Spectra - Installment 5

Chapter 2

____

I know the drive to the cabin better than I know the back of my hand. Having visited every summer since the third grade, and recently taking weekend vacations every couple of months, the trip has become second nature. It’s a bit of a drive to the forest, but it only takes a couple of hours at most if you take the backroads. Needless to say, the drive was pretty much effortless, physically and socially. It was muscle memory of the brain and body.

“Hey, Luca,” Alice said, leaning over the middle console of the front seat, “Don’t you think we should get some gas, soon? We’re only at about a half a tank, and the closest station to the cabin is six miles out.”

I smiled. Alice always knew best.
“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll stop at the next one.”
                                                      _____

A half tank of gas and twenty bucks later, we were driving deep within the woods of Wenatchee National Forest. We were blasting My Chemical Romance and singing along nearly as loud. It always happened this way with us. Sobe might have felt hesitant before - afraid of being the third wheel - but the fact of the matter was we were a tricycle. If one of the wheels were gone, then what was the point?

My suspicions were confirmed when Sobe leaned in between Alice and I, smiling wider than a cat.

“Man, I’m so glad you two dorks dragged me along. It’s been a while since I let loose like this.”

She shook her hair in front of her face as Frank started wailing on the guitar over the car's stereo. I couldn’t help but watch her orange fringe whip across the pinks of her cheeks. It was a pleasing sound, coupled with the music. It was like they belonged together.
It was then that I understood why people preferred different types of music. Watching her dance made me realize that you don’t choose music. Music is made for you. It jives with your wavelengths, you know? And Sobe’s wavelength was set to early 2000’s emo rock. The shit was ancient, but it never stopped being good.

I was lost in the sound of Sobe’s frequencies when Alice tensed. She turned down the radio and looked at me, her brown eyes practically sending me into shock.
“Something’s wrong,” she said carefully, scanning the horizon.
I refocused my full attention to the road, attentively scanning the trees. She was right. Something was wrong. The trees - that normally emitted thrumming, earthly vibes as they blurred by - were freckled with white noise. Something was coming toward us from the woods... and fast.
I skidded to a stop just in time to watch a pack of wild, white wolves pass directly in front of our windshield, howling as they crossed. Their frequencies blurred across my vision, their snow-white fur shrieking in my ears. Alice and I hid our eyes in our elbows, waiting for the pack to pass. I could see nothing, and all I could hear beside the occasional thump of a tail against the bumper was the quick, liquid beating of my own heart. The two sounded about the same anyway.

Some time had passed before Sobe spoke up, her voice trembling.

“Okay. Okay wow. Alright guys, you can look now. They’re gone.”

When I chanced a glance in her direction to make sure she was okay, her face was pale and her violet eyes were fed with tears. It hurt to look at, physically and emotionally, but I pulled her into a hug anyway, burying her face into chest.

“It’s okay, Sobes. We’re just lucky Alice caught that in time. I didn’t even notice until she said something.”

I removed Sobe from my chest and pulled in Alice in her place. She was shaking, but I knew she was okay. Alice had nerves of steel.

I asked anyway, “Are you okay baby?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed, pulling herself back into her seat, “I’ve got nerves of steel."

I smiled at that, and rested my head against my seat, closing my eyes. I focused on my breathing, listening to the sound of absence. When my heart had finished it’s little episode, I did another perimeter check. Satisfied that no more demon dogs lurked in the wooden beyond, I began to close the remaining distance between us and the cabin. Despite us being a bit shaken, the rest of the ride was smooth. Alice turned the radio back up, just maybe not quite so loud this time, and it began to melt away. Things like that happen all the time in the backcountry, right? Us city-dwellers just weren't used to it.

The only caveat to our good time, however, was Sobe. I could understand, seeing as we just had a run in with death, but something was off. I’ve seen Sobe high off her ass, doing doughnuts in the school parking lot. She’d jump off the Space Needle if she knew somebody would catch her. This shouldn’t have been a problem.

Alice fell asleep about twenty minutes after the fact - probably a side-effect of the anxiety spike. I turned down the radio to let her sleep in peace. Sobe, however, didn’t protest. Something was definitely up. I took a peak in the back and saw her on her phone, texting away. She looked so… intense.

“Hey, Sobes,” I began softly, not wanting to wake the angel in my passenger seat, “Everything alright?”

She looked up from her phone and nodded her head.

“Yeah, I’m okay Luca. Just texting my mom to let her know I’m okay.”

I nodded back.

