Mark Rothko’s “Untitled (orange and yellow)”

Mark Rothko’s “Untitled (orange and yellow)”:

 

8:15 a. m. Tuesday. September 17. 3067 A. D.

Upper New Plymouth, District 17, Pangaea Starship, Galileo Solar System, The United Federation of the Colonies.

 

A woman paces in the center of the Central Marketplace, twisting the dirty, frayed end of her scarf. She tries to see over the morning rush, but to no avail. Nervously tugging at her hair, the woman pushes herself on top of a cart and scans the plaza. From her perch, she sees a distinctive head of red hair bobbing through the crowd. She lets out an audible sigh of relief before angrily shaking her fist and yelling out, “Adamis Helo Thrace! You were supposed to have been here 15 minutes ago!”

Her scolding is met by a lopsided grin and a wave, as the red-haired man rushes past and pushes into a near-by building. She watches as the door slams shut, cursing her luck at having befriended such a mess of a human being. No one else would have dared to show up any less than half an hour early to their scheduled election session, and Adamis was five minutes late.

About to turn away, the woman shakes her head, still staring at the door that Adamis had just slammed shut. Her pondering is interrupted when the door inches back open and a head pokes out.

“Don’t worry so much Kallyn, you know that the Ministry is always running late. I’m actually one minute and 22 seconds early. Meet me after?” Adamis says hastily.

“Get out of here! Now!” Kallyn shrieks, struggling to keep a smile off her face.

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Just barely catching his friend’s reply, Adamis sprints through through the entrance hall and past the receptionist, before collapsing onto a bench directly outside a room that’s labelled ‘New Plymouth Election Hall”.

Seconds later, the door creaks open and a district employee holding a clipboard calls out, “Thrace, Adamis Thrace?”

Scrambling up, Adamis follows the person into the room as they make a few notes onto the clipboard. Without looking up, the man directs Adamis through a second door and into a plain, white room. The only furniture in the room is a small table with a remote sitting on it.

“You know the drill- watch the video and press the buttons, same as last year,” the man instructs before leaving and closing the door behind him.

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Adamis leans forward, examining the remote in front of him. It’s a simple contraption with only two buttons- one red and one yellow. Bored with the device, Adamis looks up at the wall.

“3… 2… 1….”, the numbers flash onto the screen before a smiling woman fills the frame.

“Hello, citizen!” the woman cheerfully squeaks. “Today is the day that you fulfill your civic duty and vote for the next Chancellor of the United Federation of the Colonies. As always, the Ministry of Elections and Civic Responsibilities has provided  you with a short film about the history of the Federation. Pay close attention and then cast your ballot!”

The room darkens, and the screen goes back before opening to a shot of the Fleet, with the various Star Ships and Cargo Vessels zipping through space.

The shot changes, filling with script.

Scanning the paragraph, Adamis reads about the inception of the Colonies and the Federation. But then the all too familiar story changes, and Adamis feels a prickle of discomfort.

Shocked, Adamis watches as the screen fills with pictures of destruction and video clips of devastation. A foggy haze fills the room and when it clears, Adamis remembers. He remembers the same thing happening last year and the year before that on September 17, Election Day. He also remembers forgetting what happens in that room every year- how the history of the Federation warps horribly and everything he believes in is revealed to be a lie.

The real history is terrible and Adamis remembers the truth. He remembers how humanity destroyed Earth and he remembers how on the day the world ended, the others came. The others, the saviors, they came from the unknown realms of space and they offered to save humanity. But it could not last, humans and the others could not live simultaneously. It was messy, cruel, and wrong.

Humans sacrificed the others, traded their lives for the continuation of humankind. But the others were not dead, they were still in the Fleet, guiding the ships as slaves. Without them every person in the Fleet would perish. Adamis would die, his family would die, and Kallyn would die.

The screen popped on again. Text once again filled the screen, reading “Vote yellow to free the others. Vote red to keep things the same.

Adamis hastily pressed the red button, tears streaming down his face, cringing in disgust at his actions.

The screen changed, it now read, “Do you want to forget? Yellow: Yes, Red: No.”

Adamis bit his lip before tapping lightly on the yellow button.

—————————————————————————————————————————-

Adamis turned around and opened the door. Once again, he had voted for Chancellor Finnigan, the same man who had ruled the Federation for twenty years. Oddly, he didn’t remember actually casting his vote, but that was just a technicality. Finnigan always won.

Adamis walked out into the hall and looked up at a clock that was hanging on the wall. Noting the time, he hustled out of the building so that he could go meet Kallyn.