by Tim Teehan (June 2026)
=
=
Early March
Stewart Swenson had a dangerous fascination with navy blue. Citizens in regulation khaki and white streamed past him on the cracked sidewalk, their faces blank, purposeful, with a few casting looks of disapproval at him. He glanced around furtively then made the short walk from the store to his apartment at 83 Beak Street. The last thing he needed was to alert the Shadows, but the mumbles about his favorite color slipped out as he walked down the crumbling concrete steps and struggled with the key to his almost navy-colored front door.
Stewart was fairly certain no one could have heard him—except Della Robbia, of course. The Hyacinth Macaw bobbed on her perch at the very back of the chilly single room and watched Stewart lock the door behind him.
“The Navy?” she squawked.
“No, not the Navy!” Stewart corrected her.
Stewart lived in one of the few camera-free neighborhoods in Manhattan, though it still wasn’t above surveillance. Even so, this neighborhood was his Mayberry, his perfect place—even if undercover agents regularly patrolled the streets in plainclothes, monitoring citizens for any forbidden anti-state propaganda or behaviors.
The world had changed so fast. One day people wore what they wanted, said what they thought. The next, everyone walked around in beige, eyes down, voices lowered. The New World Order had promised safety, unity, peace. What they’d delivered was a planet full of people afraid to look up at a plastic cow.
Stewart looked down at his beautifully tailored Ralph Lauren pants. “This navy.” He allowed himself an uncharacteristic smile and struck a pose, arms opened wide like he was about to conduct a full orchestra. The bag of groceries he’d popped out to get before work dangled from his hand, hidden successfully from Della Robbia who’d want her breakfast any minute.
The joy was short lived. Among the mail scattered on the floor glared a letter and in the upper right corner, was the unmistakable script of The New World Order.
Stewart paused. “TNWO again.” He was a nobody these days, why did they care if he broke a rule here and there? Surely there were more important things to be getting on with.
Della Robbia squawked. “Hungry!”
“Wait a minute!” Stewart stared at the letter, bent to get a closer look, then quickly stood and turned his back. “I’ll tell you what Della Robbia. I’m not opening that letter. Not now. Maybe not ever! Not until we’ve returned society back to factory settings.” The defiance surprised him. It had been a while since he’d let the fighting spirit surge through him. Back in the not-so-distant past, he’d not only joined the early protests against TNWO—he’d led them. And that had led him here. He glanced around the apartment. Here was quiet—safe … and…
“Factory!” Della Robbia repeated. She flew down to a lower platform all the while ignoring Stewart’s latest outburst. If truth be told, he wasn’t entirely sure why he was putting off the inevitable—making his life harder—putting himself in dangerous peril.
Stewart glanced at the letter again. What had he done wrong this time? He honestly couldn’t think of a thing! True he’d worn unsanctioned navy blue paillette pants … in public … but they’d already talked to him about that. Stewart shivered at the memory. All that beige.
Probably Stewart’s biggest mistake was treating those warnings like he’d treated traffic violation notices before The Great Change. He’d pleaded his case, even going so far as to utter the forbidden phrase, “when things were normal.” That had led to a red mark on his papers and citizen profile. And a careful reprimand, perhaps a warning, from the magistrate who heard his case. Surely Stewart would agree, the magistrate had said, that The New World Order—and all its many rules and regulations about how citizens should conduct themselves—was normal.
“Hungry!” The parrot squawked from her cage.
Stewart reached for his coffee cup and patted his unruly blonde hair into place. His studio apartment was cramped and tucked all the way up in Inwood, on the island of Manhattan. The last stop on the A train. But it was his apartment.
He sat ceremoniously on his beautiful navy wool sofa—his pride and joy. He’d found it before The Great Change downtown a few years ago at a second-hand store that specialized in vintage furniture.
“I’m thinking about painting the kitchen navy,” Stewart said. “I’m sure there is still some left in the can. What do you think?” He wouldn’t think about the letter right now. Not while he was thinking of navy. It wasn’t just a color to him. When he’d been diagnosed with Synesthesia, his obsession with navy blue made a lot more sense.
He’d run through every possible shade of navy on his way back from the store and still couldn’t decide. Maybe a brighter blue would be better, bolder for the small, cramped space. Blasphemy. And where would he get the paint?
Della Robbia was a bird of above average intelligence, but she was still a bird. And for Stewart, she was a safe space to discuss the news of the day.
Stewart referred to his life—past and present—in color motif eras.
When he was a little boy he’d loved pink, much to his mother’s dismay. “No son of mine will wear pink. Not under my roof,” she’d said.
Navy blue had been his most recent color obsession, and the most enduring. Stewart doubted if he’d ever tire of the soothing, calming qualities navy blue afforded him. Navy calmed him just like his grandmother’s voice—reassuring and stable. If only The New World Order shared his color preference, maybe they wouldn’t be all that bad.
