But She Glows

Prologue

  Fate. Ever heard of it? If you've ever had a conversation past 3 am, or spent time with someone who thinks they're more enlightened than you because they played a beta version of Undertale or something, then you probably have. The concept that, since before birth, everything that will ever happen to you is premeditated and unchangeable is compelling to some people, but suffocating to others, leaving the topic to remain as a classic debate topic. Most people don't come in contact with the topic early on in life, it's not usually covered in the kindergarten curriculum. I, however, had fate integrated into my view on life from the beginning, even though I didn't know it. I guess I have to add some context to what sounds like a douchy instagram bio. When I was around three, like most other children, my curiosity of the world around me started to peak, and the questions started rolling. Why is the sky blue? Why do frosted flakes taste so good? What do the colours around the people mean? In case you didn't notice, that last one is a bit unusual. My mom just chalked it up to childhood imagination whenever I would ask questions such as these, which frustrated me, because I really wanted to know. I thought that everyone else could see the same things that I did, that seeing the coloured auras that surrounded every member of humanity was just a fact of life. After my mother made me see a psychiatrist as a result of what I thought was purely innocent curiosity, it became clear to me that this was not the fact, and that I was on my own. This was discouraging, but also started an independent quest for answers that occupied my focus for years. Hm, maybe that's what happened to my social life. Oh well, too late now. Anyways, I took the information that I already knew, like that the auras could only be red, yellow, or green, and the shades in between, to a seemingly endless amount of theories. Maybe it depended on mood? Nope. Age? Wrong. Intelligence? Nah. It was frustrating, yes, but what else was I going to do. Then, a miracle happened. My grandmother got sick. Okay, that could be taken wrong, but it's fine. Now, over the few years leading up to her last moments, I watched as her colour gently morphed from an orange, to and orange with just a hint of red, and then, while she lay in her hospital bed surrounded by her weeping family, a bright, radiant colour that imitated a traffic light. Two days after the colour reached its brightest intensity, she died. Through the period of family wide depression that lasted for a few weeks, I had never been happier. Again, sounds bad, but hey, if you had been working on something for the last 6+ years, only to find the answer when you weren't even looking, you would feel pretty good too. I had finally cracked the code. The colour of the light determined (however infuriatingly vaguely) how long the person had left to live. My own little glimpse at fate in my everyday life. It was like an inside joke with myself, but it was also as if death was surrounding me. What I used to see as a fun mystery, was now a grim barrier that separated me from the rest of the population. Suddenly everyone around me was a ticking time bomb. Oh well, what you gonna do.