So, I've only been posting poems on this blog. That's why I've decided to spice things up a little :)
Enjoy! (Oh and the following short story is a work of pure fiction and any resemblance are mere coincidence.)
I used to
watch my mother paint in the studio at home; the brush softly skimming swiftly
against the canvas board. I watched her call out the colors to me: fuchsia,
xanthic, phthalo blue and persimmon orange. I remember the oily smell of them running
deep like a river of colors through my nose. I recall how I would laugh
whenever she dabbed a small stipple of prussian blue upon the canvas; how I
would suddenly catch a whiff of something I would later recognize as pleasure.
I thought back on how I would associate those colors with different things, and
sometimes notes even: white – a C, red - jam, and black – a deep C minor chord.
Back then, I was innocent and naïve; I was carefree … I was a child. Back then,
I didn’t know that ‘normal’ people could not see and smell colors like I did.
Back then I didn’t know that I was different; that I was like a stormy clouds
creeping in on a sunny day or a puzzle that will never be complete or the
mistake in a spelling test.
Back then I
didn’t know I had synesthesia – the case in which the senses are crossed.
It all
started on the first day of school. I remember that we all had to say what the
name was of the color shown on the board. The colors ran on and on, and all the
children flailed their arms about amusingly, answering in unison.
Red! Orange! Yellow! Green!
But when a
square block of prussian blue came up on the screen, I didn’t say ‘blue’.
Instead, I said pleasure.
The teacher
looked at me as if I were a deformed cell under a microscope. She ushered me
out of the class, whilst the other children squealed and giggled unknowingly.
The teacher,
Ms. Winned, said to me:
“Emily,
dear, can you tell me again what you said?”
I was
confused. I thought it was some game, so I stuck my finger in my mouth like any
regular child and smiled as the word tumbled like vivid marbles from my lips.
“Pleasure.”
She asked
again.
“Plea-sure.”
Ms. Winned
called my mother afterwards, and she had an ‘adult-talk’ with her while I sat
alone on the cheap, vermilion plastic chair as I watched her stand in an
akimbo-like way, half looking at me. At that moment, I smelt the sour scent of
spoilt milk sashaying from the teacher’s body, and an oily-paint smell
ribboning its way from my mother.
After that
day, I moved to another school.
My mother
never told me why I had to move, but I knew it was something unpleasant,
because I could smell that same oil-like scent, and I could faintly hear a
slow, soft, shaky minor chord striking whenever we passed the school in the
mornings before.
My new
school was a public school, and not as small as the first. But before I went,
my mother would always remind me to keep quiet and not say anything, as if her
words were a dirty, burnt umber rag to gag me.
Of course,
being a child, I didn’t.
Dr. Pade was
my first doctor. Whenever I visited him, he would always play that game of
colors. I really enjoyed it, but saw no actual point. He would ask:
“Emily, what
do you smell?” as he pointed at deep, cinnamon block on a piece of card. I
answered every time, and even once, he started playing some music that made me
close my eyes and see sparks and shows of fireworks of vibrant colors that I
don’t’ even know the names of.
I always
relished those sessions - they were a breath of fresh air from school.
I was
bullied, even from the beginning of Primary; children would spit out words of vile
venom from their mouths. They would cast glares at me; stinging me every time,
like adding salt to the cuts and scrapes of what I’ve become. I could hear
whispers like dark, heavy clouds at the back of my head; I could smell their abomination,
albeit they never realized I knew.
I was a
lower–than-average student; I was no shiny gold medal, or a precious prize or
properly regarded. However, the only subjects I was rather adroit in and
enjoyed were Art and English.
In art
classes, the teacher consistently complimented me for my ‘fine work’ and
‘reborn collections of Picasso.’ I never knew how I painted could stir such
awe, for I only painted what I smelt and felt and heard. In art, I felt like I
actually belonged; like I was the final piece of jigsaw that completed the puzzle.
I felt like I was at home. In English, I wrote poems. I wrote poems related to
my struggles as being the odd one out, the ‘outcast’ of my classmates. When my
pen touched the paper, colors I smelt were being transformed as words. I felt
like the heavy black bricks that had been building inside of me were finally
breaking, falling down. I felt as if I were a river; pouring out all the
impurities and residue like dirt out at last.
I felt like
I was free.
Through the
last year of school, I struggled like a fish on land. I learnt how to keep to
myself, close my mouth. Yes, this ‘case’ that I have is a wall that blocks me
from other people or a sly form of ostracism. But I have learnt how to deal
with it; I have learnt how to filter it away its negativity, and use the
advantages. I could control my synesthetic mind for purposes in life.
And now, as
I sit in my own studio across the meadow that rolls like a sea of never-ending light
cerulean blue grass, I think back to my childhood times.
And as I
catch a slip of worn, brown paper from one of the boxes piled up like bricks
upon the bookshelf, I see that it is a poem I have written a long, long, long
time ago:
I used to think
they’re all like me
Senses razor-sharp
like a knife
Then I saw what
they couldn’t see
That’s the moment
that changed my life.
I used to scare off
all my ‘friends’,
And at school it
was full of strife
I’ve only been in
friendships that always ends
That’s the moment
that changed my life.
Up until now I have
shunned this
But now I can play
it like a fife
They finally can
accept me – it’s bliss
That’s the moment
that changed my life.
I look up
after I read this, my eyes feeding on the canvas in front of me.
I hold my
brush like how my mother used to, and paint a small stipple of prussian blue.
I smell
something familiar:
Pleasure.
