Purblind Colors

Chapter 1

         
At the age of three my mother took me out on a walk to the park. I had my hand firmly grasped in hers so I couldn't wonder away and get lost. The blackness I usually saw kept coming in and out of focus, I kept seeing something else.

All I saw was the color black according to mama.

"It's the color of the night sky, only yours is starless," she had said. I didn't understand it, but I did know that stars were my favorite thing after that. "I want to see a star." I told her a few days later. She started to cry and hugged me, promising me that one day I will. After that, I stopped talking about the stars.

This day was different though. As we walked through the park I could see something other than the night sky. It scared my three year old self.

"Mommy what is that?" I asked after a while of seeing these different night skies. That was the only way I could describe it.

"What do you mean?" She had stopped walking now, coming around and kneeling in front of me.

"I'm seeing something other than the night sky."

I was taken to the doctors after that, my mother had called my father from work and told him to meet us right away. When he arrived I heard her start crying, "He might be able to see! He told me he saw something at the park!" She announced excitedly through her tears. My father joined in with her celebrating until the doctor interrupted them.

After that I was asked a lot of questions and a lot of test were done, after the results came back my parents were disappointed that no, I still couldn't see but I had developed a rare condition that allowed me to see colors. They said it was a miracle that my retina had started to work. But it was the only part of my eye that did.

After that they began to describe colors to me, it was hard because color was different to everybody.

My father took me into the backyard the next day and put dirt into my hand. "Brown feels like the earth, or the dead parts of things that grew out of the dirt from the earth." He had said. I didnt understand it then but I did know that brown was close to the color of the night sky.

The next day he took me outside again, this time he placed a brown leaf in one hand and a different leaf in my other. "The smoothness and suppleness of the leaves feels like green; green feels like life. But when the leaves are crispy like the other one, they have turned brown and aren't alive anymore."

Later that night in the bath he put my hands into the water and said, "How you feel when you're bathing in the water, the cool wetness that feels relaxing, is how blue feels."

The next color is my favorite , only because I can see it better than any of the other colors.

The next day in the kitchen, while my dad was cooking he invited me to stand next to him near the stove. "This might hurt." He had said before placing something that burned my hand. I cried as he explained the next color, "If you touch something hot, your skin turns a red color. When you feel embarrassed or sick, that heat on your cheeks looks red."

That made me stay away from anything red.

Those were some of the many descriptions I got of color, those were my favorite though. Only because-

"Mateo!"

I snapped out of the flashback I was having, looking to my mother. "Yes, mamá?" I answered sweetly, knowing how angry she got when I drifted off during a meal.