“Alright. Just let me know if you need anything, okay? I gotta make sure I take good care of my girls.”

“Hey, bud, get with the picture. It’s 2065. Women in 2065 don’t need no man to take care of them.”

She snapped her fingers in a cliche “z-formation”, a smirk lighting itself up across her face. There’s my best friend.

“Okay, okay. Shit, got a classic Susan B. Anthony over here,” I joked, smiling at her in the rear-view mirror. She laughed.

I was just starting to feel more at ease when her phone buzzed. She promptly fell quiet again, typing out a lengthy message. The state of practical Nirvana I had reached was shattered, as her fingers flew wildly across the screen. She usually used voice-to-text anyway. Why was she being so reserved? Was she trying to spare my feelings? It wasn’t even my fault. I mean, I guess I should have been wearing my chroma-glasses, but who honestly wears those outside of class anyway? The world sounded beautiful when you weren't trying to take an exam. Still, I wanted to know what was up with her. Just to be sure.

“Jesus Christ, are you writing a novel or something?” I chanced at humor, adding a small chuckle at the end to make it sound less harsh than I meant. It still sounded accusative, and I knew I screwed up the instant I said it. However, what came out of her mouth next took me by surprise.

“How did you and Alice know the wolves were coming?”

If I faltered, I tried not to let it show.

“What do you mean? We heard them. I mean, I guess I don’t expect you to understand. It is kind of a- y’know, an us thing. But if you want me to expla-”
“No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
She was silent for the rest of the drive. I didn’t want to push her. She was already someplace over the edge. Where, exactly, I didn’t know. I just hoped she’d come around before the weekend was up. It’s one thing being a tricycle with two wheels, but a tricycle with a flat tire is just as useless.

Spectra - Installment 4

Chapter 2

__________

Isobel was tailing me to my locker, her lips moving faster than the speed of sound.

“Okay, but dude, get this - I was like, eight feet away from the Verisphydon, getting ready to administer the K.O. blow, and this level fifteen steps in and fuckin’ thwaps him with his twig of a sword and gets the kill! I about threw my VR headset into the wall!”

She made a gesture with her arms that resembled a bird of prey taking to the sky after a successful catch. A puff of air escaped her lips and blew her bangs from her face, exasperation dripping off of her like sweat. I struggled with my lock as she lingered behind me.
“Yeah, man. It’s not like the Verisphydon is an easy boss, either. It must’ve taken you at least twenty minutes to beat him down, only to have some normie steal all the drops and experience.”

She clapped me on the shoulder.

“See? Somebody gets it.” She laughed, a shock of orange hair falling into the corner of her mouth, “You just get it, man”.

I smiled into my locker and fumbled around for my anatomy textbook.

Sobe* was great. We’d been best friends for what seemed like forever. Her and I had such similar interests it was even a little bit scary at times. We were both gamers, had a disdain for competitive sports, and read books like it was nobody’s business. Ironically, Belle and I actually hated each other when we first met in freshman year. Our relationship was a constant battle of one-ups. If I happened to score better than her on an essay, she’d manage to find some way to debunk my best arguments. If she solved the most difficult equation on the board, I would do the next one in half the time it took her to do the first. If she was a level 89 trickster rogue, I would grind all night to be a level 91 scion by morning. If I got the most beautiful girl in the school to be my girlfriend... well she was still working on that one.

It wasn’t until our junior year that we finally laid down our arms and came to a truce. When we learned that we were both shooting for the same university, we figured it would be much more advantageous to conquer the campus as a team. We realized that the constant competition was tiresome, and we actually enjoyed each other’s presence. From then on, our friendship was fated.

The only thing about Isobel that I couldn’t seem to shake was the color of her eyes. The violet of her irises was so pure, that I couldn’t look her in the eyes for more than a few seconds at a time; they practically screamed at me. It made conversation a little difficult, but we managed to work around it. Before she learned I was a Chromat, she was a bit offended by my evasiveness, but she understood once I told her. She said that it happened quite a lot, and she wasn’t about to blame me for it. We just learned to carry on as normally as possible with minimal direct eye contact. It was a bit weird to observe in the third person, but neither of us had a problem with it.

I snatched my textbook from underneath a pile of forgotten graded papers and amateur doodles of Alice. I grabbed a pair of chroma-glasses from the small box at the top of my locker. Slamming it shut and triggering the lock, I spoke into the metal.
“Hey, Alice and I are planning on going up to the cabin this weekend. Wanna join?”

