The Color of Me

The Sounds of Green

Word Count: 1000

The old man sat in his usual place.  He never had a need for public transportation, but the bus stop was in front of his apartment building and it was a convenient place to sit for some air.

Though his eyes were milky he knew the way to the little bench and he knew to sit on the left side since the right was covered in discarded cigarettes and gum blobs.

"May I sit here?" The old man's ears perked at the sound of a new voice.  He'd been sitting on that bench for years and memorized all the voices around him.  This was new.

"Help yourself." He gestured to the space next to him.  The voice was a man's.  It was deep but soft.  "Lawrence." He held his pruned hand out to the stranger.

He heard the slight shift in the air as the hand grasped his.  "Benny.  I just moved here from out of state. Is it always this full of college kids?"

The man turned to face him and heard the audible surprise when he saw the blind man's eyes.  "Oh, sorry."

"Don't be." He croaked.  "I've been blind since birth." He openly admitted.

"What's it like?" Benny blurted out.  "I'm sorry.  I only meant-"

"It's alright.  I know what you meant." Lawrence smiled, preparing his next words carefully.  "I can hear better than you, I wager.  God takes, but he also gives." Benny sat expectantly beside him.  "When I was born my mother told me that my eyes were blue before it happened." He opened his eyes wide to show Benny the cloudy white irises.

"How do you know what colors are?" Benny queried.  He leaned closer to hear over the buzz of bodies around them.  "How would you even begin to describe them?"

Lawrence let his arm rest on the poster covering a piece of the bus shelter.  "I suppose I sense green more than anything."

Benny furrowed his brows.  "Why do you say that?" He asked, genuinely interested.

"I've heard that money is green.  And people can be green with envy.  All afternoon I sit right here and just...listen.  People talking on the phone to their bosses.  People complaining about being poor or bragging about being rich.  I hear everyone.  They all want something else.  They are all green to me." Lawrence stopped and sighed.

Benny was deep in thought before finally nodding to himself.  "Is green the only one you feel?"

Lawrence's lips twitched upwards.  He had always wanted to see the other colors, but hadn't.  "Yes.  I'd give anything to hear or touch the others." His voice wavered sadly.  "I think my favorite would be blue, like my mother said her eyes were.  Or yellow, like my late wife's hair was said to be."

Benny grinned.  He fiddled with the edges of the notebook he held, filled with random poetry and doodles.  "Blue," he began, "is the color you felt when you said goodbye to your wife.  It's the color of the water on a sunny day.  It's what you smell when you buy those little fresh linen scented candles, that calming, relaxing smell.  Blue is all the world's sadness shoved into one singular color.  But the brightest blues are the ones that reflect not sorrow, but content.  Like the eyes of your mother, you just feel safe and at peace when you look at the shades."

"I can see it." The blind man's eyes welled with tears.  "What about brown?"

Benny chuckled.  "Not as pretty a color as you may think.  Brown is the feeling of dirt under your nails when you work in the garden.  Or the rough bark of a tree that may seem beautiful at a glance, but upon touching it you realize it's coarse and bumpy."

Lawrence laughed.  "I don't feel bad about missing that color."

"I wouldn't either.  Yellow though," Benny smirked, "that's a pretty color.  When you feel happy and warm in the sun, that's yellow.  It's the color of summer.  When you would lay outside in the heat and run your fingers through her hair, that was yellow."

A tear trickled down the man's wrinkled cheek.  "It's just as beautiful as she said it was." He wiped it with his shaking finger.  "Just one more.  She told me her favorite color.  She said she owned hundreds of dresses in red.  I'd always feel sticky after she'd kiss me and she'd say it was the red lipstick she wore." He wiped another tear, smiling at the fond memories.

Benny laughed, making the old man join him.  "That's a tricky color because you'd see it with many different moods.  When you shout in anger, when you feel a rage building inside of you, that's the color red.  But it can also be what you feel when you find a love that's so immense that it consumes your entire being.  A color that feels passionate, romantic, and just so raw that it's primal.  Red is the heat of a fire that burns too hot.  The color it leaves on your skin if you touch it, a stinging shade.  But it's also the color of the roses that every girl longs to receive as a gift.  The smell of cinnamon and the taste of strawberries.  Red is my favorite too.  Along with white." Benny trailed off, his bus had stopped long ago but he stayed with the old man.

"Thank you. I wish I could see them all.  Red and white." Lawrence sobbed, reaching wildly for the man's hand to grasp it. 

"White is the color of me." A single finger touched the man's forehead and a flash of colors came into place, blurry at first but soon the shapes of people took form.  Lawrence gasped, spinning around to see Benny beside him but he wasn't there.  Before he could focus on the image before him, a blurry white light began to fade from the spot on the bench where the man had been sitting.