Emma smiled. Her eyes sought a light she could not see, and
her brain whirred with a hyper-capacity beyond normality. To the outsider, it
would seem as if Emma was in seventh heaven, or some variety of it. To the
outsider, they would see a tall, slim girl with a halo of dark hair and large
blue eyes slightly glazed over, laughing at some unknown joke.
Emma’s laughter was a shield. Emma was on one side of the
shield, and the rest of the world was on the other. In Emma’s version of the
world, everything was white and gold and transparent. She saw only the truth as
it was told. She believed only what she heard and could tell was true. The
other side of the shield was false, like an ultimate reality Emma would never
be able to reach.
A group of lanky teenagers wandered past where Emma knelt on
the ground, by the flowers. Emma tilted her head, but didn’t look up at them;
instead she seemed to focus on the ground. On the green, green grass. A colour
she didn’t understand. She heard their idle chatter, felt their normality and
envied it. She envied the fact that they had friends and could exchange pleasantries
on the colour of the sky – blue or grey or black with impending thunder – or
how they had done their hair.
Emma felt their footfalls pass, and looked up, under a
fringe of black hair. She seemed to watch the sky. Birds swooped and looped and
pirouetted gracefully in arcs and Catherine-wheels; the trees danced and
serenaded passers-by with their branches; the wind toyed with people’s hair,
lifting it and brushing it across their foreheads – Emma could see none of
this.
Emma smiled. Her brain began its vigorous sprinting once
again. To the outsider, she would appear to be a graceful, kneeling girl,
watching the insects play with the flowers. To the outsider, she would seem
happy, or at least, content.
Untrue, it was all untrue. To Emma, the sky might as well be
green. The grass might as well be blue. Emma was blind, and her world was white
and gold and transparent. To Emma, everything was not as it should be.
~H
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