{
50
Colors
Natasha Hunt
}
I see shades of gray. I don’t remember the last time I saw colors. The pink that used to line the sky at night is gone. The gold that used to flicker and sparkle in his eyes is gone too. Now the trees change from a medium gray to light gray and finally to a dark gray before they fall to their fate. Some of the colors I don’t remember the name to. I’ve given names to the varying shades of gray, because that’s all I can do. I’ve never asked anyone if they’ve lost sight of colors. What if they never saw colors in the first place? The name of the color alone is an interpretation. Purple to my former self might have been blue to my neighbor. If I asked him the color of my shirt today, he would only give me the color that he thought my shirt was. No one has the same interpretation when it comes to something so intricate. When I was a teenager I remember the first time I lost my sight of colors for a
brief period. I was standing at attention in the platoon for what seemed to be hours. I had picked a spot on the wall to stare at and slowly the colors would fade. I blinked and they came back, but not for long. It wasn’t until I had resumed moving that I started to see the spectrum for what it truly was again. If someone had told me then that a few years later I would never see colors again, I would have appreciated them more. I would have never let go of the image of my mother’s blonde hair. I would have watched a thousand more sunsets. At least I think I would have. Maybe I wouldn’t believe them. Maybe I would have adopted the typical teenage mindset and pretended not to care. Color was something that was always there. It was not something death could touch, and it was not something that could expire. I would like to believe that I would have appreciated colors more had I known my fate. I think of this often. Now I am more adept at noticing