The moment when I met you

It is no joke.

The world really went black and white when he was torn away from me. Every colour got drained from my vision, and my sight was clotted with cotton skies and they kept building up the storms. One week passed, and I was finally so out of tears that I was able to notice how the world had come to be. Colourless. With him died not only my one true love, but also the seamless ability of enjoying.

For years I wandered off, passing traffic lights by memory and buying flowers by shade. My world was white noise, and every night before I went to sleep the thought of how he crossed that yellow line came to my mind. Except the line was no longer yellow. Instead it had a lighter shade of gray, but forever without colour. They say you don't know what you have until you lose it, and God, are they right.

He was a painter, you know? He used to joke about how he was going to paint the sky when he died. Jokingly, we laughed about it. I placed a hand on his arm and we laughed, jibbering about death like it was not around the corner. Then the laughter faded into seriousness, and he told me about his beliefs. How every time an artist dies, he or she gets to paint one last time, and that is how we see the skies. Most of them just create abstract images, but he wanted to paint a bunny for me to see, because bunnies are my favorite animals. I know it was utterly stupid, but every day I looked up at the sky – only to find that there had never been painted a bunny. At least not for me to see.

Maybe he wanted to take his paints to go? Maybe that's why every single colour went with him? I remember how he always tidied up his paints after a long session of intense work, and I remember how he sat down at the porch and asked me to join him to watch the sunset. We would drink a cup of tea, and he would tell me about how many colours he had mixed through his years, but how not one of them could compare to the real sky. When he crossed that yellow line, he took that with him too. Even my green tea went gray. Do you have any idea how it feels to look at the heaven and only see stone?

They were all gone. Every single colour had vanished from my eye sight until the moment I...

It was nothing big, really. Just a normal day, after a few years. My vision was still clothed, but the shock had settled in on me and I was able to do these simple tasks. I had returned to my full-time job, and I was taking the train. On my way to the station, I met you on the street selling flowers. I had a dollar in my pocket, and a dollar was all you needed. Your face was clothed with dirt, like my vision was clothed with grief – but under all that messy hair, I saw beauty and friendliness in your eyes. So I bought your flower, and stuffed it in my purse. It was a tullip, but I did not even take the time to look at it before I sat down and started staring at the maps on the train. Then, as someone sat beside me, I spared my flower a glance.

It was blue.