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Colored Emotions
The man was used to the monochromatic sight. When he was young, he figured that by his age he should’ve already met the person that made his world colorful (literally), but by some means, he hadn’t. It wasn’t that unusual actually, it was just depressing and a bit embarrassing; made him wonder if he had done something wrong or if something was wrong with him. He often questioned the ‘rules’ of finding one’s soulmate, and wondered if people who claimed seeing colors after meeting someone were a scam, if they were just desperate to get married that they convinced themselves (and each other) that they were meant to be. Besides, how can you know what colors are if you’ve never been able to see them? To him, it was a tale for kids, or maybe he just repeated that to himself to cope with the fact he hadn’t met his soulmate by his late age. Why would the universe conspire against him anyways? At this point, he felt his cosmic insignificance reassuring. There was nothing special about him, no special talent, no tragic backstory, no heroic act upon. There were 7 billion people in the world, he existed in his own terms.
However, he still felt bad about it. Some nights, when he felt especially lonely, he walked by himself beside the shore. His parents had met as kids beside the beach, both of them walking alone and finding colors in each other. When he was young, he took night walks beside the shore frequently, day dreaming of spotting someone walking across him, but as he grew up, they faded. It started to get pointless to him.
But that night was not one of those nights. He had worked all day long in a project that got turned down, and was feeling bitter about it. It was a brisk night, and he was stuck in traffic, wishing to be home already. He turned up the radio to distract himself, and as he started feeling calmer, he suddenly felt a thud in the back of the car. He turned around to confirm he had been hit by the car behind him, feeling furious as he saw the driver getting out of the car. He reluctantly did as well, and all of a sudden, he stopped in his tracks.
He always thought it would be immediate, that he’ll look around and see fully for the first time. But it wasn’t like that at all. He had tried to imagine colors before, based solely on descriptions, but no words could ever describe what he was seeing, what he was feeling. The first thing he noticed was a flash of color in her shoes, something stronger that the usual grey he saw. Not black, not quite grey, just stronger. Then he looked around, and saw black cars turn red and clear city lights slowly turn yellow, blue and green. He didn’t know how, but he could identify all of them.
And he identified the color of her eyes.
Days later she would guess his favorite color at first try, even though he never really thought about it before. But there’ll be something about the way she’ll light up and smile as he’ll say “Yes, red is indeed my favorite color” that’ll make him never see red the same, make him love red, make him want to live in it.
Years later, they would live together and see fully, some days feeling blue, other days feeling yellow, and somehow, understanding each other without a doubt.
But for that night, he felt full with the hazel of her eyes.