Stewart glanced at the letter lying on the vestibule floor and turned his attention back to Della Robbia. He’d realized long ago that this utterly strange color fixation had gotten him through some of his darkest moments.
“Navy. Okay!” Della Robbia finally answered with a little enthusiasm, which managed to turn up the corners of Stewart’s mouth.
“Okay?” Stewart jumped up. “Is that all you have to say?” What Stewart wanted from Della Robbia was validation—reassurance that his color choice would make everything right in his world. Their world. “Something has to change around here … and a navy-blue kitchen is just what we need, Della Robbia. It will make everything right again!”
Stewart knew rationally that this was a big ask, but finding the paint and coating his kitchen in it was a labor he would willingly take on if it could make things feel just a little more normal. Even for a day. Even for an hour.
“Hungry!” Della Robbia repeated as she flapped her wings. She did this when she was getting impatient or wanted her way.
Or her breakfast.
It was useless. Stewart wasn’t going to get the approval he needed from her today. There were days when she could be super helpful—like when he’d run the line-up for his latest Vogue shoot in detail, using his hands, just like the conductor he imagined himself to be just a few moments ago. Stewart would even go as far to ask Della Robbia whether he was wearing just the right shade of navy blue on any given day.
Stewart harrumphed. “I’ll get your breakfast you blasted bird! But it will have to be quick. If I don’t get a move on, I’ll be late for work, and you know what that means.”
“Blasted! Not nice,” Della Robbia corrected as she hopped from one perch to another.
“Yes, yes, I know!” Stewart smiled now. He didn’t want to go off to work with her in a mood or upset. “We have a nice life here? Don’t we?” Stewart asked, more for himself than for Della Robbia. “I really can’t imagine it any other way. Just the two of us here, happy and safe at 83 Beak Street.”
Ides of March – 9:39 A.M.
The fact that there weren’t any free seats on the train this morning didn’t help Stewart’s darkening mood. Passengers averted their eyes cautious not to draw any attention to themselves lest an undercover officer be patrolling the car.
The only bright spot had been the silver mylar tiles spelling AT THE START… on the platform at the 207th and Inwood subway station. After his morning discourse with Della Robbia and nearly slipping and falling down the icy stairs to the subway platform on this dreaded Monday morning, he was feeling a little blue.
And there was the issue of the letter, which he’d walked over again on his way out.
Stewart fantasized about painting the silver tiles navy, but he’d surely be hauled in by The New World Order if he did. God knows where he’d end up if that happened. He’d almost risk it if it meant making things just a little more navy.
Blue was usually the antidote to everything awkward, disappointing, or wrong in Stewart’s life.
The sheer fact that his freedom had been taken from him was more than he could bare. He was essentially alone in the big, dark grey city with the exception of Della Robbia of course which didn’t help matters. He knew it was preposterous, dangerous even, to think a silly color choice could be an antidote to all that had changed after the Great Change swept the nation—swept the world.
He still wasn’t entirely sure what was holding him back. It probably had a lot to do with his upbringing. A rigidity in his world view which didn’t match the majority of the citizens around him. An apathic malaise had taken root in Stewart Swenson. Strong and unrelenting like the tall, stalwart trees in the nearby Inwood Park. The patrolling officers with their billy clubs swinging at their sides walking back and forth—back and forth—haunting the subway platform as some of the once brightest faces waited for their train downtown.
And then the subsequent, life altering cataclysmic election cycle five years later—going on a decade now—that put The New World Order in charge of everything. A world-wide election joining all seven continents into one singular global network of government.
All powerful and all-knowing through their use of state-of-the-art surveillance technologies.
The Great Change had become the titular reset slogan—seen everywhere from billboards, subway platforms, advertising campaigns—even airplanes had been branded with the message.
Citizens had been misled, fooled into voting for this Orwellian precept that promised to lower the costs of gas and eggs and had only delivered pain and suffering.
No facet of human existence was left untouched or unmonitored by this all-powerful world watchdog.
Stewart didn’t recognize the world anymore, at least not the one he had enjoyed growing up on his grandmother’s ranch. Here citizens roamed as freely as the real cows in the bright green pastures. That ranch felt like a faraway place in a prehistoric time, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
The strangest, most uncanny thing about this new world, was the outward physical manifestation of it really didn’t look all that different. Yet the most ominous and disturbing lay hidden beneath the surface.
Navy blue offered Stewart a safe place where he could soothe himself and process things.
Fortunately for him, his actions hadn’t alerted the Shadows. The Shadows could come for him at any time. They hijacked his thoughts and stole even the brightest moments of his life, leaving him uncertain and depressed. No one else seemed to notice them, but for Stewart they were all too real.
For this reason, Stewart had trained himself to keep his voice low.
Stewart quickly scanned the subway car, looking for any available seat, while taking in the khaki and white uniformed citizens.
