Random Stories

That's Just It (1)

Anya stared at the small, round disk in her hand. It was about the size of her palm, and was silver, and shiny. As Anya tilted it at different angles the light made different colours appear- green, purple, orange. But all Anya saw was grey.

She took a deep breath and inserted it into the computer monitor in front of her. It began to whirr and click them a message flashed up on the screen:

Anya Tortue: the beginning years

Anya smiled. It was a slideshow of all the pictures taken of her ages 1-10. Her parents had put it together a couple of years ago for her, and it helped her remember the time when she was happy.

He flicked down the dark grey play button and the slideshow started. First of all: baby Anya wrapped up in her white blanket. Her chubby little cheeks seemed to glow a rosy red, even to Anya who only saw it in grey. The next picture flicked up. It was her mum holding her. Anya was wrapped up in swaddling clothes, fast asleep in her mothers arms. Her mum was leaning into a tall, broad shouldered man with a big moustache who had his arm round her. Anya smiled. Her dad. He had a pair of round Harry Potter like glasses on and a bottle green- or mid grey- jumper on. Both her parents were smiling into the camera, their faces bursting with pure joy.

The pictures continued to flick through an Anya cheered up a notch at every single change. By the end she felt so elated, she almost skipped down the hallway from the study to her bedroom, after taking the disk out the monitor and placing it gently back in it's protective dust jacket.

Her room was painted in wild colours: sapphire blue, bottle green, telephone box red, shiny gold, royal purple. To Anya's visitors it seemed to clash dreadfully, but all Anya saw was different shades of grey. It was painted like this so as to cram as many different shades as possible into one room. It was the brightest Anya's life ever got.

He picked up a book and flopped on her bed. She knew what it looked like: white, with small, pale pink roses, but to her it was white with small, grey roses. She closed her eyes and imagined life as it used to be, in colour, then opened her eyes and the book and began to read.

Reading was Anya's sanctuary. It was her escape from her world and her problems and her life. She didn't mind if the world she was transported into had problems: all that mattered was that they weren't hers. In other worlds, everything always seemed to be in colour. In real life the pages were white with black writing, and that is what Anya saw. But somehow this made colours appear. Anya recalled colours she sorely kissed out of her life: sky blue, hot pink, gold. If she could pick three colours to see, it would be them. If she could only pick one however, it would be sky blue. She wished she could see the sky again.

"Anya!" Her mum shouted about 20 minutes later, disturbing Anya's relaxing read. "Tea is ready."

Anya rushed downstairs and eagerly sat down the at the table after washing her hands under the kitchen tap. Her dad sat opposite her, equally as eager, an they both laughed when they made eye contact. Anya's dad hadn't changed much since the photograph had been taken. Since then he had grown a few grey hairs and filled out a bit, but that was mainly it. He didn't seem to have even grown, or, if he had, he had only grown the tiniest amount.

Anya's mum served tea: Cheesy pasta with chicken. Anya and her dad both stared greedily at the serving dish as it was placed on the table, and Anya's stomach rumbled as she refused to break her eyes away from the dish. Anya's mum served. She had changed quite a lot from the photo. She now had blonde-white hair instead of black: it had paled over the years. She's grown a lot and become more shapely and womanly. Her shoulders were broader but her feet had stayed the same size. They now seemed tiny for her.

Anya and her dad gulped down first, second and third helpings of the pasta quickly, and Anya was just about to ask about fourth helpings when her mum brough up the subject of the next day.

Anya had been avoiding these conversations all day, desperate to not hear. Her mum explained that she was moving schools because of her 'condition' and the bullying she had received at Comprehensionitive High. Her new school was called Tac High and was only about a 20 minute journey by train.

Anya sighed. She didn't want to go to a new school. She didn't want to be the new person. She didn't want a new timetable, new teachers. She didn't want to try and make friends and fail. She didn't want to have to explain her 'condition'.....

But she had to. She also didn't want to be bullied, and that's what happened at her old school. So she sighed again, and smiled half-heartedly at her mum.