Color

The scattered lights that passed through the stained glass window of the chapel’s hall fell towards her like a blanket of color and warmth. She stood quietly beneath them, wrapped in an ethereal glow. For a fleeting moment, she seemed less like a mortal human and more like something almost divine.

Amidst that unfolding dance of light, I stood transfixed. My eyes never left her. For the first time in my life, I saw the blue of her dress, the silver of her earrings, the soft white of her skin, warmed by the faint pink blush on her cheeks. I couldn't tear my eyes away.

I could see colors.

Her colors.

I reached towards her, hoping to close the distance between us. To touch her. The colors that embraced her stirred something inside me. I wanted to feel them, to know them beyond mere sight.

Yet, she stepped back, her smile never leaving her face.

No! The colors began to recede. The vibrancy dissolved back into the familiar grey that has always been my world. The farther she drifted, the dimmer they became. I could feel them slipping away through my fingers.

Please…don’t take them away.

As if pulled by an invisible hand, my body moved before I could tell it otherwise.

No. I hesitated. This is my place.

Grey as it was, this was my place. I knew its silence and its emptiness. Beyond these grey walls lay uncertainty.

I will stay.

Yet my feet ignored every plea. One step carried me beyond the only world I have ever known.

As soon as I took that step, the world dissolved into a white light. I raised my hand to my eyes, blinded by the sudden brilliance. When the light finally subsided, I lowered my hand, expecting another world. Instead I found myself inside the same chapel.

But something had changed.

The chapel of muted grey I had always known was gone. The walls shone with pristine white, their edges outlined with veins of gold. Beneath my feet the marble blossomed with patterns, traced with different colors I never knew the world could hold.

At last, I could see the world. She was no longer alone in her vibrancy.

She had pulled me from my colorless world into a one alive with color.

And only then did I understand.

She had never painted the world.

The colors were always there

She had simply taught me how to see

The artist of my life.