(word) = strikethrough WARNING: Themes of negative feelings. Implied death (TDL & civilians). Hopeful ending. I wrote this in 2 days, please judge & give feedback. Nicely. <--- Look here, too! _____________________________________________ I’ve been told before that black is the absence of color. Black is what you get when you take pure light and suck the colors out of it, until hardly any are left to be reflected back and seen. A black thing is a gap in the universe. A hole where something was meant to be. Black means nothing but nothingness. But black is not nothing. I am not nothing. Black is a color, and I am the color black. Black is the color of the night sky, peppered with tiny dots of light, that greeted us when Dark and I first saw the world beyond the PC. Words cannot describe the feeling of tilting back my head and realizing that this is what I had been missing for so many years. Simulation or not, it was a comfort to me to drag a blanket out to our balcony hours after the sun had set, so that I could lay down on it and gaze up at the stars. Black is the color of the blackberry bushes that we often found in the forest. Dark had picked some of them despite my panicked warnings, but they turned out to be safe and tasted really good. Sometimes we took baskets with us to bring them to the hideout, but ended up snacking on more than we had planned to on the way back. Black is the color of that rock Dark had found once and gifted me on a whim. It was quite small, sharp, and had a glassy sheen to it that caught my eye instantly. I spent hours turning it over in my hands and admiring it in quiet awe. Black is a color that fills you with wonder, and doesn’t need to shout to be seen. Black is the color of safety and hope. Black is the color of me. Black is the color of the smoke that trailed our footsteps wherever we went, lingering long after we left behind nothing but ruins. Sparks and embers faded away, but the twisted feeling in my heart from the knowledge of the destruction that we so casually walked away from would not. Black is the color of the piles of ash that suffocated the ground, strewn about carelessly like sand. There was no telling book from shelf or table from chair; all of them met the same fate in the end, reduced to specks that none could salvage and became little more than some annoyance to dust off. Black is the color of whatever I see when I clench my eyes shut and try to sleep. But I cannot sleep when I must cope with the fact that my face lives on the news every single day, sitting in a framed image right next to those haunted by the things my hands have done. Black is a color that fills you with guilt, and drowns you in a sea of shame. Black is the color of death and despair. Black is the color of me. Black is the color of the storm clouds that came pounding with rain on The Day After. The weather itself had come to cleanse the remains of our shattered relationship, and mock me with the sound of its thumping on the roof, repeating over and over like a (racing heartbeat) drum. Black is the color of the crows that started flocking by (our) my (home) (hideout) house, ever since The Day After. I don’t know what about the place interested them so much (it had to be him he always liked crows), but they would peck on the shingles and perch wherever, exploring every inch of the outside structure that they could. The incessant cawing was no help to my lack of sleep, but the quiet that followed each time they left somehow made me feel empty. Black is the color of our TV screen that has never been turned on since The Day After. The CDs once fed into its narrow slit of a mouth now collect dust in a random drawer, abandoned to be dealt with by the forces of nature. Sometimes I like to sit on the couch and pretend (that he isn't gone) that a movie I’ve watched at least 20 times is playing on that blank screen, that the bowl in my lap is empty because (I don't want to eat) I had just finished the popcorn that tastes like buttered, crunchy air, and that the laughs I hear (in my head) are (not only) my own. Black is a color that fills you with sorrow, and envelops everything in its silence. Black is the color of loneliness and regret. Black is the color of me. Black is more than anyone has ever given it credit for. They say black is the color of evil, of hatred, of fear, of grief, and of the end of everything. But black is so much more than that. I am much more than the stick I once used to be. I am my own hopes, my own despair, and my own regrets. I am everything I dread and mourn, yet everything I yearn to be. Black is a color because who gets to decide what is and isn’t a color? Who gets to decide who I am and who I am going to be? I was named The Chosen One, yet I was chosen for *nothing*. But I mean more and I am worth more than the nothing I was chosen for. Black is a color because I choose to believe it is. I choose to believe in myself. I am the color black.
