Synesthesia

Appleberry Road

Hello. My name is Ana. Nice to meet you.

I am not your average teenager; where most kids want to fit in, I don't, where most kids want to fall in love, I don't, and where most kids follow trends, I don't.  

I'm not a hippie. Or a punk.  

I'm just crazy.  

My world is different than yours. When I saw my mother, the color yellow filled the air and I smelled pineapple with a slight touch of salt. When I see the letter A, it's always blue.  

To the doctor, my colors have a name. "Synesthesia." I hate that word. It takes all the fun and joy out of them. Where my colors are floating dreams, sailing thoughts, when I'm living normal life, the doctor can take all that away with one word. It takes all things beautiful and turns them into a disease.  

When I see the doctor, my nose catches a strong odor of dry erase markers and the color gray fills the air.

I like to think that my colors are little windows into my imagination, tiny snippets of the thoughts of others, and nothing more than a colorful haze.

 ~

Ana 

My bike was broken. And I had lost one of my flip flops. My wallet was nowhere to be seen. My day couldn't possibly get any worse.  

I was waking my bike down Appleberry Road. Its about as rural as it gets, here in Chicago. I don't even know if you can really call it Chicago, but that's is the closest city anywhere nearby.

I hate Appleberry Road. I don't care for the dust flying off the ground and into your eyes, or the mysterious farmhouses standing in rows unchanged for years upon years. Appleberry Road is quite a creepy place.

The air was filled with brown and green puffs of smoke. It looked like small ugly clouds had fallen out of the sky. It was extraordinarily ugly.

I walked. And walked. Appleberry Road seemed like it would never end. Ever.

It was dusk. The sun was setting, and pink stars filled my eyes. I staggered over to a small apple tree, leaned my bike against the tree, and dropped my body on the ground. I wiped my forehead. A single drop off sweat dripped off of my cheek. I was exhausted.

Black fog encircled the pink stars. My eyes closed.

I dreamt. I dreamt about a boy. A boy with green eyes, and dark brown hair. He was strong, but not too strong, and tall, but not too tall. He was smiling at me. Smiling an adorably annoying half grin. He was amazing. He just stood there for a while, staring at me in wonder. Nothing happened. There were no colors. None at all. It was like silence for the eyes. It was frightening. I'd always had colors. Always. I'd never not had them. It was like a heartbeat. It was natural. But he had taken them away.

Eventually, he laid down next to me and slept. I watched him.