Dark Blue

The following is a story written by me for the class' "kaiezhuthu maasika" which is a sort of class magazine. It isn't among my best works but certainly a good one in recent times.

Named after the colour she was. Blue.

"It's the colour of the sky. Bright, happy and infinite.", said her mother.

"It's the colour of a frozen dead body in the snow on a dark, gloomy, Friday evening" , she thought.

Such was the way in which blue perceived the world around her. "The disturbed child" as she was known , was also known to only look at the darker side of the coin. But Blue remained proud of her vision. She saw abundance of beauty where others failed to find even a trace of it. Her joy lay in exploring the less shiny things and embracing the feeble light that it reflected on her.

One spring morning, her mother took her to see a vast display of flowers upon a hill. The assortment was vast. The crowd that had gathered to witness the exquisite display was even more vast. The air was filled with scents that would attract the most cherubic little angels down to earth to mingle amidst mortals.Flowers of every pigment pulled all eyes towards themselves except one.

Blue's eyes were transfixed on to a dead tree on the hill that the organisers had endeavoured to keep furtively hidden. Her fascination was shackled by the tree which did not have any bright leaves to its name. If all the flowers had vied solely for Blue's attention, then their pride would have been rather badly hurt by her ignorance.

Awkwardly shaped naked branches at odd angles reminded her of the rebellious spirit of the tree in its good times when it dared to grow in weird directions. The times when this feat was masked by the heavy coat of lush green leaves that coated it. She discovered silly patterns in the wrinkles on its bark and the numerous little creepy-crawlies that it still remained home to. She marvelled at how it held its ground despite being ridiculed by the mighty winds and rains.

And outside her world of insane beauty, the crowd at the flower display also ridiculed her. They jeered and chided the lone girl staring at the ugliest sight on the colourful hill.

"If only they could see what I see" , she thought.

If only they could see beauty in things that they imagined to be inhabited by the Devil. If only they could see the future in the objects that were believed to be part of the past.

The thought troubled her for quite some time. She wanted to make people aware of life in the dead and nearly dead. She wanted them to realise how a wider perception would enrich their vision. But how? She wasn't a singer so she couldn't sing the praises of the tree or of anything like it. Her two left feet prevented her from showing the beauty of the tree through dance.

The solution suddenly rushed into her head. Her only gift to express her feelings, her opinion, her view, her vision.

Ergo she put pen to paper and wrote -

Named after the colour she was. Red.

"It's the colour of the rose. Bright and seductive." , said her mother.

"It's the colour of blood seeping out of the wound of a crippled doe" , she thought.

Copyright Sudheesh Satheeshkumar