Sobe cocked her head and raised an eyebrow, her left hip popping out past her knee. She did that when the sarcasm inherently programmed within her couldn’t contain itself.
“Yeah, because I wanna subject myself to the torture of laying in the next room listening to you two fucking like a couple of neanderthals.”

I scoffed and punched her in the arm a little bit harder than I meant.

“Dude! That was one time,” I whined, regretting having hit her so hard and rubbing her arm vigorously with my free hand, “And besides, this time will be different. I bought a couple of new VR movies that seemed really good in the trailer. We’ll just be chilling in the lounge all night getting scared out of our skivvies.”

She smirked, punching me back.
“You had me until the skivvies part. I’d quite like to keep mine on, thank you. I usually prefer one partner at a time.”

“That’s not what I heard happened with Landon and Chastity,” I retorted pointedly, giving her the evil eye.

She punched me a second time, her mouth agape.

“Oh my god, Luca. I can’t believe you just brought that up, you asshat,” she laughed.

After a second of silence, she added, “And besides, I was only really in it for Chastity’s rockin’ bod.”

It was my turn to gape at her, trying to act as shocked as possible. “You would, Sobe.” I cackled, reeling into her shoulder as we walked down the hall. “And how ironic that her name of all names is Chastity? Like that’s got to be a universal fuck-up, right?”

Sobe snickered, her creepers squeaking across the hallway floor.

“Can you blame me, though? Chastity has some really fuckin’ huge Chas-titties, if y’know what I mea-”

“Luca! Sobe!”

Alice jogged up behind us and squeezed her way in between our shoulders. She was looking as picture-perfect as ever, her pink curls swirling in loose ringlets around her collarbones. She was wearing the dress I liked: black, buttoned, and collared. My heart jumped up into my throat. She kissed me on the cheek and ruffled Sobe’s bobbed hair.

“Is killer over here getting girl-crazy again?” Alice chided, throwing a smirk in Sobe’s direction.
Sobe forced a laugh and stuck her tongue out, wrinkling her eyes and nose.

She gave a real laugh, then retorted, “No, I’m not into Chastity anymore. She’s a bit too ‘quaker oats’ for my taste. I’m actually into someone else right now.”

Putting my arm around Alice’s shoulders, I shot a quick look at Sobe.
“So…? Are you going to tell us who the lucky girl of the hour is?”

Sobe’s cheeks began to hum in my ears with pin-pricks of pink. She put her arms around herself and looked at the floor, her teeth prying at her bottom lip. Sobe never did this. She wasn’t the type of person to show that kind of vulnerability. Alice and I leaned in, our ears trained on her lips.

She finally spoke, “Actually, guys, it’s a boy.”

We stopped. Dead.

“What do you mean it’s a boy?” Alice cooed, “I thought you were…”

“Yeah, me too,” Sobe nodded, tangling her fingers in the metal chain around her neck. She continued to chew her lip, the irritation causing it to get swollen and shiny. I focused on her red mouth, a low rumble against the chorus of yellow lockers. My eyes followed the corners of her lips up to her flushed cheeks that hid behind a spray of beige freckles. Her cheeks sounded a bit like crickets.

It was then, however, Sobe caught my eyes. Her violet irises shrieking against the black charcoal around her eyes. She held me there, my skin jumping from spine. It felt like the electric chair. Were they always that intense? I was trapped, succumbing the the pressure of the howl. Her stare was void - I saw nothing but noise, but felt every pulse of energy that traveled between us. It felt… wrong. It was as if she was trying to tell me something, but she was screaming it into my brain.
When she finally looked away, my breath hitched and stuck somewhere in my throat. My insides were on fire, even though it had only lasted a few seconds. Alice didn’t notice. I felt it was for the better - Sobe and I would discuss that later in private.

Sobe spoke up, her eyes falling to the floor, landing somewhere by Alice’s pedicured toes, “I don’t really think that matters right now. I’m still trying to figure it all out myself,” she looked up at Alice and gave a weak smile, “but I’ll definitely tell you when I’m ready, okay?”
Alice cupped her cheek gently and touched her forehead to Sobe’s, eyes closed. A signature “Alice” gesture of acceptance and understanding.

“Of course, Isobel. Just remember, I’ll love you no matter who you love.”

Sobe nodded at this and resumed walking, Alice and I on her heels.

“So, Sobe,” continued Alice, “I don’t know if Luca mentioned this to you already or not, but we were planning on heading up to the cabin after school for some major chill. Wanna tag along? I brought an extra headset!”
Sobe laughed softly and gave Alice an apologetic look.

