I'm Fine

Chapter 1 Nora

I don't see color. I'm not color blind or visually impaired, color just doesn't reach my eyes. Everybody's life is a story, as cheesy as that might sound, and everybody's story is told differently, mine is told without color. Like Jonas in The Giver or Dorthy in The Wizard of Oz, except I definitely feel pain unlike Jonas, and unlike Dorthy I never will be whisked away to some magical dreamland and meet a wish-granting wizard. I know I don't see color because what stands in the place of color doesn't live up to what I remember, and moreover, the feeling you receive when you look at color isn't there anymore, it's all bland now. like a midwinter's frosting, when the ice and frost mutes all colors and in its place is the bleached remains. Everyday, all day since high school started.

Occasionally it will sneak its popping, impact back to me, when I'm with my sister, or behind the lense of a camera it's like the way everything used to be... then I'm pulled away into my life that seems like a black and white film made in the 20's.

I opened my eyes wishing I hadn't but even as I squeezed them shut again and let out a groan, basking in a state of dread, loathing procrastination, I knew what was next.

"Nora! Time for school!" I didn't respond, rather, I stared up at my water stained ceiling and counted the cracks. I knew that if I laid in bed too long that I'd be carted off to school anyways, and going to school would be, well... The problem wasn't that I was too tired, or cold to leave the sanctuary of my bed, although I was cold, I didn't even sleep that much. I dangled my feet over my bed barely keeping them from the very wooden floors I'm afraid of.

"NORA!" I groaned that time, and it wasn't because of the floor, but breakfast, because I knew what comes after that. I peered at the floor blankly until eventually I heard an impatient rapping at my door.

"Coming" I moaned, still not ready to touch down onto the cold, hard, wood. I'm bewildered that I have done it everyday, it never got easier. My back slouched as I heard my sister getting up and moving around, my back eventually gave in and I crumpled backwards into my bed as my mother began knocking on the door forcefully.

"You're in high school, why is this a routine?" she questioned irritably "hurry up".

Finally I pulled myself up and made what I already know will be the worst decision of my day; I planted my feet onto the menacing laminated flooring, and stood up.

...

School was dull as ever, and I could barely believe that I used to see even the most subtle shades of color; when in reality, I was inside of a boring mound of brick the equates to a prison. Our building sat in front of a corn field, I remembered how the golden ears of corn looked during the very first fall- my freshman year.

The front had lush green grass and the faint attempt of flowers, curling leaves sprinkled, reds and oranges, and yellow all over the scene. And while the flowers had grown, corn was having its best harvest yet, and the leaves were everywhere; I couldn't see it. I barely made out its shapes as an individual anymore. My life, full of color and beauty and shapes, got its vibrance sucked out and became replaced with dullness. Because when I pulled up to school I didn't see a school at all, I just saw blandness. When the sun's rays embrace me I just feel drab specks of light bouncing off my shoulders.

My life is subdued. I wake up, go to school, go to sleep and do it all over again. I hate it. But whether or not you hate something doesn't matter, nobody will care.

Maybe it's my loathing for the cycle or just my yearning to see something, whatever it is my mind decided that I am to see color, because before I even think to try it, I decide to slam my eyelids shut, blocking out all light and I begin to recall how color looked. Just beyond my thin eyelids I know that tulips sit in a packed brown bed, interacting with others stories presenting them with color. I know that if I try hard enough I may also let their color greet my eye. I know everything sits behind my eyelids, but when I opened my eyes I didn't see the beautiful color of the flowers. I see Whitney's warped face staring at me.