The Blue Eyed Girl
With the razzmatazz colored crayon in my hand, I open the sketchpad to a new page and put pressure on the crayon. My mind goes wild as I create stroke after stroke of color. Next, my hand holds the denim colored. I draw in a crazed state, seeking nothing but perfection.
The random bursts of color soon form shapes, and those shapes soon become pictures. When forty-eight crayons have been used and their tips dulled, I smile. A girl smiles at the beach in the picture. Her razzmatazz and fuchsia skirt swishes in a whitish wind. I can feel what she’s feeling. Her eyes are bright, and squint towards the sunset. The girl’s feet are buried in the soft sand.
When I drew this, I was five.
The sharpener makes a creaking sound as I twist the pencil around, around, around and make the tip a perfectly sharp one. It smells like pencil. The royal blue shades in the light outline of an iris.
I blend in another shade, blueberry, and add a little bit of a shadow under her eyes. This time, she sits in a swing, not smiling, but gazing thoughtfully out at a field. Her auburn hair is whipping around, that you can tell, and she is making no effort to stop it.
With her hands gripping the rope the swing is hanging onto, and her feet pumping, you know what she feels.
When I drew this, I was seven.
When the bristles of the brush mix with the paint, I feel a rush of excitement. I gently bring the brush over the canvas with a brick red color. Stones begin to appear.
It’s the girl again. Her hair is tied back in neat braids, and she is wearing new-looking, clean clothes. A blue sweater hides the top of her blouse. A matching, navy blue skirt that is down to her knees drapes across her legs. She is leaning against the brick wall.
She looks neither happy nor sad. Instead, she looks nervous. Her lip is drawn back, as if it was being bitten, and her forehead was creased. The bright blue eyes were closed tightly.
When I painted this, I was ten.
Water begins to thin the paint in front of me. My brush is unsteady. One stroke, and another. Watercolor is different. The paint runs, and the color mixes. I try to keep them separate, but it doesn’t work.
The blue runs into the green. The pink into red. Then I blend them.
A new world opens up. Hair appears, then a body. A soccer ball is in the air. Neutral grey stands holding blobby forms of people fade into the background. I feel the rush of the girl kicking the ball, scoring a goal.
Her cleats press into the ground, and there is an earthy smell. Her hands twitch in anticipation, waiting for the ball.
You don’t see her face. You don’t see the smile. But you know it is there anyway.
I was eleven when I painted that picture.
I am now fifteen years old. I have gone through fazes of ink, charcoal, marker, and oil paint, but one thing never changes.
That girl is always in the picture. Whether it be about soccer, or the beach, or about summer camp, the girl’s stunningly blue eyes always show up. I cannot help it.
People say to pour yourself into your artwork. So I do.
The girl in the pictures is always me.
Dreaming in Color
Dreaming in Color
Sarah Ellis
I’ve had the same dream for over a week. I’m in a meadow, a bright green, wonderful meadow, with flowers of every color imaginable and a sky such a perfect blue that I want to run. So I do.
My feet pump, back and forth, and I don’t get tired. Fresh air fills my lungs, and sun shines on my face. I laugh with complete, hysterical joy, and just keep running. I run next to a river, bright turquoise-green with silver-scaled trout racing through.
Hundreds of rainbow birds fill the sky along with small animals on the ground. I laugh and run, and go on for a while.
Then I wake up.
I can’t see a thing. It’s dark, black, and I scream in terror, screaming at the things that could be in the dark, screaming at the things that could be hiding in the corners. I hear the faint footsteps of my mother and feel her sit on my bed.
“Oh, Kora,” She says, wrapping her arms around me. I don’t cry tonight. I just sit, in the dark, with the arms of my mum around me, knowing that I’m never going to see again.
The next morning, I’m awake at the crack of dawn. In the past few days, I’ve figured out that asking my iPad what time it is actually works. It says it’s 5:45, so I stumble out of bed and feel my way across the room.
Once I get to my closet, I stop. I slowly feel toward the wall, and then I lean against it and drink in the green.
I can see it, I can see it so clearly in my mind that it hurts. I rub the cast on my wrist and move a little more to the left. On the top of my biggest bookshelf is a big, thick book. I take it hesitantly with my good hand, and feel my way back to bed with the heavy hunk of cast my left hand currently is.
After I open the book to the first page, I feel the bumps carefully. There is only one in the top-left corner, and I memorize it, willing myself not to forget it. I move my finger along the page, just feeling the a’s. A. A. A.
I pound the feeling into my brain. Just a small, barely noticeable bump. But after going over the page a few times I’ve memorized it, carved the feeling deeper than I had been able to the past few days.
The next page has the b’s. I find this no harder to memorize. My finger runs steadily across the page, nerve memory kicking in and helping me along. I feel down to the bottom of the page.
One line is different. It has both a’s and b’s. I have no trouble distinguishing between the two letters. I continue on to letter g until the alarm I have set for six forty-five rings, and Mum enters my room.
