LJ Idol Prompt 10 — synesthesia

[flipflop_diva]

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a little village with her perfectly ordinary parents. But the little girl was far from ordinary. From the day she was born, she was surrounded by the most intense, beautiful colors. She saw them everywhere — surrounding people when they talked, surrounding animals when they expressed themselves, floating in the wind and the rain and the thunder storms.

But more than that, the little girl was able to make other people see the colors too. And thus she got her name — Rainbow — and she was beloved by everyone in their little village.

But hard times fell upon the little village. Crops died and animals withered and barely anyone could make ends meet. Even with Rainbow’s ability to change the drab beige world around them to one full of colors, it didn’t change the reality. And so one day, Rainbow’s parents packed up their meager belongings, and they moved to a different village far, far away where they hoped things would be better.

But things were not better. Rainbow immediately distrusted the new village. She warned her parents that nothing but doom was headed for them if they remained there.

“When they speak, all I see are angry black clouds,” she told her parents. “There is something wrong here.”

But her parents, exhausted and worried and just needing a place to try and start over, brushed off their daughter’s concerns.

“I’m sure it will be fine, dear,” her father said.

But as Rainbow had warned, it was far from fine. The folks in their new village were jaded and cruel. The kids picked on Rainbow and bullied her. The other adults refused to help her parents in any way.

And then one day, one of the kids from Rainbow’s school overheard her talking with her parents and learned of her special gift. Hours later, the whole town knew, and they gathered at her parent’s farm, torches held aloft.

“We need to leave!” Rainbow begged her parents as the angry black colors from the people surrounding their house twisted and turned in the air. But there was nowhere to go. No place to run to.

And thus as the inevitable came to pass, Rainbow sent a final message out into the village just before she succumbed to the smoke and the fire: “May you never see in anything but black and white until you have finally learned what it means to truly be worthy of seeing in color.”

--

Tamara Lyons and the village she lived in saw everything in the world in black and white. Literally. Every stitch of clothing, every sunset and sunrise, every flower that waved in the wind were all shades of grays.

In Tamara’s one-room schoolhouse, where she learned her alphabet and her numbers with the other children of the village, there was a shelf of books, all in shades of gray, that spoke of the history of their village and of the world beyond them. Once Tamara was old enough to read, she devoured them all, taking in tales of a world that could see in color and trying to imagine what that must be like.

“If we walk far enough,” Tamara mused one day, “do you think we could see the part of the world that has color?”

“No,” said a boy a few years older than her who never smiled. “We were cursed to never be able to travel outside the village boundaries thanks to that bloody awful witch.”

“I don’t know,” Tamara said. “She doesn’t seem too bad.”

“Not bad?” said the boy, whose name was Timothy. “She was mean and cruel and cursed everyone.”

Tamara shrugged. “Everyone burned her house down and killed her and her parents.”

“Because she was mean!”

“I don’t know,” Tamara said. “I’ve read every book, and no one can ever say how she was mean. I think they didn’t like her because she said she saw colors in people.”

“Why are you defending some witch who cursed our whole village?” Timothy’s eyes narrowed.

“Why are you defending a group of people who committed murder?” Tamara snapped back.

Timothy opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, Mrs. Samson, their teacher, was there, ushering them away from each other.

“Mrs. Samson,” Tamara asked later that day. “Do you think the witch who cursed our village was horrible?”

Mrs. Samson smiled at her. “I think people are complicated, Tamara,” she said. “And history can only tell us so much when it’s written by one side.”

“I wish I could see colors,” Tamara mused. “They must be beautiful.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Samson said. “I’m sure they are.”

On her way home from school that afternoon, with her books bouncing in her bag on her back, Tamara stopped to admire all the flowers in the garden outside her house. The garden her mother took special care of, watering and pruning and tending to the flowers like they were her children.

Tamara knelt down to get a better look at the flowers. She studied the different shades of gray in their petals, the intricate details that made them how they were.

“You’re so beautiful just as you are,” she told them. “But I bet you’d look stunning in color.”

