True Colors
“D-E-E-P-T-H-I. Hmmmm.” A young woman with a yellow glow leans forward, across the counter to read the shop attendant’s nametag. She is the first customer of the day, in the mood to look through another man’s treasures at ten in the morning. A pink and green sundress embraces her body. A warm, golden yellow light surrounds her head. As she speaks, her voice carries this yellow glow from her lips towards the attendant and outwards until it fades away.
“Dee, Dipth, Depth, Depthing, Diphthong, Dapth-”
“Just call me Deep, please.”
On her first day working at the pawn shop, Deep requested that her manager Margo (very clearly a nickname) forgo the formality of a full name on her nametag and go with just her nickname. With a purple glow around her face, her manager politely declined. Behind her, a man in a dark suit and a cane walks in and towards the back wall.
“Beautiful name.”
“Thanks. How can I help you?”
“Can you point me towards the antique gun section? World War 2 era, if that’s possible.”
As Deep guides her through the back aisles, she thinks of how often a customer comes in to the shop and makes unexpected purchases. More often than not. Much like this sundress woman, a burly, middle-aged man lumbered in through the door, a green fuzz following him. With steel-toed boots and a purpose, he strode to the front desk, puffed his chest out like an admiral, and inquired about availability of a typewriter that reminded him of his grandfather. People enter the store to sell intriguing items as well, but they’re typically not as willing to share their stories as those that come to buy. Regardless, to Deep, the guessing game is electrifying. The unexpected arouses her curiosity, but only to a certain point.
- - - -
All humans, at least to some extent, are affected by our environment. From tsunamis and outbreaks of influenza to getting yelled at by a manager, we are at the mercy of those phenomena outside of us. The constant change of events in our lives leads to the constant shifting of our own emotions. This environment includes interactions with other living beings, and humans are almost exclusively affected most by other humans. We lie and care. We give and fight. We love and worry. Our interdependence on each other for our emotional state is strong, much stronger than we think.
The door jingles open. A young woman with dark circles in her eyes and an orange glow from her posture, trudges in with a crystal ring to sell. Deep walks over to the register to give an estimate.
If there was some sort of group of paranormal professionals, they would deduce that Deep sees emotions. They may even say she reads thoughts. Deep thinks of it as a visualization of the true intent of a person’s words and actions. Everyone can imagine or even guess from context clues a person’s true intent. She can simply see the colors from an aura as confirmation. If a wealthy politician speaks of donating to a local charity, does her face glisten green with a giving nature, blush red with a passion for justice, or smolder with a deceitful and power-hungry orange?
The woman reluctantly accepts the first estimate and pockets the cash. As Deep puts the ring in a drawer, she notices a faded family crest on the back of the stone. Interesting. Deep pulls out the thick, handheld journal from her pocket. The journal opens to a page, one she refers to as the Field Guide of Colored Emotions (still a working title). The previous pages contain several drafts attempting to describe the same phenomenon, starting from when Deep discovered this ability at 21. She crosses out the phrase “Hunger (not food)” from the Red category and moved it to Orange, as well as scribbles down other related feelings and tendencies.
The intensity of each color also depends on the intensity of the emotion. Beyond words and actions, Deep can see a person’s emotional state of their thoughts. A person’s thoughts are her emotions, when not speaking or acting, and can be seen right around her face. Take the previously mentioned wealthy politician and assume that she is truly passionate for the cause of reducing poverty in Malaysia.
When she thinks about this issue, her head will emit a light red in all directions. She doesn’t even have to make any facial expressions.
In terms of word, when she speaks of this charity and how she will donate to it, her head will glow and radiate in the direction of the audience listening until it fades away.
Actions are all of the above, but the moving body part also spreads these color waves. (Think of waving sparklers on the 4th of July, but with all body parts.) This could be when she signs the check to “Food Aid Foundation” or even waves her hand up around on a podium while she speaks of Malaysian poverty.
Emotions and intent can’t be described by just one, pinpoint-able, answer choice on a multiple-choice test. The human emotional spectrum is much more complex, and colors are the best way to visualize it. Between all of the primary colors, there are secondary colors, like purple and green. Between all of the secondary colors, there are tertiary colors. A woman walks into the store and with her, a child shuffles in, already oozing with a faded indigo boredom and a shade of pink annoyance.
Margo smiles at the mother as she whispers in Deep’s ear, “Make sure that kid doesn’t knock anything over.” She abruptly leaves, an orange fog trailing her. Whether this stems from protective instincts to guard her store or a hunger to exert dominance, Deep has to guess. There was always a power struggle between Deep and Margo. It doesn’t help that the shop’s owner rarely comes to the store, and these two are usually the only employees at the store. Margo was part of a batch of three other employees that all quit within the first four months. When the manager quit and she was promoted, she looked for someone, anyone to work at the shop with her. Deep barely had an interview before she was hired. She worked through the long hours and the heavy package movement and the odd customers with difficult requests, just as Margo had done in her time. “I just want you to know what it takes to run this business,” Margo once said. She almost always had an orange air about her.
