet beneath her. She bends down to pick it up and closes her door behind her. She watches the ember glow before flicking it into her sink. It lands with a short-lived sizzle in a bowl filled with soap, water, and the residue of microwaved grits.

He’s standing in the middle of her studio apartment, feet planted solidly in the worn red carpet. “Lock your window, too.” Rorschach is surrounded by color. Dozens and dozens of canvases are stacked, hanging, torn, and some clearly unfinished. The room smells of oil paint, pencil wood, and shampoo that tries to make a statement. One large canvas sits like a monolith leaning against the far-most wall. It looks like an oval leaking blood. The blood is pouring over a white flower, filling the space between its petals and seeping beneath. There’s a series of four smudged stripes from the top to the bottom, diagonally. He doesn’t think it’s finished.

“Like this. Finishing it?” He limply gestures in the direction of the large canvas. The unusual nature of her the paintings drew him inside. He found himself wanting a closer look.

The masked vigilante strikes a sour chord with her. “No.” Her voice is stern and abrupt. She can’t even begin to fathom asking why he has invited himself inside. The pungent odor of mildew and trashed coffee grounds seems to be his aura.

“I ruined it.”

She moves towards the canvas. He notices that she puts much more weight on her right foot than her left when she walks. Something he hadn’t noticed while trailing her home. Her right wrist doesn’t sit right when she rests it on her hip. Her frame is somehow even more distorted than he had originally perceived. Her shoulders are narrow and sloping, she’s leaned forward with an accusing posture, staring hard at the painting. Something isn’t right. The thought that she was beaten crosses his mind. Leather squeaks quietly as his hands are balled into fists at his sides. Some people…

“But this is none of your business… Who are you to come into my home uninvited? You’re…” It hits her. This man is an enigma. This man doesn’t care about her or the stupid things she has done. The ghost of a black lump weighing down her stomach jumps. She grabs at her mid-section, terrified.

Leah stumbles backwards. She hits her kitchen table, knocking a book out from under one of its legs. “Phantom...”

“Ennk, what?” He’s tense. He should leave before she decides to start screaming. He waits.

Avoidance. She points to a yellow painting hanging on the wall. It’s boring. She sits at her kitchen table, scooting the worn book back under the leg of the table with her toes. “I painted that one shortly after leaving art school. Shortly after I got pregnant. Coincidentally, shortly after my family stopped talking to me. God is important.”

“But you see no child.”

“…Hurm.” Things are becoming questionable.

“My parents cut me off. They withdrew my tuition because God was telling them that I was a bad person. Because I was gonna have a baby and I didn’t have a husband. They haven’t called since. Got three other kids going to ‘real’ universities. Getting ready to make ‘real’ money.” She huffed. Rorschach notices that this woman hasn’t made eye contact—has been avoiding where his eyes would be if he wasn’t wearing his face.

“Buying prostitutes and trading stock. My brother’s a cokehead and they don’t care. He’s going to be a plastic surgeon. He’ll sew a face on like Harold Gillies. He’s going to make ‘real’ money so they can retire on solid ground in Florida. They can have God and the sun.”

He finds himself unsure of why he’s still lingering. He’s perhaps curious as to why someone would talk to him for so long. Her fear has subsided. She’s calm. She’s talking like she’s chatting with a friend. It’s a façade. She looks small, hunched over the table. She sounds proud; she looks shameful.

“Art school was a gift to humor me. No faith.” She thinks about faith. She thinks about what it means to have faith and how it must feel to dedicate life and love so heavily to a single entity. To abandon a child for that feeling.

“I painted more. I wanted to be famous, to prove to them that I could do something. My talent was all I had to fall back on… I hated abstract, though.” He has only rotated his position slightly since she started talking. He’s beginning to remind her of a scarecrow with a face that flows like a holographic baseball card. It’s deeper, somehow. “Then I painted that. The one you like. It’s disgusting.”

“The baby moved in my belly. I ruined it. The painting.” She visibly shuddered.

“I dragged my hand through the drying paint like claw fingers. My fingertips, covered in red and white and black. Blood and sinew and rot. I threw myself down that flight of stairs, where the ‘thieves and rapists’ just left. Nobody comes running because it’s just the weird girl who paints. She’s pregnant and she’s having a tantrum. I broke my hand, and my wrist. I can’t draw. I broke my ankle. I’m a gimp. I ruined the painting. I ruined the baby. I ruined my life.”

“Killed the baby…?” He’s unsettled by the idea.. It’s selfish. It’s a damn shame. He has the urge to give her a repeat performance. In his mind, she won’t get up and limp away this time. His knuckles whiten under the gloves. His heart flutters with nervous anticipation. He’s interrupted in thought.

“I never went to the hospital… I was so ashamed. Eighteen weeks along. It took half as long as it was old to come out. But I new it was dead inside me. It wasn’t kicking anymore, and I leaked. It was so painful, carrying that little one. As a fool, I suffered.”

There is a moment of silence. The air conditioning unit chatters and sputters in her only locked window. Roaches are crawling between the walls. They are eating the glue--eating the foundations from the inside, out.

“In the basin of my tub, it finally escaped me. My fingertips, covered and red and white... God, and black. Blood and sinew and rot. I knew, looking at the contorted figure, limbs shriveled and discolored--its eyes not yet eyes, but translucent bulges under thinning flesh. It looked at me and told me that I would never have the chance to have children ever again. An agape frown was planted perpetually on the little one’s face. I ruined it. ”

“Did it a favor, you know. Would have hated you. You would have hated it. Would have grown up all wrong.” Her heart sunk. He was absolutely right. Leah was under no delusion that she would have been a good mother. It took someone else’s reiteration of her own thoughts to make her stomach churn with dread. She wouldn’t cry.

“What do you know?” She was standing and approaching. Her voice had risen sharply. He knows the apartment building. No one would come unless she screamed about fires or bombs or outlaws. No one would care unless they deemed their own lives to be in danger. The walls were like paper. The weird girl who paints was having a domestic argument, but there was no argument to be had, seeing as he was right.

“That baby didn’t ruin my life. God or my parents didn’t ruin my life. I did. I did and he did. Syncopation did.” An idle rhythm. She remembers the creaking of the dorm room bed. The moment in which everything would change--the carelessness.

“Sex.” The word comes hollow from the man’s masked mouth. Her legs were bare. There’s a black tank top under her unbuttoned dress shirt. It hugs her like a second skin. Her underwear is small, and matches. She smells like the shampoo that tries to make a statement. He felt nothing. Her cheeks are red.

tbc
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