The Yellow Wallpaper
Originally written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
FanFiction: 'If you look hard enough, everything is yellow'
-From the perspective of Jennie.
I now have a brother whose face is as round as the moon, with eyes as blue as my Mother's: a precious soul whom I undoubtedly love with all my heart. His small, fragile hands are enough to curl around my short stout thumb. I cradle him when he cries; I bear him like a mother should however, I am only his older sister, Jennie.
The nursery he laid had yellow wallpaper: Mother was always fond of the colour yellow. She would say that the colour yellow could brighten any body's day, even the beggar that lay on our street's curb. After all, it is the colour of the sun. His crib stands soft with white lace outlined by a wooden framework crafted to perfection: my Mother's armchair close by. I remember before my brother was here today, Mother would sit in her armchair and stare at the window in the middle of the nursery with the yellow wallpaper. She would often ask myself the most odd of questions. "Why is a raven bird like a writing desk?" I never quite understood. For months my Mother sat there in the same armchair, staring at the same window. Father says that she was resting; in the end she was caring for two.
But however now, Mother no longer cares for two, neither three, Father and myself nor included. The nursery is now my Mother's room. The white-laced crib no longer stands under the shade of the curtains, but rather now my Mother's large double bed, which of that is nailed to the floorboards. I tend to her, and talk to her, and try to make sense of her murmuring, and leave her be when asks of it. Father does not permit her to leave the yellow nursery, but I allow her to walk through the gardens and smell the roses. I find that if I don't, her skin begins to wear yellow.
I have noticed now how brittle my Mother's hair has become, how worn her blue eyes droop on her chipmunk cheeks, how ragged all her clothing has reduced to. She no longer likes the colour yellow. She now speaks of how dull and how irritating the colour is. She often bursts with anger tearing at the wallpaper. She claims she feels that there is a woman behind the paper, but I often remind her, that the woman is only her shadow. It makes myself incredibly outraged to see how the sun, such a bright yellow, a globe of happiness, could deceive such a woman like my Mother to believe that a reflective darkness could be of life. However, she is now to far ill to be in our reality, my Father would often say.
I am no longer permitted to visit my Mother. She gave my Father such a fright, that she was sent away. I am told it is for the best. But how is it the best for a fifteen-year-old girl to be left by her Mother to tend to a family with a newborn. I don't understand as much as I don't understand why a raven bird is like a writing desk. My Mother's illness has made myself succumb to the realization that if you look hard enough, everything is yellow. That everything, and everybody is either good or evil. It's how we perceive things that we notice the difference and choose what we want to see in life. It is your decision to decide whether or not you want to see the bright of yellow, or the dull of yellow.
I wish for my Mother to return, but I am aware now that she was not my Mother for quite sometime.