“Morning, Kora. How art thou?” She jokes. I hear her voice in the back of the room, and I realize she’s standing by my bookshelf.
I shrug. “I’m okay. I got to the letter g. Soon I’ll be able to read again.” I know it hurts her to say this because she hesitates so long.
“Honey, are you sure you aren’t going into this too fast? You should rest before you work so hard.” I clench my hands together into fists.
“Mum, it’s okay. I want to read again. I’m still only halfway done with The Return of the King. I want to see what happens. I probably won’t have too much trouble finding a Braille copy. Please?” She sighs.
“Alright, Kora. You can keep learning. Just don’t go so fast. Your tutor is going to come tomorrow. She’s helped dozens of people like you. She was excited to teach you Braille. Most of her clients are oldies that lost their sight to cataracts. Don’t disappoint her, okay?”
My heart almost stops. I had forgotten the tutor part of things. Although I am glad to learn how to get around more easily and how to get around like I used to, I’m still dead-nervous.
“How’s your wrist?” She asks, her normal motherly tone becoming much more evident. I wince just thinking about how it must look. Since I shattered it, it’s in a huge plaster cast with bandages surrounding it. When I asked Dr. Rosenburg what it looked like, she had hesitated before answering. When I convinced her, she said there were bruises crawling up my arm, in hues of black and purple. The wrist itself is crooked, and bent, and I probably won’t be able to move it like I used to, even after the surgery.
“It’s alright. Has Dr. Roserburg said anything about when the surgery will be?” I ask. She doesn’t reply for a minute. I wait a little while longer, then say her name. She doesn’t respond.
“Mum?” I say, a little shakily, but louder than the first time. When there’s no reply, I scream it as loudly as I can. I hear the floorboards creak as she races up to me.
“What’s wrong?” She cries, and puts her hand on my shoulder, “Are you okay?” I sigh with relief and smile feebly.
“I didn’t know where you went.”
“Oh, sorry, honey. I just went to check the date of your surgery. I forgot you couldn’t see me leave the room.” We’re both silent for a few minutes. Then she tells me the surgery on my wrist is scheduled for April 18th.
“Are you hungry?” She asks me, and I nod. She takes me by the arm and leads me downstairs. I’ve gotten used to moving around our house, and I have a map of it in my head, but I’m still nervous about tripping down the stairs or falling.
Mum fixes me breakfast, then utters the seven words I’ve been dreading for weeks. “Kora, you have to go to school today.” The waffles freeze halfway to my mouth.
I stare at were she’s sitting and imagine her there, in her casual, comfy attire. I forget the words I had scripted and start rambling.
“I can’t go to school today. I don’t know my way around, and I could hurt myself, and everyone will ask questions, and-” Mum cuts me off.
“Kora, I’ll be with you for the beginning of the day. Then Lani will help you around. Ms. Dower will be there to help you, and, since this is still tough for everybody, you don’t need to write anything or remember everything.” I have a thousand things I want to say but can’t.
After a few minutes, I realize what I need to say. “Mum, I just can’t see anymore. I’m not stupid.”
“I know that, Kora, it’s just nobody wants you to have to do any more than necessary.” I accept the statement with defeat and get ready to go to school for the first time in four weeks.
The rough pavement is as unfamiliar as the fur of a tiger. The only floor I’ve known in weeks has been the waxed hospital floor and the soft carpet and hardwood in my own house. This rough concrete makes me feel vulnerable, like I could trip, and fall, or hurt myself.
I grip Mum’s hand tightly in my left and clutch up near her elbow with my other arm. Every part of me still hurts a little, but the bruises and scratches have faded. Or that’s what Mum says.
We walk on for a few meters, and then I feel a transition between the hard pavement and the soft, waxy floor. It reminds me of the hospital, and I clutch Mum’s hand harder. We get to the office, but by then I’ve gotten used to the hectic environment.
Principal Higgins calls Lani down to the office, and within minutes I feel a tight hug. Very tight.
“Oh, Kora!” She says, her voice rising like a balloon, “When we heard you were in an accident with a big truck, everyone was so scared. We thought you were going to die,” She cried, her voice welling up with tears.
I give her a smile. “I’m mostly alright. But you’ll need to help me a lot.” I feel her give me a puzzled look.
“But you’re okay, aren’t you? You just hurt your arm, right? Are you stiff or is something broken?” She’s starting to sound a little unsteady. I face towards where Mum was standing last.
“Mum?” I turn back to Lani. “You don’t know?” Anxiety infiltrates my stomach.
“Don’t know what?” Her voice is laced in dread, too. A wave of nausea hits me. I try to open my mouth, but I can’t.
After a few minutes, I swallow and start to talk. “Lani,” I breathe before continuing, “I didn’t just shatter my wrist or sprain a few things. And I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.” I falter, then, but start again. “Lani, I don’t want to tell you this, and I wish it weren’t true, but, I’m- I’m blind now.”
Her hands drop from my shoulders. “What?” She whispers, the thin sound breaking every barrier I had put up against it. “What?” My heart begins to pound in my ears. But then it shatters.