“Yeah, Luca asked me to go earlier, but I don’t think I should. I always feel like the third wheel with you guys.”
Alice and I looked at each other briefly, concern washing over her face.

“Sobe, no. You’re never a third wheel. We love to have you around,” She reassured her, letting one of her hands fall on Sobe’s shoulder, “Is this about last time? I promise Luca and I won’t be so… enthusiastic this time.”

“Yeah, Sobes,” I said, placing my hand on her other shoulder, “It’s never the same without you. Not that hanging out with just Alice is boring or anything…”

Alice shot me a look from over the top of the short ginger’s hair, raising an eyebrow. I tried to return one that said, “Hey, I’m serious, but we have a very fragile situation here and I don’t know what else to say”. She shrugged it off and returned her focus to Sobe.

“Well…,” Sobe began, looking between me and Alice, “I guess I’ll go, but I didn’t bring any clothes. Can we stop by my place before we hit the road?”
Alice’s face lit up as she gave Sobe a quick hug from the side.

“Oh, I’m so happy you’re coming, Sobes. This is going to be great!”
“Yeah,” She nodded, a small smile wrinkling the freckles on her cheeks, “I guess it will.”

*pronounced SOH-bee

100 Word Stories!!

Okay, so I absolutely LOVED the idea of 100 word stories (thank you, Annie) so here they are! I asked my Facebook friends to post singular words they wanted me to write a 100 word story about. I tried to come up for something for each one, so here they are!

FAMINE

Being a horseman of the apocalypse is pretty boring. Considering apocalypses don’t happen every day, we get tons of downtime.

War, Death, and I, Pestilence, were just playing DOOM and smoking some grass.
“Yo, man,” War said, passing the blunt to Death, “I’ve got the munchies. What you got, Pestilence?”
“I dunno. Let’s go check.”

We walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. To our dismay, there was not a single morsel of food to be found.
“What the-” War began.
“Hey guys! What did I miss?” A familiar voice rang from behind us.
“Awe man, who invited Famine?”

COOKIES

“Today has been lovely, Derek. Thank you so much for spending time with me. I’ve really missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too, Mom. I always do.”
“You need to come visit me more often. I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
“Sure, Mom. Oh, here.”
Derek hands his mother a box of shortbread; her favorite.

“Oh, how did you know I like these?”
“Just a guess.”
Derek smiles and gives his mother a kiss on the forehead.
“See you tomorrow, Mom”
As he leaves, his mother wheels herself to her pantry and places the cookies among many boxes just like it.

CAT

“Maybe we should open it.”
He eyed his lab assistant, considering the temptation. The cat had been in the box for two days. It was questionable whether it was alive or dead.

“Without knowing for sure, I’d think it’s safe to assume that it is simultaneously alive and dead.”

“That’s very alright, sir, but wouldn’t you like to find out for sure?”
Giving in, Dr.Schrodinger gave his assistant permission to open the lid.
“Sir, you might want to take a look at this.”
Inside the box was the cat, now dead. Next to her, however, lay a newborn kitten.

TERIYAKI

The dumpster behind China Lite on Gratiot Boulevard isn’t terrible. To be honest, it’s probably one of the better dumpsters in Marysville; everything thrown in here is practically edible. The place is always packed! And I’ve heard the owners are supposedly some of the nicest folks in town. It’s too bad, though, because the teriyaki must suck. It’s all I ever find back here. I don’t understand, though, because I think it tastes amazing! I come back every day, and there’s always a plate of it just laying there, steaming hot. Huh, looks like they even threw out a fork…

SHOES

Mama always talks about how she “needs a new pair of shoes”. I think she’s asking in the wrong places, because she only ever asks the man behind the big green table who wears the dark sunglasses. I don’t think he sells shoes. Maybe sunglasses.

I bought Mama shoes today. I used the money she keeps in the jar with the word “jackpot” written on it. I don’t think she liked them.

Now somebody is knocking at our door. Mama is yelling and crying. She says it’s my fault.
She would have tried to buy sunglasses with that money anyway…

MUSIC

LEAH 12:35AM: Hi.
VIC 12:47AM: Hey.

LEAH 12:48AM: How does it feel being famous now :)
VIC 12:59AM: Pretty good lol. Been rly busy.

LEAH 1:02AM: Ur song came on the radio today.

VIC 1:10 AM: Yeah lol. And?

