[This is the first part of Blue, the other two parts are named Blue (Part 2) and Blue (Part 3)]

At six-foot tall, he was impeccably dressed, all decked out in a sleek, black Armani suit and a burnished Rolex watch. He was the very epitome of success, rising through the ranks in his company faster than you could say “Manager”. And that’s what he was. A Manager, and a young and talented one at that.

He lived in a modern, two-storey house with no superfluous decoration. A swimming pool punctuated his flawlessly mowed lawn, with the kind of crystal blue water that you could only find off the shores of the Caribbean waters.

He stepped into his house, into his living room, where his intricately designed furniture greeted him with effusion after being abandoned by their owner at six in the morning. The only sign of affection in the living room was a framed photograph of him, his insanely beautiful wife, and his little blue-eyed bundle of joy.

Putting down his suitcase, he hurriedly made his way to the door leading to the basement, throwing his striped tie on the floor subconsciously.

Opening the door, he stepped into another world. A world that was like chalk and cheese as compared to the rest of his world. The world that he had been so very cautious to keep secret of.

The room was in a diabolical state. It looked as if it had been hit by a tornado, a typhoon, and a hurricane simultaneously. Pill bottles lined the cracked cement floor, with split mattresses and their contents carelessly strewn across the surface. An overturned set of table and two chairs acted as some sort of furnishing, no matter how sparse they were. A naked bulb illuminated parts of the room, throwing the rest of it into shadows and darkness. And secrets.

People have bad habits. Biting their nails down to their cuticles, leaving their beds unmade, sleeping with the television set blaring. However, he did not have any bad habits, not one at all, because he was a perfectionist. He was pedantic about details in his proposals, he was careful about his clothing and appearance, and he was cautious about his speech and actions.

But, like other humans, he had to have flaws. Or maybe, saying a flaw would be more appropriate. People were made to be equal, and since he was so perfect, so whole in all aspects of his character and personality, his one flaw had to be bigger in proportion as compared to one flaw of another individual.

He had a nefarious vice. A vice, that was so morally wrong and condemned in the real world, that he had to play hide-and-seek every day. And he was always the one who hides.

Pills. Blue ecstasy pills, to be exact. Yes, that was his one immensely unforgiveable flaw. But, these Blue pills offered him a type of escape that nothing else ever could. He was drowning, and they were his life buoy.

Escape? Escape from what, exactly? He’s so perfect and successful, what would he want to escape from?

Precisely, because of the fact that he was too perfect, he desired to hide from perfection. It made him feel sick to the stomach. It made his toes curl and his hair stand.

Being in the small, dingy room made him feel good. That was the one place that he could completely ensconced himself into, because it was where he could be imperfect. Because that was where he could finally immerse himself into the world of Blue, Blue ecstasy and run away from it all, if only temporarily.

He was fraying at the edges. His perfectionist persona was slowly disintegrating; being eroded away by all the stress and high expectations he had to face at The Office. He was revolted by the necessity of sucking up to his boss, having to pander to his every whim. He hated putting on that facade where his face constantly ached by having to smile like a fool and nod like an enthusiastic maniac in front of his clients. And he loathed having to put up with the endless litany of complaints from his subordinates.

He scratched his head irately, letting out a primal cry. Where are my pills?

Desperation got to him. Oh god, WHERE ARE THEY?