In a large box of crayons, I always used up the blue one first.
I would colour everything blue. Blue people with their strangely shaped heads. Blue dogs. Blue sunsets.
They asked me to look around and see if these things were actually blue. It didn’t matter. I liked my blue people. They spoke to each other, their round mouths moving ever so slightly. They played in the fields, the blue sunlight making them squint. They shook their webbed hands.
There were children in school who made fun of me. They showed me their colouring books. They had soft brown coloured people. Pink coloured candy floss. You are stupid, they told me.
The teacher once asked me to hand over the blue crayon. She said I had to learn to colour things with other crayons.
The blue people disappeared off my pages. They probably played elsewhere.
I started writing in art class then. About these people. I would write about how they were real people, with real thoughts. I created a parallel universe where these people had jobs and they ate cornflakes in ceramic bowls for breakfast. Their children went to schools and they had loving pets in their homes.
My teacher handed me the blue crayon one day. She gave me no reason for returning it.
I realized it then, that although I preferred blue over all the other colours; I didn’t really care about colouring stuff. I actually cared more about the people around whom I wove these stories. I had come to enjoy the imaginary lives I created.
I put the crayon back in the box and continued writing.
I would colour everything blue. Blue people with their strangely shaped heads. Blue dogs. Blue sunsets.
They asked me to look around and see if these things were actually blue. It didn’t matter. I liked my blue people. They spoke to each other, their round mouths moving ever so slightly. They played in the fields, the blue sunlight making them squint. They shook their webbed hands.
There were children in school who made fun of me. They showed me their colouring books. They had soft brown coloured people. Pink coloured candy floss. You are stupid, they told me.
The teacher once asked me to hand over the blue crayon. She said I had to learn to colour things with other crayons.
The blue people disappeared off my pages. They probably played elsewhere.
I started writing in art class then. About these people. I would write about how they were real people, with real thoughts. I created a parallel universe where these people had jobs and they ate cornflakes in ceramic bowls for breakfast. Their children went to schools and they had loving pets in their homes.
My teacher handed me the blue crayon one day. She gave me no reason for returning it.
I realized it then, that although I preferred blue over all the other colours; I didn’t really care about colouring stuff. I actually cared more about the people around whom I wove these stories. I had come to enjoy the imaginary lives I created.
I put the crayon back in the box and continued writing.
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