Berwald sighed. It was a typical day. He grabbed his coat as he prepared to leave his office at IKEA.
Another boring day of work, he thought to himself.
A boring day was indeed correct. Earlier, there'd been a girl, maybe 13 or 14, that had cpme into IKEA with her older sibling, and was confused over the perception of color.
"Come on, Natalia! Choose a color! I think the red looks better!" exclaimed a woman with awfully large breasts, as Berwald had noted.
"Yekaterina, they're all gray or black or white!" said the Natalia girl in a monotone voice.
"Oh right…. you're too young…"
"Yekaterina, I have touched Ivan and I still cannot see color! Why is this so?"
"Some day you will…." Yekaterina's voice began to fade. "Some day….."
Color could not be perceived by those who have not come into physical contact with their soulmates. In the girl's case he hadn't met him or her yet, thus explaining her visual (and auditory) monotony. Berwald was one of those people. He couldn't see color, and as such had not yet found his soulmate either. Many times he'd wondered who his soulmate was. Was it a she? Was it a he? Was his soulmate his exact opposite? It was a puzzling train of thought, yet one he was determined to see to the end.
Feeling a bit sidetracked, Berwald hurried out the IKEA and into the parking lot. It was -12 degrees and in the middle of the Scandinavian winter, and like any other human being he hurried into his car to get warm. Berwald approached his old Volvo, which he'd received as an 18th birthday present from his friends - Matthias, Lucas, Emil, and Tino - who'd all pitched in some money. In a swift motion, Berwald inserted his car keys into the door, opening it, and within a few seconds was already on the road. He shivered a bit at the initial cold inside the car, but as the engine started to heat up and the heat came to life, Berwald felt warmer. He couldn't wait to go home, where his large, warm, comfortable bed awaited him.
Berwald pulled into his driveway and quickly entered the house. He lived alone, parents living further north in Swedish Lappland. Oh, how he wished to taste his mother's cooking again... it was in times like these that he wished he didn't live in the suburbs of Stockholm.
Berwald took a quick warm shower. As the water cascaded down his skin, he thought about love and color. Love, Berwald knew. He'd crushed on his friend Tino for a while but Tino didn't have the same feelings for Berwald. Other than him, he couldn't for his life remember a person of a time when he had truly loved someone. Color, however, was a foreign idea, completely alien to Berwald. He had asked his mother. His mother couldn't describe color. She tried describing yellow, her favorite color - it reminded her of summer and sunlight, both which were nonexistent in the long, cold Swedish Lappland winters. She mentioned various objects to try to help Berwald, but to no avail. Sunlight? Berwald never saw sunlight. All he saw was white light. Berwald's mother had said the same thing as the Yekaterina woman at IKEA: "Some, day you will know."
Berwald quickly dried himself off with a towel. He felt dinner was in order, but hunger wasn't a particular issue right now. He didn't really know how to cook, anyway. Instead, he jumped straight into bed. His last thoughts before drifting into unconsciousness were of colors, and of love.
Berwald was awoken by the sound of his alarm clock. 07:00, time to wake up. Dragging himself slowly to the bathroom whilst half-asleep, he took a quick warm shower which gradually brought him awake. He brushed his teeth and brewed his favorite thing in the world: coffee. He didn't even know what color coffee was. Was it pink? Or was it blue? Maybe it was green. He heard of the adjectives for different colors. But it was just another thing he looked forward to finding out once he'd found his soulmate.
As he drove to work fifteen minutes later, Berwald recalled a dream that he had the night before - a petite woman. She had, as he recalled, a very cheering presence, which was enhanced by the bright smile she'd worn for almost the whole duration of the dream. After several minutes of thought, Berwald concluded that he had never seen her face-to-face before. Shrugging off the dream, he poured his concentration solely into controlling the car as it zoomed down the road.
A boring day at IKEA followed, for the most part filled with tedious paperwork. Gray sheet after another, Berwald had to fill them out or write up reports. His boss wanted him to fill out the import papers in red ink. Berwald sighed. His boss knew he hadn't met his soulmate yet. Picking up a pen labeled "red", Berwald indulged himself in work.
I hate it when Lars makes me make these runs. But what can I do? It's his birthday, Belle thought to herself, Oh, I need to get meatballs too! I wonder if I can hold everything…?
Belle gripped the three bags of köttbullar as well as a few jars of jam. Doing the best she could, Belle made her way towards the checkout line.
Maybe getting a basket was a good idea? Belle slapped herself mentally.
Nevertheless, two of the three bags managed to find their way out of her hands and onto the floor. She made to pick them up again, but a tall IKEA employee beat her to it, scooping them up smoothly off the floor.
"Here you are, ma'am."
"Oh, thank you!" The words of gratitude left her mouth almost on impulse.
Just as Belle moved to accept the bags, the jars of jam fell to the floor, filling the air with the shattering of glass as most of them broke to reveal their contents to the previously-pristine shop floor.
"Oh no, I'm so sorry!" Belle stammered. "I'll pay for this!"
"No, that will not be needed." The kind IKEA employee's voice was low and deep, strangely comforting.
Belle scrambled to pick up the remaining unbroken jars and bags of köttbullar. Her hand brushed up against the employee's for a split second, and suddenly the gray mess of jam and glass was red.
She gasped. Was this what Lars had spoken about, the colors that made themselves present once you had touched your soulmate? She gazed into the newly-colored IKEA employee's ocean-blue eyes.
As his shift came to an end, Berwald decided to check if his team restocked the frozen köttbullar. As he walked to the IKEA's food section, he saw a woman struggling to hold various jars and bags of köttbullar. She dropped two bags and, as would befit a helpful IKEA employee, he hurried to assist her.
"Ma'am, here you are."
"Oh thank you!" exclaimed the woman.
In the process of accepting the bags of köttbullar from Berwald, a few jars of jam fell out of her hands and crashed loudly onto the floor, spilling their contents in the radius of half a meter.
"Oh no, I'm so sorry!" The woman stammered. "I'll pay for this!"
"No, that will not be needed." Berwald said kindly.
As the two tried to pick up bags of köttbullar off the floor, he felt a small part of his hand brush up against the woman's - suddenly, the bag of köttbullar was a semi-dark blue. The woman, he realized suddenly, was the exact same woman from his dreams the previous night. He stared into her emerald green eyes, transfixed. Is this what color was? Had he met his soulmate?