ColorReturns

By Zoe Horne

Everyone has a mist; a unique pattern full of different colors that interact with the world around them. Each color says something about the person. I can only see it in person As a child I would tell people about what I saw Everyone would dismiss me and tell me to stop being crazy. As I got older it got worse until it just stopped affecting me. I remember when I first realized that I didn’t care It was a few years ago, when my mom died; I wasn’t sad, I didn’t even care. My family called me insane, but the words didn’t hurt.

I watch horror movies and I am no longer scared. I don’t know when I stopped feeling. I don’t remember the last time I cared. I have no idea when I last cried. A smile has not crossed my lips in years The color has been drained from me, but others still cling to it. I don’t really understand why.

All the colors did were hurt me. No longer feeling the colors is the best thing that ever happened to me.

The fiery pain of red and orange eating at me from the inside as I refuse to let it burn someone else. The overwhelming blues that drew tears from my eyes. The greens that make me regret and re-think. The ugly browns that stain all they touch. The sweet yellows that hug me and make me feel safe The purples that feel amazing, but always go away with the person that brought them into my life. I’m glad they’re all gone, even the amazing yellows and purples that were rarely in my life.

All the colors in the world weren’t worth all the blue

The blue blinded my life. Every part of my pattern seeped with blue and leaked into the world around me. I made everything blue. My family, my friends, my loved ones, my pets, the plants I walked by, strangers, everything alive suffered the effects of blue because of me I’m glad it’s gone I’m glad I can’t feel it

I’m so happ- I’m not happy. Happy is what other people call yellow. There is no yellow in me, just like there is no blue, but I am glad there is no color in my life I sit in my colorless house or in my colorless office and work day in and day out.

After I stopped feeling the colors, they started running from me. Everywhere I go, everything I touch, they dull. The places I frequent have no color left. No blue, no yellow, no green, no purple, no red The people that come into my life lose their color too, and once they realize it they run.

They love their color, but I don’t understand why.

Why would people cling to the blue?

Why would people cling to the green?

Why would people want the browns?

Why would they keep the bad colors?

What possible reason could they have to want all-...All the colors. The world is not just blue, it is full of a million shades of a million colors. No color is bad, they are just colors.

I can use the colors!I can mix the blues and reds into the lovely purple that never stays for long. I won’t ignore the colors I don’t like, I will feel them and then they will mix with the other hurtful colors and turn into a tapestry, a masterpiece woven from my pain! They will still hurt, but it will be worth it if I can feel the yellow again

How do I bring the colors back? How can I feel again?

I look around the colorless room I have lived in for so long. It feels like the air is being sucked out of the room as the colors were

I-I can’t breathe in here.

I have to get out of here.

My feet carry me out the door and they keep going. I start running. The air rushing across my face feels so nice

The beautiful colors of the world back with all the beauty I forgot existed. The feeling of running brings yellow back.

The last time I ran like this was before Mom got sick. I was a senior in high school and in track I got first place in a meet and I was so happy I loved to run I would run whenever I could, until I didn’t have time anymore.

When Mom got sick, Dad left. He left me to take care of her alone. I managed to finish high school before getting a full-time job to pay for all the things she needed. I spent every day working, so she could go back home, and leave that ugly white hospital that she hated, but she just kept getting worse and worse. Just another reason for me to hate the colorless world I live in, as she did.

I fought with her for years before she decided she had had enough I tried to talk her out of it, but she told me she wanted me to go to college. I started taking night school and she promised she would be there to see me graduate.

She promised.

The yellow is replaced by an overbearing blue

She wasn’t there. I went back home to find her dead.

They all thought it was my fault, but none of them helped. None of them tried to convince her to stay alive None of them saw the way she was suffering None of them went through what I did.

My father even had the gall to tell me he’s sorry he left!

He showed up to the funeral with his new wife and told me how he never wanted to leave me, but that my mom was the problem

Red blinds me and I keep running.

I didn’t tell him off, I didn’t apologize, I just left him there and said nothing.

I planned the funeral, I paid for it. I picked out her casket. I did everything right and all I got was blue

The red intensifies.

I stopped telling people what I saw once they told me to. I took care of them. I did the right things and helped everyone and all I got was hurt!

Mom’s death was just the last thing it took!

My mind shut out the pain, so I could deal with all the immediate problems and I never let it in. I never let anything in; that’s why I’m alone.

The red fades to purple.

People let me in They loved me, and I pushed them away

Back to blue.

My feet keep pounding on the ground as tears start to stream down my face. I miss them so much! Why did they have to leave? Why did I have to make them leave; because I was afraid they wouldn’t stay?

I’m an idiot.

I’ll apologize to them all.

The blue starts to fade to green

I’ll make it up to them!

It’s yellow now.

I can fix my life if I bring all the colors back!

My feet come to a stop at a place I did not mean to go

I am standing in front of a grave.

This is a place I haven’t been since the day of the funeral. This is where Mom’s body lays; right here under my feet

The world fills with blue as I stare at the final resting place of my mother.

The last time I saw her alive rushes back to me; it was the morning before graduation and she assured me she’d be fine getting there by herself, "I’ll be fine sweetie,” she said with a smile full of all the yellow in the world, “I’m not going to die when I’m so close to seeing what I’ve been staying alive for!”

The world blurs as I remember that day.

Going home to a quiet house filled with anxiety.

Seeing the body

Watching the color drain away from the world as it drained from her once rosy cheeks.

Calling the police

So many people, all so fast. No time to think, I just had to take care of the funeral.

Then my own family blamed me and the color left forever. Blue is all that’s left in the world as I finally feel all of it

All the rest of the day, people walking by see a girl sobbing at her mother's grave on the 4 year anniversary of her death.