coloring tails... chapter 1 part 1

The colors are bright in the sky: golds, oranges, reds, purples, and blues. I watch them behind Doctor Ryan's Chair beyond the window, the city. Doctor Ryan has sandy blonde hair and tan eyes; she is wearing grey pants, grey shoes, and a grey shirt. She would look better in a gold shirt and medium brown pants. Usually tan eyes do not come to the community, but sometimes they do. I think tan eyes mean a nicer personality, more understanding. I have gold eyes- no one else does- but since the world is only shades of grey for them, they do not know. For me, it's a secret I tell no one.



Doctor Ryan knew Jake had not been watching her and she wondered in the silence of the room, as she did now walking down the hall after their session, what he saw. When he had left, all she could see that was outside was the light and dark grey sky. She had also noticed, like she did every day when he came since his last birthday almost eight months ago, that he had eyed her closely and she wondered, as she pushed her hair back, what he saw. Was he interested in her, was he sizing her up, was he... she shook her head and pushed the thoughts away. She had been working with Jake for ten years now and she knew he wasn't like that. Despite what he had been labeled, Doctor Ryan was not sure that was the right label for him. Her testing showed he was extremely bright and when he talked with her, he was very well spoken and the topcis he spoke about were above his age of 17 years. What label, she wondered as she open a door, would fit Jake?



Teal? Teal, where are you... someone knocks at my door.



Mom was standing outside Jake's door when he opened it and she handed him a bowl of soup.

"Thanks, Mom." She bussed into his room like a freight train, holding the soup in one hand and pushing him to his bed with the other.

"You should be in bed, Jake. You know that. All sick people should be." Jake lay back down in his bed, feeling the shape of his notebook that he kept all his thoughts in underneath him. Mom put his soup down before leaving. She stopped in the doorway and looked back at him.

"Dad and I are going out tonight. I want you to get sleep. I mean it." She left, slamming the door behind her.



I was walking through the streets towards no where when I first saw her. At first, I thought I was seeing a shadow, for my world of colors has taught me only shadows are truly grey. Then, she stepped out under the street light glare and I froze. She was grey! All grey! Her eyes, her clothes, her hair, her hands-all grey! I would have thought I had lost all colors, but all around her- behind her, to her left, to her right, and in front of her- were colors! How could this be? I had spent the last eight months learning that colors- many brilliant colors- exist and the board controls them. The board has a machine or something like that to block color tones and turns them to shades of grey. They control the colors because with the colors, people see more, they see deeper. So to keep absolute control over the world, they took colors away, thus taking that knowledge and wisdom. I still have to figure out why... what is so important that they don't want others to see colors? Kids are taught these days that colors are imaginary and that they were thought up by a mad scientist years ago to confuse people. People laugh at the thought of real colors.

She didn't look that much older than me as she stood under the light. A light grey color, she blended in perfectly with the shadows. It's at times like these tht I wish I didn't see shadows; when I saw in grey, there were no shadows. She was small- only 5' 2" or so- and she seemed very wary; she moved away from people and carried herself tensely. A few looks at her told me that she was used to hardwork and traveling; her face had a rugged look with a set determination in her eyes. Unlike Mom, Doctor Ryan, and the other women of the community, she wore her hair in a low ponytail; all the women of the community wear their hair in braids and girls (age zero-sixteen) wear their hair down. At school, we had learned different communites have different rules for how women and girls there wear their hair.

Looking up suddenly, almost like she could feel my eyes on her, she looked at me. It was like she had known where I was standing, like I had called to her or something. Her eyes widened slightly and she trembled, but she looked at me like no one else ever has. It was like she could see through me, see my gold eyes, and see that I saw colors. My eyes suddenly felt stronger and the colors around us sharpened. We stood looking at each other as others walked by in the street, oblivious to us, before I moved towards her slowly, scared she would disappear before I could get to her. There was a feeling of closeness yet distance between us and a tension in the air. With about two yards between us, a man almost ran into me and I looked away for a second as I pulled back, apologizing. When I looked back up to where she was standing, she was gone and a feeling of bewilderment came over me. And then, only then as I stood there think, I knew somehow that she was Teal, only now in a flesh form.