“I’m sorry, Lani. I wish I wasn’t either.” I hear her crying silently, and I wrap my arms around her in a hug. She sniffs loudly and hugs me back. After a few seconds, she starts to talk again.
“But how are you going to finish Return of the King?” She questioned nervously. “We can’t just stop reading it.” I think for a minute before replying.
“You could read it aloud until I learn Braille,” I say. She agrees, and then my mother, Lani, and I slowly walk to the classroom.
I can feel everybody stare at me as I enter. It’s what I expected, right? I’ve been gone for four weeks. And I’m clinging to Mum and Lani. I must look strange enough. But no matter what I tell myself, I still feel self-conscious. Mum leads me to my seat, and I sit down like nothing is wrong.
“Hello, Kora. It’s great to see you back with us. Lani, could you move to the desk next to her?” There is absolute silence except the scraping of desk against floor. I know my cheeks are red, and I feel along the inside of my desk for a pencil.
“Hey, Kora?” Natalie whispers to me as Ms. Dower is talking to Mum, “Are you okay?” I sigh. Nobody knows, do they?
“I’m alright. My wrist is shattered, and I had a concussion, but there’s something else, too.” I pause nervously, but this time I just ramble, “I went blind.” A few people around me heard me say it, and soon I was engulfed in a sea of whispers.
“What?” Natalie says, “How is that even possible?” Ms. Dower stops talking, and Mum comes and sits next to me.
“Mrs. Lorenly has just informed me that Kora had lost her vision.” A few voices pipe up, ask questions, but Ms. Dower remains silent. More voices chime in, and soon I’m overwhelmed by the intensity but also preposterousness of some of the questions.
Can you see at all?
Can you move your eyes?
Does it hurt?
Will you ever be able to see again?
They echo through my mind as I realize it’s only natural to be inquisitive. Before I can tell them I will explain the answers to their questions later, a small voice speaks from the corner of the room.
“Do you still remember what color looks like?” The voice is one I recognize: Peony’s. We have never been particularly friendly, but we do acknowledge each other.
The only time I remember actually having a real, true conversation with her was in third grade. We had to do a science project together.
“Yes,” I say, the words not my own. I can feel the smooth wood of the desk, and hear everything around me, from the tap of a pencil to the subtle sound of someone chewing gum.
“Do you think you’ll forget them?” She asks, and dread curls up in my stomach before I answer.
“No,” I say, without a reason at first, but then I realize that I can’t forget them. I the midst of the chorus of whys, and hows, I grin. It’s the first time I’ve smiled in weeks; a real smile, that is, and the answer comes when I direct my head towards where the flowerpots for science are. I can picture them perfectly: around a dozen tiny pansies per pot, each with purple, yellow, and white like a crowning jewel. Just like by the river.
“No,” I repeat, this time sure and confident. All the doubt and fear from waking up to darkness leaves me. “I can’t forget. I dream in color.”
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
- Haldir in The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
River of Time (incomplete)
I kneeled by the river, watching the water move in the current as it tripped over rocks and branches. A flower stem twirled between my fingers, and I sat, bored out of my mind.
The clouds formed shapes that only I could identify: crocodiles brushing their teeth with water hoses, ostriches flying through space on a bicycle… But now thwywere just shapeless puffs of smoke floating away in the breeze.
I held my pen in my hand and had my green journal open, but I couldn’t write. I tried my yellow and blue books, too, but they wouldn’t work either.
Then I heard it. It was nothing really, just a snap. My head turned slowly as my eyes flitted owaard the source of the noise. Two devilishy blue eyes met me.
“Hi, Brooke.” Then it laughed, and I ran.
My feet pounded against the wet soil alongside the riverbank. My heart fluttered in my body and I couldn’t stop running. When the blue-eyed person’s footsteps faded into the distance, I risked a look behind me.
I saw the trees and rocks, but there was no person following me. I never stopped running. As I turned to look down the path, I saw a root mocking me from the bottom of th path. I fell, I fell in slow motion with the world flashing around me.
Water droplets dropped slowly around me. Every bug on the path moved at an ich every hour. Then, I felt cold. Water filled my lungs as I snapped back into reality. I pushed and kicked and screamed against the current, but it’s strenghth overpowered me at every turn.
As my mind grew numb with cold and fatique, a haunting restfulness filled my head. I sunk deeper and deeper into the river until the water turned black from lack of light.
Minutes passed, minutes and minutes, but I held my breath. The current was visible, but it wouldn’t touch me now. My hands felt the spongey surface of the river sediment. Soon after, my body sank to the bottom of the river.
I could feel my hair spread around me in a fan. My breath started to run out, and I felt panic start to rise in my gut.
No, I thought, I can’t die. Not now.
Dread swirled around my body in little wisps. The lack of oxygen had to be hurting my brain. I tried to grasp at the water, pull myself off the ground to the surface, but I couldn’t.
Then there was darkness But then, there was light.
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