Coloured Rain (#Wattys2015) (boyxboy)

i

Morris Drew, of course had been bullied for years. The bullying had seemed to be a mixture of his first name being so "old", as others teased him for; his sexuality being fairly open as a homoromantic homosexual; and being colourblind. Not being able to see any colours other than black and white as long as he had been alive, the genetic anomaly caused him to be very much "special"; living in Oklahoma where ignorance of anything outside of the term "normal" caused him to be in special education classes, and be bullied for that among other traits, the other reasons for being bullied being personality traits.
And to be serious, Morris hated everything different about himself based on the words used against him.
Morris's family had been complete for fourteen years, since Morris's parents whom were still married happily as of now had one last child, a daughter. To Morris's unspoken dismay, Maddie had nearly the talent of Van Gogh, and she loved colour that Morris would never had the ability to see.
And then there was the treatment Morris's parents tried to receive for their son.
The treatment they found was never successful, sure, they did find quite a few that worked, but they were such short term and those treatments never lasted. Morris had had many needle pokes into veins, taken countless medications by mouth, and attempted several diets to no avail.
He was sixteen and he'd never seen any colour in his entire life, beside classic black and white.
And his story leads us to one, common, typical day for Morris. He was planning to attend the hurtful, harming special education classes when he knew he deserved more than what the ignorant state gave to him in regards of accomodations.
He had gone on the school bus to school bus, ate breakfast with many average teasers' entering his ears, and had attended science and math classes. It was almost time for the first portion of English class to start when the intercom interrupted every student, leading to sensory breakdowns and meltdowns from the severely autistic children, yelling from a couple of blind students on what had happened, and unorganized chaos from all of the twenty-seven students in the sole special education class at Morris's high school for one sole sentence:
"Please send the student Morris Drew to the front office... with his backpack, as he is going through early dismissal." The last phrase came out very irritated from the front office attendant, almost like the attendant had wanted silence and now there would be a lack of it.
Morris sighed quietly, as he grabbed his off-colour backpack and walked to the front office with his "aide", who was hired to help him with anything he needed, which was a waste of time and pay. Morris knew his way around despite not seeing colour, so in what other world would need an aide?
He was unfortunately isolated from the world out of plain ignorance for a simple genetic defect. It wasn't like he couldn't see at all.
At the office his parents stood near the receptionist's desk, and after he saw them, he quietly said to his aide: "Thank you, have a great day!" That was like a verbal summon to leave, and after that it was just him and his parents as they leave the room, no Maddie to make Morris feel bad that he'd never see colours that Maddie was gifted to use to her advantage.
Morris walked to the family's old, dirty, white car parked about two tenths of a mile away in the parking lot, as there clearly was no closer parking, school hours being the prime factor in why it was far from the front desk where they originally regrouped. Of course, the car luckily wasn't an eyesore from the sight of many students who'd love to make fun of it. Beginning to pant from the brisk pace his parents had taken as the walk concluded, Morris opened the right passenger door to the five-seat SUV his parents had bought the year he was born. Luckily the car was in good condition, Maddie could be the teen driver in place of Morris himself two years from then if left in good condition.
Morris's parents closed the doors, his father fired the ignition, and they had driven about a mile before the awkward silence that had been created was ceased. "So, what type of treatment are we hoping works this time?" Morris questioned in a sarcastic, teenage-like tone that described what clearly was happening.
"We don't know exactly," his mother told Morris in an excited manner, Morris's mother obviously ignoring his sarcasm in every way possible. "We were just asked to attend a seminar in North Texas, no further explanation on the type of treatment, sweetheart. Sorry to tell you that."
North Texas? That sounded as if it was in North Florida in Morris's point of view, and the location also meant it was an overnight venture, as it was almost noon now and Texas by itself was a measely three-hour drive from where his family resided in Oklahoma. Morris sighed as softly as possible in the quest that his parents would not hear his frustration, and luckily succeeded. Luckily, he had a pair of headphones he constantly kept with him, and the black iPhone 4 he didn't do much with. He just used it primarily as a way to ignore the ignorance he thought society had toward the little things, and his wallpaper was the absolute opposite of ignorance toward the 'little things'.
His phone wallpaper was a picture of many galaxies and nebulas formulated in the never ending form of space. When he discovered the wallpaper, knowing it would only fit the bill perfect if the photo was filtered into a determined black and white. If his memory and sight was like an old photograph yet refurbished, then his phone wallpaper could fit that. It made sense in Morris's head.
And that worked perfectly.
----
Hello! I'm working with 3 other uncompleted stories right now, but why not turn this into a Watty Awards entry? That's my goal with this short story, and I hope you all like it!
I love you all so much. Stay strong. xx