Seeing Blue

I had this random idea one day that I turned into a story… It doesn’t have anything to do with Disney or anything of that sort, but I thought you all might enjoy it. I enjoyed writing it.

Anyways, it’s going in the Archives, so let’s just say it was picked up by the Archivists on the shore and fully restored. Without further ado, this is Seeing Blue. (Hey, that rhymes :P)

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Darks and lights swirl in a tapestry of blues. I do not think about the cold, hard surface of my desk, the rosy colors of spring, or the constant chatter around me. I simply think of blue. Of nothing. But as quickly as it comes, it disappears. I open my eyes and the blues disappear from my vision. Again and again and again.

“… a new student here, so please welcome him”, the teacher finishes. I blink in surprise. We do not get very many new students here. I eye the student, making sure to keep my gaze as cold and distant as it always is. He is the type of person who does not appear to care very much – loose clothing, and messy hair – all signs of neglect. But I notice more. His clothing is just loose enough and his hair is tousled in a careful way. He knows what he’s doing. His sloppiness is careful.

I know. I am a good judge of character. The girls in the school look to me for approval, eyes bright with a feeling I cannot describe. I betray nothing. I am ice and snow.

– – – – – – –

“Is this seat taken?” a voice asks from behind me. It is a deep voice. A voice that makes me think, this voice is music. His voice. The cursed new student.

My eyes snap open to see him sliding down into the seat next to mine. He smiles pleasantly as if to say, well it is now. His face is open and lit with both mischief and innocence. I dislike him immediately.

“It is actually,” I tell him, purposely clipping my words to make my tone frosty. Just the right amount of frost. I have long perfected this technique. I am ice and snow, after all. I stare at him with cold, blue eyes. “I have claimed it.”

He laughs a musical laugh. “Enough space for you and your ego to spare.”

“No,” I say, without batting an eyelash. I will not reveal that I am caught off guard. “I prefer to be alone. I like to think.” I am many things, but I am not egotistical.

“Well we can both be alone. But we can both think together.”

I do not argue, but my every instinct tells me I should.

– – – – – – –

My world has been blue for as long as I can remember.

At first, it was the colour of my happiness; of spring days spent beneath a wide blue sky, of days at the ocean spent with family in the sparkling blue vastness, of joy and laughter. But my mother died shortly after; a hospital room painted robin’s egg blue, a bouquet of her favourite blue violets, the blue of tears, the blue of mourning. I didn’t wear black to her funeral. I wore blue.

From then on, my world became only blue. I only saw blue from then on.

I only see blue now.

I do not notice him sitting down next to me. I scowl at him. “You’re everywhere,” I say. “Stop following me.”

“I’d rather not,” he says, his voice filled with notes of sarcasm.

I don’t look at him. I look straight ahead, but I feel it. I feel the thawing. I am thawing. My eternal winter, my ice and snow, is beginning to melt.

And for the first time, my heart, once frozen shut, worries. It is beginning to lose it’s protection.

– – – – – – –

There is no more blue tonight. I search and I search and I search and I search, looking for just a tiny trace of the blue, but it is not there. I stare out helplessly into the dark of the night. No blue; no comfort; no nothing. I am thawing. No matter how strong I have built myself to be, I have always been incompetent and weak on the inside.

“Hey.” A soft whisper, almost lost in the darkness and vastness of the ink-coloured night. It’s him.

“It’s you,” I saw accusingly. “You again.”

“Me again,” he surrenders. I have won but I can’t let him see the torn and ragged pieces of my once-blue world.

“There’s a party inside,” he says. “Why aren’t you in there with the rest?”

I shake my head, willing myself to look him in the eye. So I do. My icy blue meets his stormy grey. Two forces collide. His eyes widen, seeing the paths left on my face by the salty tears. His expression softens. A storm dies down. I shake my head again.

“I told myself I’d be strong,” I whisper. “And here I am.” I smile wryly. He knows. Does he think less of me now? Why do I even care?

“You are strong,” he says. “You are human. You are like the rest of us. You make mistakes, and you doubt yourself.” He smiles ever so slightly.

“They depend on me,” I say. “They depend on me to be their Ice Princess. I rule with ice and snow. They obey my commands. That’s the way it is. That’s the way it’s always been.”

“You know you don’t have to. You know you can change.”

“But how?” I plead. “I have built myself this way. I cannot go back. The ice is permanent. It will always be like this.” I have told him what I have told no other. He knows, but I don’t think he thinks any less of me.

My face is still wet with tears and I stare out into the darkness.

We sit in silence. Cold uneasiness fills the thin night air, but it’s still too think for me to breathe. To think for me to survive. I focus on the steadiness of his breaths and mine. In and out. In and out. In…. and out.

“It doesn’t have to be.” He says, so softly I almost wonder if it’s a whisper from the night air. “Change is always possible.”

– – – – – – –

“I realized I don’t even know your favourite colour.”

We’re sitting under a tree on a gently-sloping hill. We watch the birds call to each other, flying in the blue of the sky. I watch the grass as it sways in the warm breeze.

I give him an incredulous look. “Blue,” I tell him. “It has been blue for as long as I can remember.”

“But why blue?” he asks, looking slightly confused. “I prefer red – fiery and bold,” he adds.

“Many reasons. The sky and the water. But also my mother. She loved blue. When she died, my world grew more and more blue.”

“So you… love that?”

“I love it and I hate it,” I admit. “It’s difficult to tell the difference between the two.”

He says nothing, watching the clouds race across the sky. His eyes are thoughtful. The colour is stormy, but his gaze is peaceful and at rest. I suddenly want to know what he is thinking.

He looks at me. “I think,” he says, “that people are not so simply black or white. They’re grey, they’re red, and they’re blue. They are every colour and no colour at the same time. They can be cold and distant, or outgoing and joyful and everything in between.”

“So it’s a spectrum,” I muse.

“Yes,” he says softly. “It’s a spectrum.”

“What colour would we be?” I ask.

“Blue,” he replies. “We could be blue. We could be grey. But we could also be red.”

“Or we could be something completely different.” For the first time, I smile at him, and he grins back, looking at me with those clear eyes that reflect the sky and the earth and the entire spectrum.

“We could also be green,” he gestures to the field around us. “We could be violet. We are every colour and no colour.”

And at last, I see grey. I see red. I see green. I can see every colour in vivid detail, dancing together in beautiful harmony. I see the spectrum.

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That was some really longish, drabble type thing that I was inspired to write, to sort of take a break from working on Her Majesty, which I hope to have out soon (fingers crossed) … But probably not since I literally fall into writer’s block every time I touch that story.

Hopefully when that ends and the ideas come flowing back, I’ll be able to write it. I already have a pretty good idea of what it will be so it will only be a matter of time…

Normally I’d only post Disneyish related stories on my blog, but I was satisfied with this one and thought it deserved a little time in the spotlight.

Well actually, I guess it was a kind of related to the types of stories I usually post because of who I loosely based the narrator on… (I call her Eirlys because of what she is known for… Just to drop a little hint in case you didn’t know lol) Guess who? 😀

Just because I actually sort of like this story, I’m thinking of entering it in a couple local arts competitions. Toying with the idea anyway…

Did you like the short story? Did you hate it? Should I do more things like this in the future? Leave me a comment and let me know 🙂

Minerva ♥