Prologue

My favorite color is black.

I know, weird way for a protagonist to start introductions, it's just something I read about a year ago on some blog I stumbled across on Google…the guy wrote some psychology deal about "all the things you can tell about a person based on their favorite color", or some cheesy line like that. Like how red was the color of passion, aggression, rage and love, and how yellow was the color of optimism, intellect, criticism and cowardice. The guy went all out too—he got ALL the colors, the in-between shades, like magenta, gray, turquoise, and indigo—you had to admire his enthusiasm.

But the only thing that interested me at the time was his little entry on Black—"Black it the color of the hidden, the secretive and the unknown, creating an air of mystery. It keeps things bottled up inside, hidden from the world".

Now based on this, I know there are certain individuals who would immediately burn the book, tablet, or laptop they're reading this on—leaping to the assumption that I'm on some emo bullshit, or gothic bullshit, or "one-with-the-darkness" cheesy bullshit, or some other "silent-sensitive-mystery-man" bullshit, fresh out of a chapter of "My Immortal" (If you don't know what "My Immortal" is by now, read it at your own risk. Or even watch it on YouTube—either way it's your funeral).

Well in any case, to any of my "judgmental asshole" readers, fuck you too—I love black for my own reasons. Now brace yourself for the "whole-inevitable-one-page-long-backstory" on "why".

You see, back in elementary school—It's always when you're young, isn't it?—I was in art class, my favorite class. We were all just naive kids, finger-painting whatever we wanted—some of us were just lightheartedly scribbling—making a mess while not really giving a shit; while others were wholeheartedly pouring our hearts out into poor representations of our families—making a mess while actually giving a shit. And while we made our messes, our teacher would go around the room, looking over our shoulders and smiling at whatever we did, regardless of the shits given—encouraging us in that praising way that art teachers do. In any case, ever since an episode of Barney I had seen, I'd recently gotten into mixing colors—red and blue into purple, yellow and blue into green—it was almost magical to me. I liked it so much that I figured I'd mix em' all together to see the result. The result was—cue sarcastic drumroll—the color black.

Now of course, this wasn't much of an accomplishment. Some of you might even think, "You mixed black from scratch. Whoop-de-fuckin'-doo," in a sarcastic monotone. Well hey, I was eight at the time, and this absolutely blew my mind. I figured I'd experiment with this new color, like I'd done with the others—a new branch in the tree of color mixing. In my experiences with other colors thus far, it never took much influence to change them—a dab of red here; a sprinkle of blue there; a dash of yellow; and you get whole new colors like purple and green. I figured it would be the same case with black.

My hypothesis was way off—the black itself was a color of another class—It took on every color offered to it—reds, blues, yellows, purples and greens of all shades—accepting them all despite their differences, but remaining itself, steadfast and true. It was adamant, resilient, and unyielding. And what's more, the black itself consisted of all the colors from the get-go. Anything added to it seemed to melt in with little effort, as if they simply belonged there in the first place. The longer I looked at it, the more I saw—One second it was a perfect world, a black community of colors in collective coexistence. A moment later it was an empire of darkness, a hurricane of colors submitting before the dark clouds of chaos. It was beautiful and terrible at the same time.

I was ecstatic—in my mind, I'd discovered "the ultimate color", and I hurried to show my art teacher my achievement. And then things got weird—when I showed her my latest creation, she went, "Aww, your painting was ruined. That's too bad." Then she gave me a new, clean paper so that I could start over. At this reaction, I was completely lost—what was wrong with this incredible color that it lost the approval of our ever-encouraging teacher, who had showered praise on even the most directionless mass of scribble-scrabble?

This experience resonated with me as the years passed, and not just because I'm black—I know the symbols of this whole flashback practically dance naked dripping racism all over—but race is probably the last card I plan to throw here. My sister on the other hand, would probably lose her shit reading that passage. She's probably the most Afrocentric force within the entirety of my extended family (and that's saying something—I've got 13 aunts and uncles…). That chick would probably have been scouted out as a Black Panther way back when. Myself on the other hand, I'm…abnormal. Yeah, I guess "abnormal" sums it up best. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for the idea that "everyone's different and special"—rather, I find that being "unique" is another aspect to our standards of what's considered "normal"—but let's be honest here: You just read a lecture on art-appreciation; an experiment conducted with the proper scientific method; a debatable account of modern racism; and a philosophical literary analysis of colors, all presented in poetic alliteration.

And I was fucking eight! No matter how you cut it, that's weird.

But the big deal to me growing up, was how black was never affiliated with anything peaceful—always some kind of conflict. Growing up, reality seemed eager to prove this to me—"the color you wear at a funeral"; Nyctophobia, the (fairly common) fear of the dark; the color of "the unlucky cat"; the capes bad guys wore on Saturday morning cartoons; the color of the stormy clouds; A color linked to death and despair and black holes and emptiness; "The Dark Side of The Force"…—all black, always black.

And even if you're pro-black, (like my aforementioned sister) drawing pride in the light of Black people rising through slavery, or the Civil Rights movement, you cheer "Black!" for the way that a certain race persevered in face of adversity and persecution. While that pride's undoubtedly justified, the fact remains that black is constantly tied to the negative and the unknown, to the point where humanity seems to lose sight of what black really is—a color birthed from all others—an indomitable body of unity and togetherness—peace and quiet.

Ahh, that's my absolute favorite thing in the world—some good ol'peace-and-quiet. You know, since Black's made from all the other colors together, I like to think it's got more potential than the others. Race card discarded. And for my physics majors, you guys ought to know the differences between potential energy and kinetic energy—"kinetics" is "the energy of motion", like a massive boulder rampaging down a hill towards a little town, while "potential" is the total opposite, "energy at rest"—like how that boulder could just as simply "rest"—perfectly still at the top of the hill—all peaceful and quiet, no townsfolk screaming in mortal peril...you know in space, since there's no air, there's no sound? And there's no water for light to refract through, so space is just quiet darkness, going on and on forever…like being underwater. Maybe that's why I'm at bliss right now.

I probably should've mentioned that I'm currently floating in a bio-tank, inside a laboratory, underground, surrounded by predominantly old, white-coat science people. With notes.

I'm Jarsha Seoula, by the way. Nice to meet you.