That night, Tamara dreamed. She dreamed of flowers and a small cottage and a young girl who couldn’t been much older than she was. The girl was dancing, twirling around through a garden of flowers, her hands outstretched.

And then the girl stopped, and her eyes met Tamara’s, so intense it felt like the girl was looking straight into her soul. And then something strange happened.

The girl lifted her hands, and something shot of them. Something glittery and magical and nothing like anything Tamara had ever seen before.

And she knew. Color. She was seeing color.

In the morning, Tamara was up early, heading out of her house and straight for school where she beelined to the books about the witch who cursed her village, reading once again all the passages she practically knew by heart.

“Mrs. Samson,” she asked when her teacher appeared. “Do you think there is a way to break the curse?”

Mrs. Samson pondered that. “I’m not sure, Tamara,” she said. “I don’t think anyone there that day really knew what happened, except when the fire and the family was gone, so were all the colors of their world.”

“I think there must be a way,” Tamara said.

“Well, if there is, I hope you find it.”

Tamara didn’t go home after school that day. Instead, she made her way to the edge of town to the small lot that was sectioned off with a broken and decayed log fence. Weeds grew unchecked, so tall they towered over Tamara’s head as she slipped through the old fence and made her way to the center where a small patch of land sat bare and untouched, not by weeds or stone or even any remains of what once must have been.

“Is this where you once lived?” Tamara asked the world around her as she bent down and placed her hand on the bare dirt. It felt almost warm to her touch, and she closed her eyes, trying to imagine the girl and her parents who had once lived here.

“I’m sorry for what they did to you,” Tamara spoke out loud. “You belonged here as much as they did.”

She opened her eyes and stood up. Her fingers tingled. She glanced down, expecting to see dirt on them from where she had been touching the ground. Instead, she gasped.

Sparkles, just like in her dream, moved all around her fingers.

Sparkles in color, weaving around and through the air.

It was the most beautiful thing Tamara had ever seen. She felt tears sting her eyes at the sight.

And then all of a sudden she knew. How to bring color back to her village. How to honor the girl who had been unfairly killed by villagers who were afraid of her.

“You deserve to be honored,” Tamara told the space around her. “You deserved to be known and remembered. And I will make sure you are.”

She glanced down one more time at the color swirling around her own hand, and then she turned and ran home to find her mom.




Fiction.



This was written for the new season of therealljidol. If you liked my entry, please consider voting for me! You should also go read the other amazing entries. You can find them here. Voting should be up Sunday!

Comments

[chasing_silver]

I liked how this sort of reminded me of The Giver. I hope you write what happens next in another tale!

[muchtooarrogant]

A nice story. I particularly liked the teacher's advice, “I think people are complicated, Tamara,” she said. “And history can only tell us so much when it’s written by one side.” Very true!

Dan

[erulissedances]

Oh, this is a sweet story of redemption.

- Erulisse (one L)

[swirlsofpurple]

Poor rainbow.

A lovely tale.

[halfshellvenus]

You know, until I read this it had never occurred to me that people who see "auras" might have synesthesia. It wasn't something anyone knew about when I was growing up, but it would make a lot of sense.

It seems like Rainbow has a broader perception, almost like she's seeing the aura of an entire context. She was certainly right about that awful little town.

[rayaso]

What a great story! The people in the second village deserved to be condemned to seeing only black and white. Rainbow was a great character. The ending was wonderful!

[murielle]

You've created a lovely fable. It would make a wonderful book for children. ❤❤❤

[inkstainedfingertips]

It is so sad that people fear that which they do not understand and often lash out, even violently. You do a wonderful job of making us *feel* this. This is a wonderfully, beautiful piece.

[fausts_dream]

This is fabulous.

1) I always side with the witches, so it's good to be on the right side here.
2) Whenever something opens with "Once upon a time" it's either mediocre fodder for kids or surpassing genius, rarely anything in between. This is genius.

[xeena]

This was great and I love the ending so much it feels like a classic tale.