I dreamt in black and white for what seemed like forever so that the hues and pigments of the world would not distract me from the inevitable - the light and the darkness. My own mental metaphors for the war that constantly waged inside my head. Primarily the darkness though, which seemed to consume my every thought. It was easier that way - to be blinded from what I couldn't have, couldn't partake in -the color of the world, the life, the vivacity. Like the color of the leaves as they changed in the fall, the color of the sky just before it rained or the color of grass blades silhouetted against the sun. I remembered them before, as a child, and how the menacing darkness of the clouds would make me shudder as thunder ripped through the sky. Also, I remembered how the warmth of the sun would graze across my face, leaving yet another perceptible color of light pink as it danced through the shoots of grass.
It was painful to ignore the beauty that the world had to offer, but it was more painful to let my eyes see something that wasn't tangible anymore. And the sad thing was that I couldn't even wallow in my own melancholy because it was my fault that I couldn't enjoy these memories. I didn't deserve to partake in the beauty of the world. The light of life, the glimmer of innocence, of curiosity, of hope had vanished and wasn't returning. I was consumed by the overwhelming corruption of the world - the darkness. It had me and wasn't prepared to surrender even if I hadn't chosen to just dream in black and white.
Yet something was about to change; something was different; something intangible just like the elusive life I longed for, but nonetheless, the change was perceptible. Suddenly in what seemed like an eternity of darkness, my dreams became flooded with color. The subject matter of my "dreams" was still made of what most considered nightmares, but everything was saturated with color. Blood was dark crimson. Fire a brilliant redish orange. The ocean deep blue. And the most brilliant of them all was the color of the sky over the ocean. The same sky that I used to look at while musing the thing I missed most in whatever Hell I was trapped - life.
It was the same color that I remembered as a child right before it stormed although far less menacing. But nonetheless, it still had a daunting powerfulness to it, a quiet strength that made the black, ominous clouds, stinging with lightning, envious. Despite it's darkness in shade, it was different. It made everything in my dreams, even the stars, seem brighter, but everything still paled in comparison to its brilliance. Birds were the only creatures fearless enough to fly within its gaze , never migrating from its sight. They reveled in its brilliance.
It was beautiful, and I was determined it was my new favorite color, in contrast to the blackness that previously had made the carnage disappear. This change was a color that only someone like Keats could capture and describe mediocrely at best.
I slumbered every night just in hopes of catching a glimpse of that breathtaking color, the one that had given my ghostly existence the feeling of hope, of light, of life.
"While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies."
Yes, something was about to change that would never allow my dreams to be the same.
My new, favorite color.
Violet.
