I woke up...or...I think I woke up, maybe it was a dream? I opened my eyes and saw a greyish blanket on me, there was a white wall ahead, I was...lying on a hospital bed.
I think...?
I still felt a little fuzzy on the details..
what was I doing at the hospital again..?
I turned to my right and saw a window, it was open so some of the air flew in, ah I could smell the autumn in the air.
There was a tree outside the window, it's leaves a whole bunch of different colours...or...at least they should have been a bunch of colours.
but...all the leaves were grey.
I..looked around the room, everything..was grey.
I turned to my hands, the pale pinkish tone I expected was nowhere to be found, just...a shade of grey.
I wondered if it was all a dream, did people dream in black and white? I hope so..
I heard the door to my left being opened slowly, I nearly hid under the grey blanket, it's..a little embarrassing to say but I was still a little out of it and the situation reminded me of my mom walking into my room when I would stay up reading webtoons.
they opened the door...I was going to pretend to be dead but looking at the situation now I'm glad I didn't.
"OMG STEVEN YOU'RE OK, YOU'RE OK!" the lady rushed up to me and quite nearly chocked me to death in her arms.
"h-hi mom" I spoke while trying to breathe.
she only let go after I said I was having trouble breathing.
"um..so what happened?" I asked her as well as the doctor who was standing a couple of feet behind her.
I couldn't remember much aside from going with my mom to get some cotton candy on our way home from school.
surely I didn't get admitted to the hospital for having too much sugar....well..probably.
the doctor responded to my question before that thought continued.
"you were admitted here after a traffic accident my boy, although you didn't suffer serious injuries, it seems you were hit in the back of your head pretty hard."
"you've been asleep for nearly 2 days at this point."
"t-two days?! wait...t-then I missed the premier???!??!!!?!?!??!?!?"
the premier I was talking...well screaming, about was the premier of the latest blue-star original movie, strike of neos, I had followed news on it since it was announced almost 2 years ago..we were planning to go to the theatres to watch it on the 15th, if what the doctor said was true though, it's already the 16th...
I refused to believe it, I jumped off the bed and tried to tear the...tube? pipe? thing off my hand, we learnt about it in school I think but uh..I don't really remember what it's called.
"Don't mess with your IV! tsk, kids these days just think you can do it like the movies and tear it off like some fonywood protagonist."
the doctor seemed kinda mad..which scared me, well, just a bit.
so I sat back down.
ah...wait..shouldn't the cross on the doctor's shirt be red...and...my skin shouldn't be grey right..the hospital blankets are usually blue and...autumn leaves are orange and stuff.
"um...hey mr um...mr doctor..shouldn't..shouldn't that cross on your shirt be red...?"
"what do you mean boy? If this isn't red is it teal?" he said as he looked at the embroidery on his labcoat's pocket.
"but...but that's grey..i-is it not?"
the doctor looked surprised, then serious, he asked my mother to leave the room for a while..
the next half an hour was...scary..terrifying maybe? I can't really think of the right word to describe it, I should've paid more attention in english class haha..
in those 30 minutes, I felt like the world was crumbling around me...the doctor would ask me questions about the colour of different shapes he showed me on his ipad's screen.
my..my answers for every one of those was the same..
the longer it went on and the more shapes he showed the more scared I felt.
I...I couldn't see colour.
the doctor said something about brain injuries and eyesight and things after calling my mom back in, but I..I was too dazed to really hear what he said.
I was discharged from the hospital a few hours later..though I don't really remember what happened after that.
I just..went home, my mom wanted to cheer me up so..we went to the new bluestar movie the day after.
those 2 hours were horrible.
the movie was good..amazing even, bluestar always had amazing action, but..it felt empty this time, when neos defeated the villain and rose stood up, pumping his fist in the air, a lot of the other kids in the theatre stood up with him.
but I didnt.
I just..wanted to go home..I wanted to sleep..maybe the drea- the nightmare would end if I went to sleep..