LEAH 1:11AM: I remember when u wrote it. It was my first time. It was great. U told me u loved me.
VIC 1:23 AM: Good times lol.
LEAH 1:25 AM: U don’t feel that way about me anymore, do u?

VIC 1:37 AM: Oh sweetheart. :/ That song was never about u.

Spectra - Installment 3

A Side Note to You, the Reader

_______

Now, I feel like I have some explaining to do. I often get a bit ahead of myself, as I tend to forget you have no prior knowledge of this world. I’m going to debrief you on the short history of my kind. Chromats, or scientifically, Audiochromatatophes, were a subclass of humans that -due to strange genetic mutations- were able to process light frequencies as sound waves. Whether this characteristic was physical or merely psychological, it is still unknown, though we do know it affected roughly 4% of the population at it’s peak.

An extraordinarily recessive gene, Photoauditory Perception Syndrome, or PPS, was first documented in 2019. In controlled studies, volunteers were given pieces of mutli-colored cardstock, and were asked to describe each color in one to two words. Those in possession of the PPS gene often described blues and violets to be “obnoxious” and “piercing” in contrast to those who did not carry the gene, who more often than not found blues to be “calming” and “dreamy”. The PPS positive test subjects admitted to only “hearing” such sounds when the card was in their sight; if the card was flipped, the noise stopped. This is a result of the high frequencies of light emitted by the violet end of the visible spectrum being perceived by the brain as a high-pitched sound. When the stimulus was eradicated, e.i., when the card was flipped, subjects could no longer see its color, and therefore did not perceive it auditorially either. Scientists originally believed this transmission of energy was due to highly receptive ocular cones, but later ruled that out during a relatively fruitless dissection of a cadaver's eye. Complicated, I know, but if it makes you feel any better, scientists never quite figured it out either.

Scientists studied PPS in massive government-funded projects for upwards of thirty years in the hopes of creating some sort of Darwinian monstrosity. Their plan - after successfully decoding the mutant alleles - was to insert the affected host’s DNA into plasmid vectors; an older method of cloning used in the early 2000’s. By manipulating this gene to their liking, the ultimate goal was to form a new branch of military special-ops, called “Spectators”. These finely tuned super-soldiers would be able to detect an enemy’s position by sensing any miniscule inconsistency in visual stimuli by comparing the foreign light-to-sound frequencies with their surroundings. This would require acute precision on the scientist’s part, however, as the allele in it’s natural state was not nearly that refined. Unfortunately, funding was cut for the project in the year 2043 for unknown reasons, though most believed it was because no further progress had been made.

The money was no sooner cut from research than it was diverted into special schooling for these individuals. Under the eye of equal and civil-rights activist, President William D. Nye (2042-2050), dimly lit classrooms were implemented in public schools across the fifty states, along with the invention of Chroma-Protective Eyewear. From then on, Audiochromatatophes were perceived less as science experiments (or as my personal favorite group of religious extremists referred to us as, “The Eyes of Baphomet”), and were accepted into a relatively normal way of life. Movements were set in place throughout the 40’s, advocating for “hearing-friendly workplaces” and the discontinuation of neon signs. With just a little nudging, the non-colorhearing world made room for us, and we settled in comfortably.

That is, until they came and took it all away.

-L.J.W, August 25th, 2095

Spectra - Installment 2

Chapter 1

______

I read peacefully to the sound of gray. It was overcast, and the sun hid behind plump cumuli. Everything was muted, as if the world was being asphyxiated under a pillow of cloud cover. Muffled buzzing penetrated the glass window as I observed the outside from my favorite perch in the house. It was on the first landing of the L-bent stairs, facing the east. I read there every morning after sleepily pouring myself a cup of Folgers. Usually I would try to get a majority of my reading done while the sunlight was only a faint suggestion on the horizon, as this was the most opportune time of day for a Chromat; nothing was bright enough to be loud, nor was it dark enough to warrant that signature eerie silence. Five A.M. was the sweet spot.

After twenty minutes or so of reading, my mother, furled under four hours of sleep, padded down the staircase in her dressing gown and curlers.
“Good morning, Luca,” she yawned.

“Morning, Ma,” I replied.

“Did you eat yet?” she asked, rounding the corner to the kitchen.
“No, but I will soon, I promise.”
“Please, I don’t want you going hungry at school again,” she called over the sound of clattering coffee mugs. “I’d really rather not have to drop my lunch hour just to run to Cino’s to grab you a hoagie again.”

“I will mom. Once I’m done with this chapter, okay?” I retorted. “And those hoagies are damn good and you know it!”
Mom peeked her head around the corner and studied me for a minute, eyebrows bunched together. She sighed, shook her head, then smiled. “I’ll just make you some eggs.”