Deep moves from behind the counter to follow the child and mother from two aisles away. The door jingled open. She recognizes the cane, but sees a youthful hand holding it through the trinkets on the shelf, and she wonders how old this man can be. He’s come in every other day for the past few weeks, not unusual for thrift store junkies.
Despite the difficulties with her manager, Deep loves her job. Most jobs don’t blend well with her ability. She spent the first 20 years of her life attracted to the true and just nature of law enforcement, went to police academy and got a job as an officer in her hometown’s precinct. To her dismay, there were too many politics; the entire office was covered in orange air. She quit and worked as a sales-representative-in-training at a car dealership. Couldn’t handle lying to the naïve, yellow-glowing families that didn’t speak much English that this, in fact, is the lowest price she could do. For six months, she worked at a manufacturing plant for diapers. So much purple and red in the plant, filled with bored and unfulfilled workers with a deep hatred of upper management.
She even worked at a psychic’s office for two weeks, thinking that it was a direct connection to her ability. Too many people there to take advantage or make fun of the psychic. Like all blessings, this extra dimension of vision is also a curse. It would be nice to believe that her police partner shot the young, dark man out of protective instincts, not from boiling, red-hot disgust. The sting of losing her foster mother could have been lessened if she couldn’t see the ginger-tinted greed around her foster siblings’ faces as they all went for her inheritance.
The pawn shop is perfect. It’s low-profile and calm. She can meet all of these new people, and they were all, in their own ways, unpredictable in their intents. Even some of the trinkets that are brought in carry a tint to them. Once, a man with a red-orange blaze asked to sell a freshly cleaned knife, which was glowing with a sinister dark red. She dared not ask about what the origin of this knife. Objects that still hold onto this light are usually part of extreme and negative events.
- - -
It’s 15 minutes to closing. The man with the cane is still walking around, somewhere. It’s not a particularly large store, but the long aisles give the effect of tunnel vision. She can understand if he got lost in the charms and trinkets of any aisle. Margo asks her to close up tonight and leaves. Deep begins to exit the counter area to find him, but, as if he heard her thoughts, he finds his way to the front. The man is actually a woman, dressed in a pantsuit. She looks young, possibly in her 20s or 30s: too young to be using a cane. Her hair is gelled to look vaguely like a top hat. She’s wearing sunglasses indoors, a fact she’s never noticed as she looked into her face.
“Hi ma’am, did you find everything okay?”
“Yes, I did.” She made no motion to move from the counter.
“Are you looking to sell anything?”
“No, I’m looking for something.”
“Can I be of any assistance? We close in 15 minutes, but hopefully we can fi-”
“Is your name Deepthi?”
“That’s what it says on my nametag.”
“Deepthi from Kennesaw?” That is not on her nametag. At this moment, Deep realizes that she can’t see any color around this woman. Who the hell was she?
“Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Dillon.”
“How do you know…” She can’t finish the sentence. She can’t even come to say the word. It’s a part of her life she’s rehearsed herself to forget over the years.
“Do you remember a woman named Arya?” Deep still can’t speak. “She was your guardian mother?”
“Y-yes.”
“In 1965, your birth mother gave you up for adoption after she gave birth at 17. She left you at the Roswell Villages Inc. and Arya was your foster mother.”
“Who are you?”
“Your birth mother gave you up in Roswell. She didn’t give you any information about herself. Not her name, not the name of your father, not where she lived.” Dillon speaks quickly, as if she’s rehearsed this several times. Deep puts her hand in her pocket and squeezes the bone-shaped keychain attached to her house keys. “She also didn’t tell you that you had a brother. A twin brother. He was put up for adoption in Tennessee.”
“I have a – What?”
“You weren’t adopted for all the 18 years you were in Roswell, but he was adopted within those first two years. His name was Hans.”
“You have to slow down. I need to sit down. Who are you?”
“I’m your niece.”
Deep’s brain spun in her head like she was set on Permanent Press. Twins? Tennessee? A niece? Dillon makes her way behind the counter and sits Deep down on a stool. With her lack of glow, he tries to calm her.
“I know this is a lot to process … especially at your age.” Deep breathes in to scold her, but coughs from her eagerness instead. “Just kidding. Wanted to lighten the mood.” Her smile is easy.
“I have a niece?”
“Hi, auntie. I’ve been looking for you for a while.”
“How did you find me?”
“You know how difficult it is to find someone that no one is looking for and that she herself doesn’t want to be found? At least you didn’t change your first name.” She made an odd face, one that Deep may have been able to guess if she could see her colors.