I slept for 12 hours when I got home that day, it felt good..I could remember vague images of my dreams when I woke up, I saw neos in that final scene in the dream, he was..so colourful, there was..blue, and-and red, and yellow and orange and um..the colour that doctor mentioned, tea I think, yea! tea! it was beautiful..I wanted to go back..
for the next few days I would try to sleep as much as I could, it started with 12 hours but it slowly grew longer, 13 hours, 14, 15, 16, I slept an entire day at one point.
mom seemed really worried, but I told her that my dreams were really beautiful and she seemed worried but she let me sleep so that I could see those beautiful dreams.
I kept sleeping for as long as I could and my mom wouldn't try to wake me up anymore, ah..but she did have to wake me up to get a checkup with the doctor again a week after I was let out.
"you only think about you and your problems is it? can't you see that those around you are suffering becaues of you my boy?"
I...kind of sat there, um..stunned I think..
"w-who's suffering...?"
he looked to the person sitting beside me, m-mom? why would she be suffering, the dreams are beautiful, I-I really like them...
but..I turned towards her and she looked like she was stopping herself from crying..
It's been about 12 years since all of that, I still like to sleep in a bit more than I should but I don't sleep more than 9 hours most of the time, mom is...doing well, I visit her behind the church at least twice a week with flowers, I've gotten used to not seeing colour, but..well I still miss watching movies, I haven't been able to enjoy them since the last one I saw with my mom.
I stopped reminiscing with a sigh and walked out from behind the church, ah ow..I tripped on the sidewalk.
"geez why do we pay taxes if they can't even maintain a sidewalk to a cemetary.." I got up while rubbing my head, my temple smashed into the cement a bit.
"do I need to go to the hospital..? well it's been a while since I talked to doc so an excuse to catch up wouldn't be too bad" I thought as I got up, planning to walk towards the hospital.
"heya bud, you want some sweet corn?" ah, I mean sweet corn around here is pretty good, maybe it'd even help with the headache a bit?
I took the cup from his hand and looked down at the glistening yellow corn, ah, nothing like some new york sweet corn before lunch, the red chili powder they toss on it gives it a really good punch too.
"damn they really put up neon green lights this early in the day?" I thought to myself while walking towards the hospital
when I got there, I asked the receptionist if doc was free and went into his office, "oh Steven my boy, what brings you here today?"
He looked to be in a pretty cheerful mood, "nothing much doc, I just hit my forehead on the concrete a bit, thought it'd be a nice excuse to get you some sweetcorn before lunch" I said with a smile.
"hoho ruining my diet now are you? well better of you to ruin it now, my wife's making meatloaf tonight, haha a dead man needs no diet"
"hehe, oh! the cross on your labcoat...it's uh...damn what was that colour?...tea! right, tea, when did it go from red to tea?"
"....BAHAHAHAHA" the doc burst out laughing, which made me a bit embarrassed.."w-what don't tell me it was always tea.." my comment made him laugh more for some reason, my face could only get a bit more flushed "w-what?!"
"I-its teal my boy, t-e-a-l, ahaha, not tea! did you think the colour was called tea this whole time?! Ahahaha." whiping a tear from his eye, the doc continued "I changed it a bit after the first time we met, ah you remember asking if it was red and I joked that if it wasn't red was it teal? Well I thought what if it really was teal? So I had it coloured te-..."
the doc stopped..as if realising something? He looked at me with his eyes widening like...like...like my English teacher's eyes when she looked at my test paper! oh she was certainly really surprised when I got above a 50% that day.
"Steven...what did you say the colour of the cross was?" the doc looked weirdly serious if he was just making fun of me, geez I thought something big happened.
"geez, I meant teal ok, I just thought it was called tea, you don't need to laugh that hard"
"n-no Steven...you..you can see the colour on my cross?"
"what do you mean I can see the colour on your cross, I've been colourblind for nearly 12-" my lips began to tremble...I looked into the doc's eyes
they were...well...teal..no wonder he liked the colour so much...b-but his inner shirt was... blue...and-and his skin, his skin was uh..peach I think, and-a-and I looked down at myself, my skin, it was peach too!! my jeans were a dark blue, my shirt..i-it was green!
a leaf flew in from the window, i-it was an autumn leaf..I could tell because it was orange..or uh.. maybe yellow? uh..something in between I think...B-BUT IT HAD COLOUR!
I...I could see colour again.