illphated
The Paint Over Protocol
By illphated
In the heart of Neo-Houston, where vaporwave rain hissed against neon-lit concrete and flying cars hummed above the smogline, there was a man known only as Griggs. No one remembered when he started. No one asked why he kept going.
Griggs was a wall painter—not the kind who brought color to the world, but the kind paid to erase it.
Every night, under orders from the Megacity Aesthetic Control Department, he trudged through the alleys with a rusted paint bucket and a roller nearly fused from years of chemical use. His job: cover up the graffiti. Not just any graffiti—art. Glowing kanji, pixelated saints, anarchist angels, corporate diss tracks—each one a glowing prayer from a citizen still trying to scream in a city designed to mute.
The city hated color it couldn’t control. That’s why they sent Griggs. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t even look. Just dipped the roller in thick synthetic gray and dragged it across the souls of a thousand walls.
But tonight, he hesitated.
On a crumbling brick side of an old noodle shop, bathed in soft magentas and haunted blues, someone had painted a woman. Her eyes—glitchy but kind—followed him as he approached. Beneath her, the word “Remember” blinked in soft pink katakana.
Griggs raised the roller.
And stopped.
He looked at the bucket. At his hands. At the void swallowing the sky above. Then back at the woman.
With a tired sigh, he dipped the brush anyway.
One smooth stroke.
The word Remember disappeared.
He paused. The glow from his retinal HUD blinked. “Compliance Level 98%. Zone 3—Almost Clear.”
Almost.
Griggs leaned against the wall, looked up at the woman’s face again. He didn’t paint over it.
Just sat there in the alley. Letting the city’s neon pulse crawl over his tired frame, for once unsure if he was erasing the noise or silencing a revolution.
Sometimes, silence screams louder than spray paint.
illphated.com
✦ Reality gets painted over every day. Keep watching. Keep remembering.