The Rainbow of Life

It was the reddest red I had ever seen. In my almost ten years, I had never seen something so red.

I knew all of the colors. From the shimmering sea of green grass to the rosy sky of dawn. I knew which plants made which dyes. Which shells made which paint. I had seen the arc of everything cresting over the sky after a storm.

I knew the colors. But I had never seen this red before.

My mother had been a weaver. My brother had been a painter. My sister had collected glass beads.

I knew the colors. But I had never seen this red before.

My father always said the mind was funny. He always smiled at how quickly a human could adapt. Our dogs could spend days trying to solve a problem the same way over and over again. But even I, barely toddling, could solve it in a moment.

And dogs are smart, papa always said. Dogs can sense a storm, they can tell a good person from bad, but still we are better than them at this one thing.

I know he would have been proud of me. Of how quickly my mind had reshaped the words of my heart. Is to was. Was to had been. It's a strange thing. I know I should be crying, but all I feel is joy that I would have made papa happy.

This red in front of me is so bright, so dark, so deep. A crimson wave blanketing the field. No, that wasn't right. That wasn't crimson. Not quite. Crimson was the color of my sister's laugh. Crimson was the color of my brother's hugs. Crimson was the color mama wove into our blankets to keep us warm and strong in the night. But I was cold, now. Cold and weak.

No, this wasn't crimson.

It used to be green. Green and yellow and blue (see, I told you I knew them all). But it had changed. I lost count of the seconds a lifetime ago. I had stopped at three thousand seven hundred twenty seven. And then I realized it didn't matter. I wasn't counting seconds. You can't count something that doesn't exist. You can't count demons or dreams or faith. You can't count warmth in the winter or snow in the summer. You can't count time that has stopped passing. So, I stopped.

There was no time without my brother. There was no sun without my sister. There was no rain without my mother.

There was only the red earth and the gray sky.

Loneliness is gray. So is winter. Gray is the space between waking and sleeping, when you must chose which you are. I used to like gray. The potential, the possibility. I guess I had never really seen gray before. Not this gray. A blank wall, rickety and weak to replace the strong one that had been knocked down.

My mother used to say that my papa had joined the stars, that he would always watch over me. I suppose that's where they all are now. I hope the reunion was as beautiful as I always dreamed. Were they happy I wasn't there or sad? I knew which I was.

I hope they'd miss me, just a little. I hope they check in on me, sometime. But I didn't think the gray, the clouds, the blankness would ever go away. And I wasn't sure they could see me through it.