He’d been known to sandwich himself tightly, uncomfortably, between two people if it meant he wouldn’t have to stand for the very long ride downtown. When he stood, the bouncing motion jostled the crystals in his ears, landing him in the emergency room more than once. The doctors thought he was little young at twenty-eight years old, to be suffering from such debilitating vertigo.
“I even wore my best navy pants!” Stewart said to the open subway car, realizing his mistake a little too late.
Both his Tourette’s and synesthesia tended to worsen when Stewart was experiencing too much stress or uncertainty. At the age of ten, his grandmother had dutifully taken him to the best speech therapist in Blaine County—a full hour’s drive north of the ranch—for four years—every day—seven days a week.
There was no treatment for synesthesia, and many people including Stewart, enjoyed experiencing the world differently. Like all forms, grapheme-color synesthesia was involuntary and inconsistent. In Stewart’s case, it caused a neural association between colors and shapes. Lucky for him, navy blue kept the dreaded Shadows at bay.
The woman to his right turned toward him. She had the most beautiful blue eyes. “What was that?” she asked.
“My pants!” Stewart smiled. Talking to this stranger felt more like talking to Della Robbia, most likely because this woman was a regular passenger on the A-train, otherwise known to all New Yorkers as the Blue Line. She’d given him these same admonishing looks daily as she poured over her Rules and Regulations manual.
“Oh,” she quickly turned away., the terrible creases in her ill-fitted khaki jacket frowned him and he looked away, but she continued, “Maybe you ought to observe the Rules a little bit better young man. You know…” She stopped herself as the train slowed.
“Excuse me?” And before Stewart could get to the bottom of her rude comment, she’d gotten up and positioned herself by the door. He knew what she was implying, it was as clear as the cold grey icy subway steps this morning.
Stewart continued, undeterred, to anyone who would listen, “Citizens should be able to express themselves freely, whether that be in conversation or by what they choose to wear.”
Vogue had been walking a line narrower than a red carpet. The backroom conversations on set and in the editing rooms always circled around what would be acceptable yet still innovative, and what would cross the TNWO line. It wasn’t much different from the old days, but back then crossing the line just meant avant-garde and now it could mean rehabilitation for those citizens stuck in khaki and white.
The train stopped at 59th Street. As the woman with the bright blue eyes exited she gave Stewart a cursory once-over. There was a cautious weariness to her eyes that Stewart had noticed a lot lately in most citizens. It depressed him greatly, making him want to shout to the car, “wake up before it’s too late!” It was moments like these that made him almost go crazy— primal—wanting to physically shake some sense into people.
Only a few more stops to 34th Street before Stewart had to make the long walk to the Vogue offices where he’d been an assistant fashion editor for the last ten years.
Stewart longed to have a story featured in an important issue, like September’s or March’s—the two important fashion months of the year, but his big break felt out of reach. He’d had moderate successes over the last few years, but nothing like those of his peers who were jetting off all over the world on assignments while he was stuck shooting the same versions of flat-front khaki pants with a white button-down shirt.
The train screeched to a halt. “My ear crystals!” Stewart shouted. Once again, forgetting where he was. Or wanting to. Often wondering if his disabilities or political sensibilities held him back from truly making it. While he hated to think it was his view of the world that kept him from getting the plum assignments. He knew he had been rather myopic in terms of color (navy) in his fashion choices, but he’d been told he was just as talented as the other senior editors.
“What was that, young man?” A guy sitting on the other side of the car asked. Stewart had noticed him staring at his pants since he got on at 59th Street. Something about the turn of his collar caught Stewart’s attention. Where had he seen it before? Surely his mind was playing tricks on him.
Just as the train was about to pull into the platform at 42nd Street, everything went dark. A voice came on over the intercom as Stewart felt something brush up on his leg, sending him into a near panic. “We’ll be moving momentarily, there is train traffic ahead.”
Stewart managed to slide out of his seat and escape to the other side of the car in the nick of time. The guy was leering suggestively more at Stewart’s pants than at his face, which seemed worse in some big way.
“Am I really that abhorrent?” Stewart whispered to the car as it lurched forward, finally coming to a stop. And where were the cameras when you really needed them? This is exactly what the government should be paying attention to—not whether citizens disagreed with their weekly, sometimes daily, mandated messages.
“I should have stayed home today,” he said, mumbling to himself, something he did often when there wasn’t anyone else to talk to.
“What was that?” The almost-spectral looking stranger asked again.
“How could he have possibly heard me?” Stewart asked himself as he bolted out of the car and up the dirty gray stairs to safety—racking his brain trying to figure out where he’d seen that collar?
–
Table of Contents
–
Tim Teehan is a native of the Pacific Northwest. He travels the world to wherever the next adventure takes him. He received his BA in English Literature at the University of Washington where he discovered his love of good short stories. Follow him on Instagram @timteehan.
–
Follow NER on Twitter @NERIconoclast
