A Rainbow Without Rain

Saffron and Anise

I can feel the colors when I'm reading about them, red sometimes feels harsh, sometimes it feels strong, sometimes though, red feels delicious. Who wouldn't want some scrumptious red velvet cake or some mouthwatering ragu on pasta? I can feel the colors even though I can also see them. I can hear the colours too, sometimes a certain type of music will sound like flashing laser lights whilst a certain sound will sound a blue or a certain voice might sometimes sound very very pink.  It's funny how if only people tried, they could hear colours and not only see them.

I've read all sorts of stories when it comes to colors relating to love. It takes a man, 8.2 seconds to fall for someone, whereas it takes a woman a total of fifteen days. I personally think that all of this is just an enormous pile of bullshit.

I have been seeing colours ever since I was little. Everything was so full of colour as if bursting to the rim with it. Peas were green, sword beans were pink, the flowers were so damn pretty. But rainbows and meadows and the trees and the different shades of sunsets every single sunset and sunrise different from the last, it only made me pity all the colourblind people of the world.

My name is Saffron, I am 18 years old and me and my twin were born a minute and 49 seconds apart after our mother was in labour for about 14 hours. And that is a story we've never heard the end of. We've lived in the US most of our lives, moving often because of our mother's demanding job. We've lived in Madagascar, Switzerland, then India for a couple of months but other than that, we've always stayed in the States.

Our mother Caroline had us when she was financially stable and convinced of the fact that she didn't need a man in her life to bring up her kids. When she was 35, her husband died and then she just decided to devote all her energy to working hard and becoming a successful woman. By the time she wanted kids, she was 39 and then she says she used the sperm of her dead husband to artificially inseminate herself. She had us when she was 40.

Growing up, our mother would tell us stories about our dad, whom we've obviously never seen or heard of because he was long dead by the time we were born. However, he sounded like a decent man and he made Mom very happy. Mom told us of how they met and me and Anise loved that story.

When Mom was 15, Dad was 18 and they used to go to the same school. Apparently dad had started seeing colors ever since he'd bumped into mom in their highschool corridor, but since they were in a crowd, Dad didn't know who specifically made him start seeing colours. So Dad went on a wild goose chase in order to find the love of his life. Dad dated almost everyone in their school but he just couldn't find the right person and soon he was done with highschool and had to move away for college.

Nevertheless the Summer that mom was 18, she was at a local party and she was dancing with her friends when someone spilled their drinks on her dress and she started seeing colours right at that very moment. Mom says, they stared at each other for a very long time before dad got called away and mom got carried away. And then mom started looking for dad and when she finally found him, she explained to him her side of the story.

Apparently dad didn't believe her at first because he thought his then girlfriend made him see the colours, so mom says she just kissed him right there on the spot to make him realise that she was the reason he was seeing colours too. According to mom, the kiss was so magical and colourful that they got in a car, drove off into an ethereal lilac sunset and got married immediately.

Even so, they just never thought of having kids till both of them were very successful in life and which lead to the eventual death of our father before we were even born.