“So, there’s another thing. I also know about your abilities.” Deep feels naked, like someone stole her clothes right off her body. Can Dillon see her colors? She wonders if this is what people would feel if they knew she could see their true colors. “And I think that’s the reason she separated you and my father.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, turns out that this ability is tied to genetics.” She grins with her teeth. Deep pauses with her mouth open. What?
“Wait, what?”
Dillon takes off her sunglasses to reveal her eyes, scarred with chemical burns and scrape marks. One of her eyes is swelling with blisters and her pupil grey. The other one is scarred only on the outside, as if someone tried to claw it out. The wounds are not fresh, but absolutely not healed.
“Evidently when you share this gift with people, they’re not as accepting as you would think.” She chuckles, but her soft smile immediately dropped. “They were not so kind to your brother.”
“Oh my god.” Deep didn’t know how to process everything that was happening. She wanted to be alone and think. She wanted to be alone, and she wanted Dillon to leave.
“Please leave.”
“I’m sorry, I know this is a lot, I’ve been working the courage to talk to you for yea-”
“PLEASE leave,” Deep almost shouts. Dillon has a look in her remaining eye that Deep can only guess is hurt. She reaches for Deep’s hand, possibly for a handshake or a comforting squeeze, but decides against it.
“You’re right. Um, I’m sorry.” She swiftly glides out of the shop.
- -
Deep pockets the shop keys after locking up and heads towards the bus stop, her fingers clenched in a nervous fist. Usually, the sun sets while she rides the bus home. But this time, in the heaviness that followed that conversation, closing down the shop was the last thing on her mind, and she completely forgot. So now, she waits for the night bus.
Who is this kid? Before this moment, she didn’t know if she had any family, let alone cared. How can she have the nerve to stalk someone? Her worries carry over to the night bus. She’s never taken a bus this late before, especially from this area. As she enters the bus, she encounters a sea of deep blue by almost all individuals. Sad or appreciative? The bus driver wearily greets her into the vehicle. A woman in scrubs is texting someone and smiles, and Deep believes she is communicating with her child. One man in particular emits a haze so unbelievably deep blue that she wonders if his color is black. She decides to sit next to this man.
Why doesn’t Dillon have colors? Could Dillon see her colors? The man on the bus shifts apprehensively to give Deep space. What if Hans and she were never separated? What would happen if both of them, powers strong, were together? She’s not sure she wants to know. She begins to wonder what would have happened if their mother never gave them up. It’s too familiar a thought, so she shoves it aside. She focuses her attention on this man.
“How’s it going?” The man nods and gives a meager “Fine.”
“Weather wasn’t too bad today, right?” The man looks over and gives a polite smile. “To be honest, I always wondered why Americans are obsessed with the weather. Myself included.” He pauses for a moment, then smiles with golden rays of the sun.
“I’ve never understood why we do that.”
“Better than, ‘How’s it going?’”
“Yeah, half the time, people say it when we’re passing each other. Like, do I answer that genuinely or give the quick ‘good’ and move on?” Deep snickers. “Where are you headed?”
“Coming home from work.”
“Long day?”
“Weird day. Got lost in thought before I realized I had to close up shop. How about yourself?”
The man opened his mouth to speak, but a tear from his left eye fell to his cheek. His mind darkened from a glowing yellow to a faded forest green, a deep blue again, then finally settled to a dark turquoise.
“I’m so sorry,” he sniffles, “I had to put down my dog today.”
“Oh my goodness. How long have you been together?”
“I’ve had her in my life for 12 years. I don’t know if I can go home to an empty house.”
Deep has a thought and reaches her hands in her pockets to feel around for her bone-shaped keychain. “Here.”
“What is this?”
“It’s from my birth mother. It was on the blanket I was wrapped in. Thought my whole life that maybe she had a dog, and pretended like it was a wise but moody Border Collie. I think it’s better served with you than me.”
The keychain used to glow with a navy light, but once she handed it to the man, the color disappeared. The man took the keychain and flipped it over the reveal the phrase LIFE IS RUFF engraved on the back. The man chuckled.
“Indeed it is. A little cheesy for my taste, but thank you.”
As she spoke to this man, she realizes that, in a weird way, not being able to judge Dillon’s emotions makes her more trustworthy. These emotions only reveal the current state of a person, not who they are. Why didn’t she tried to find Deep sooner?
Until this time, Deep has always thought of this ability as a form of suffering, a curse. Maybe it’s not the steel of the cage that confines her, but the steel of the crowbar that pulls her out. For the first time since she discovered her ability, she felt not alone.
-
The next day, from open to close, Deep watched the door for a dark suit and top hat. She waited for the door jingling to find a pair sunglasses on someone’s face. She craved to hear the thik of the cane hitting the floor. But Dillon never showed.
After two weeks of the same waiting and anxiety and hope, Deep realized it was her turn to chase her. What did she know about her? Her name is Dillon. Remembering that Dillon somehow found Deep by just her first name, Deep decides it’s her mission to find her niece, no matter what.