I thanked her with a slight tip of my head, and resumed my reading. That morning, I found myself curled up in my nook for much longer than usual. Overcast was a Chromat’s best friend; clouds were the ultimate soundproofing. Being a Chromat in Seattle had it’s perks, so it’s really not surprising that it had the nation’s largest Chromat population. It was estimated to be home to more than 100,000 Chromats in the year 2062, and it probably increased by the thousands in the three years following. Or, at least, that’s what I estimated. I had a penchant for knowledge. Anything I could get my hands on, I tried to decode, decipher, or debunk. My intelligence was probably the reason my mom moved us out to Seattle in the first place.
I was born in Petosky, Michigan, November 13th, 2048. Petosky wasn’t really a “hearing-friendly” community, if you know what I mean, so we decided to move to the Chromat capital of the USA. After my dad died, shortly after my 13th birthday, it wasn’t that hard to pick up and leave. Everything about that place was a constant reminder of what happened. It was nice to start over.
I loved it there, to be completely honest. I went to William Drake High on the eastside of Seattle. I made friends, passed all my classes, and even had a girlfriend of three years. A girlfriend, mind you, that was also a Chromat! Believe me, if you would have told me when I was a boy that I’d meet a girl -a Chromat girl- that loved me as much as I loved her… I probably laugh at you. Like I said, Petosky wasn’t very hip on us colorhearers.

Alice was the single best thing that ever happened to me. I couldn’t tell you how many journals I wasted just doodling her eyes, or writing sappy love poems. I absolutely couldn’t get over her. She was everything I had ever dreamed of and more; romantic, nerdy, sarcastic, and even a little aggressive at times. She did this thing… whenever I’d “forget” my chemistry homework at home, she’d lean over in her desk behind me and whisper in my ear, “I’m going to take you right down into the football stadium, mister, and punt your scrawny ass from the fifty yard line if you don’t turn in your homework tomorrow.” She’d give my lobe a little tug with her teeth, then resume copying the notes from the board. Like, c’mon, how much more perfect can a single person get? Intimidation and sex appeal!

I let my mind wander to her petal pink curls as my eyes uselessly skimmed the over same sentence. It was just getting a bit steamy inside my skull when Mom suddenly appeared at my side, tapping me on the shoulder.

“Hey-yo, space cadet! Your eggs are waiting for you in Nebula Seven.”

“Jesus Christ, Mom. You scared the shit out of me,” I breathed, trying to drain the blood from my cheeks.

“Yeah, I know, and I had fun doing it too. Come eat your eggs, astrodork.”

I quickly finished the remaining sentences of the chapter and dog-eared my page. I paused for a moment, then placed my bookmark in the spine instead, flattening the corner back into place. I had to have more respect for my books than that if I ever wanted to be an author.

At the table, Mom laid out a plate of yellow eggs with green onions in them. Black pepper dotted the top. It looked, smelled, and sounded amazing. The yellow hummed a low, melodic tone, while the little green bits beat out a solid rhythm. The tiny black flakes of pepper provided the perfect measure. I loved my mother’s eggs. I pulled up a chair, gulped down some orange juice, and brandished my fork.
“Are you going out with Alice this weekend?” Mom asked, eyeing me over her own book.
“Yuh,” I blubbered with a mouth full of egg, “probubly tuh thuh cabun.”

“Okay,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee, “Just make sure you say hi to Uncle Garrison for me, okay?”
“Of course,” I said, swallowing, “As always.”

She smiled a crooked smile and returned to her book.
______

I walked to school that morning. The Seattle weather was perfect, and every color sounded pure. Winter was on the way, and I could smell it in the air.  I walked the pavement. Walls of green sound enveloped me like a parting sea as the grasses created harmonies with one another. I closed my eyes and listened, picking out each blade of grass in the verdant chorus.

Green was my favorite sound - it was neither high, nor low. Green -in it’s purest form- was what put me to sleep every night. My room was painted #99ff99 in css terms: a tint of the most perfect green observable to the human eye -and, to people like me- heard by the human ear. Most Chromats erred on the side of pink or maroon, as tints and shades of red emit the lowest frequencies and are almost indetectable. Black was also common among our kind, as it is, of course, the absence of all color. White, however, we didn’t take kindly too.

But that day… that day the grass was an “onions in Mom’s eggs” green, and I had a feeling it was

going to be absolutely beautiful.