Seeking Color

Seeking Color by Andrea Nan

It was only a word, but it cut so deep. It was only a remark, but it felt like so much more. So here she was, standing on the edged and looking down at the pavement, so far below, and still they whispered, and still they laughed. A wet drop slipped past her nose and clung to her chin. Another joined it, and the two together made the plunge of the rooftop to vanish into the grey of the world below.

What would it be like to vanish into the grey as well? She wondered. If she jumped she would never be hurt again, but could she dare? The thought of the rushing wind past her ears made her stomach flip, but the thought of feeling one more painful jab made her want to do it. She stood there, in her blood red dress, with her hands griping the edge, and wondered why she hesitated. Why was it that she had not already done it? What was holding her back? She looked back behind her at the sparkling garden, and the colorful clothes, but it all seemed separated from her by a dark bluish mist. Laughter echoed through the rooftop and she cringed. It remind her of all the times that she had been the subject of that laughter, the one cut down, the one pushed away.

The party was beautiful but she stood on the outskirts, separated by the blue mist, contemplating ending herself into the grey below. Yet there was something holding her back. It wasn't another person, for there was no one who had noticed her disappear. Nor was it something within her, for she longed to find herself free from the world, into the grey. It was something else. It was almost like an invisible thread, not a rope, not something strong enough to catch her if she jumped, but a thread that was strong enough to hold her back from the edge. Something told her that she should not seek the grey below, but should seek another color.

In that instant she did not look behind her, at the bluish mist or the sparkling party, nor did she look down at the swirling grey below. She looked up, and there was the sun. It warmed her face and it poured warm life into her cold limbs. She felt the thread strengthen and she stepped back from the edge. The blue mist and the swirling grey all disappeared. There was only the gold of the sun, and she knew that never again would she seek the grey below, she would only ever seek the gold above.