Ink is thicker than water

Ella

The mid-summer breeze fans my face as I make my way past the people pulling themselves to the town hall. I know a lot of people would beg to differ but for someone who has never felt anything on her own, being a part of the crowd gives you enough time to take in the emotions others are feeling. I trodge along the sidewalk as someone bumps into me and a ring immediately falls out of his pocket right next to the spot I was about to step in. "Hey, please don't move." He immediately crouches down and picks the ring up and brings it close to his mouth and blows on it. "Thank you." He tells me, but it comes across as a whisper due to his breathlessness.

Right when i was about to nod at him, a girl steps in front of the two of us with the heel of her palm covering her mouth. "James, is... is that..." But she never gets the words out because of the tears escaping the crinkles of her eyes.

Tears. She must be sad or in pain.

"Worse timing, huh?" The guy who initially bumped into me chuckles humorlessly and lets out a breath.He bites the bottom of his lips and gets down on one knee.

Biting down the lips. He must be nervous. Nervousness is not one of the emotions that I get left with frequently but I had been there once or twice.

"Ameli_" The girl cuts him off before the words could even seep out of his mouth by repeating ' yes' a few times, most often muffled by her sobs. But she was also smiling at the same time.

How weird? Smile. I have never had the chance to wear it once yet and I highly doubted I ever could.

There was a tiny crowd surrounding them who all burst into roars of cheer. The guy grinned and slipped the ring he was holding into the fingers of his girl. She inspected it intricately as much as she could before the guy was back on his feet and pressed his lips against hers.

"Hey, are you happy or sad?" I asked the girl.

She paused to look at me and quirk her eyebrow. "Of course, I am happy. Isn't that a given?" She asked me, scrunching her nose.

"Then why did you cry?" I wanted to take my notepad out and write down whatever she said but I left it at home and the only thing I could rely on was my memory.

"Nevermind her, that's Ella." A lady who looked like she was in her mid-seventies told the couple. That's my name. Ella.

"Ella as in Emotionless Ella?" The girl asked switching her eyes from the old lady to me. I nod at her. She rolls her eyes at me. And just like that, she focusses her attention on someone else. I take it as my cue to leave and continue walking to the store.

Emotionless Ella. That's what everyone calls me here. I was born without the ability to feel any emotions. No sadness, no pain, no grief, no trauma. Happiness and love were out of the entire equation altogether. The only emotions I feel are the ones people at the comic store leave behind. That's right. The comic storewhere I work has a tiny bowl called the donation box where people could donate emotions for me to use. The ones that are always left behind are sadness, pain, anger, trauma and grief. Very rarely, people leave behind ones like nervousness amd annoyance. But, that's pretty much it.

Realising I have reached my destination, I snap out of my thoughts and fish my bag for the keys and walk in after unlocking the store. The first thing I do, like every other day, is change the board to 'open'. I rearrange some of the books that were returned last night from their original shelf to the ' high on demand' shelf. Once I was done, I walked to the donation box. There was something new there. Something I have never seen before caught my eye. Among the usual red, violet and green, there was a blue. That's odd. It wasn't even the rare orange or yellow. It was a completely new colour that I had never seen inside the blue box before. I immediately pick my pace and lower my hand into the bowl and push the other colours aside and picked the blue one. I brought it towards myelf to look at the name on the other side to know what emotion I was feeling. I closed my eyes, turned it towards me and opened them again.