B&W

Amelia Frey
Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Mom passes the milk carton over my head. Then the bundle of dark green spinach. Then the
brown bag of coffee beans. The red tomatoes, purple grapes, and bottle of apple juice all go into
the red basket at the end of the lane. I grab the bouquet of radiant flowers, the next item. I swipe
the barcode on their green stems over the laser, place it on the grey conveyor belt, and watch it
slowly glide down the checkout lane. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Each item swiped, each item registered, and then a beep. A pattern.

Swipe, Beep. Swipe, Beep.

Pause,

Swipe, Beep.

The flowers, pink, red, yellow, and white, reach the end of the belt, bumping up against the other
groceries that were piled up in the basket. I reach up to rub my itching eyes. I let my hands fall,
having satisfied the irritation, and stare at the flowers once again.

But suddenly I can’t see the vibrant colors of their petals anymore. I can’t see the green of the
spinach either.

“Mom?! Mommy?” Whirling around, I frantically wave my hands in front of my eyes, my breath
rapidly increasing with each blink. Nothing. No hues of skin tone, no bright pink nail polish.

“Mommy, what’s going on?”

I can’t see any color. It’s all black, white, and grey.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Fifteen years later.

Acrylic nails tap on on keyboards, a phone rings somewhere in the depth of cubicles and glass
offices, the low murmur of voices meld together. Dragging my legs over to the corner of the
kitchen with the half-functioning coffee machine, I fill my mug with the black liquid that seeps
out halfheartedly. Walking back to my cubicle, coffee in hand, I glance out the window at the

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high rise buildings surrounding my office, towering above the blurred city below. My chair lets
out a sigh as I sit down on the worn leather seat and set my cup down next to my computer. A
pair of hands grips the top of the cubicle wall in front of me, followed by a pair of grey eyes and
two rows of blinding white teeth, revealing my very excited workmate, Lucy. Shoving her phone
in my face, Lucy squeals.

“You won’t believe this! Look at this cute little necklace James gave me on our date last night!
Can you believe it? It was adorable. I almost died.”

Familiar with Lucy’s routine, I nod, smile, remove the offending phone from in front of my nose,
scroll through the pictures, and make some kind of affirmative approving noise.
“Mhm! Wow...aww, that’s so cute, L!”

With her fingers still tightly gripping the wall, Lucy continues to chatter on about her date with
James. Before long, the talking transitions to background noise. Nod, smile, ooh, interesting,
another nod. But then something she says snaps my attention back to reality.

“I don’t know, Sophia, we’ve been talking for a while now. I’m starting to think...he might be
soulmate material.”

Soulmate.

There’s the word.

Now, I’ve learned how things work. Why all the color suddenly disappeared and hasn’t come
back since.

Age is a strange concept in this world. Love is unrealistic, everyone is on a constant hunt to find
their soulmates. Everyone has one. It’s like there’s a time bomb on an unknown relationship, a
mysterious stranger. Lucy’s goal, other people’s goals are to find their soulmate. Mine isn’t. My
soulmate is dead. Black and white vision means a dead soulmate, colorful and vivid vision
means a dead soulmate. Dead people, alive people. I don’t have a person I am searching for. I am
an outlier in my society, all the people my age are in the prime time of their lives, actively
searching, wondering, trying to find, I am greyscale. My vision is limited. The memory of the
grocery store, the painfully awkward conversation with my parents after the incident.

Your soulmate died.

It usually happens so much later in life.

You will be fine.

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You will be normal.

You just won’t be able to see color anymore.

We love you, sweetheart.

And that’s why I’m here. Listening to my friend ramble on and on about a soulmate...when I
know I’ll ultimately die alone, because my soulmate is gone.

Lucy keeps talking, but my vision slowly blurs as random thoughts overtake the mindless
chatter. Eventually, she runs out of news to tell me, says goodbye and disappears back behind the
wall. I sip my coffee and turn to face the dull monitor in front of me. After a few minutes, I
resume typing numbers into the uniform empty cells.

---------------------------------------------

The day drags by and five o’clock arrives slowly. I’ve been sitting at my desk, pressing keys,
correcting spreadsheets. It’s like this every day. Almost machine-like.

Click. Pause.

Click.

Pause.

Click.

Pause.

I enter my last number and glance at the electronic clock on the bottom right hand corner of the
screen. I grab my coat and bag and step over to the polished steel elevator doors. Pressing the
blank button, I wait for the ‘ding’, and step into the elevator. The doors clank shut behind me,
revealing my reflection, a tired-looking woman in the gleaming metal. I continue to stare at the
woman in the door, and she stares back at me, her bag slowly slipping down her left arm. I can
hear the machinery of the lift functioning, muted clanking sounds surround me, working to bring
me from the 30th floor down to the lobby. The reflection stares at me all the way down.

Ding!

The doors slide open and the woman disappears along with them. Classical music, tender and

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relaxing, gushes into the open space, and I step forward into the lobby. Enormous glass doors,
edged with rectangular planters containing a couple small, colorless flowers, beckon me. I
willingly accept the offer, and quickly walk across the white stone floor of the lobby.

The monochrome city bustles with street noise, energy and scents. Closing my eyes, I take a
deep breath in, let it out slowly, and head for the staircase that leads to the metro.

Click clack, click clack.

The train car shakes as we pass over the tracks, back and forth. The window puts the city on
display, the buildings, people, cars, graffiti, all flying by in a blur. I can tell the sun is going
down by the shadows on the buildings, and I know it would be a striking sunset if I could see all
of the pink orange hues. Like any normal person my age. I sit quietly, solitary, observing the
details as they pass in front of my window, until the car goes underground and the window goes
black. The woman from the elevator, the reflection, is back, still staring straight back into my
eyes that can only see black and white. She keeps me company for a while, until my stop arrives.
I stand up and exit through the doors that open with a hiss, leaving her behind. I keep walking.

-------------------------------

Starting yet another normal day, I am greeted by the doors in the front of the building that
contains my daily monotony. Passing the planters with the row of grey flowers like every other
day, I head for those same stainless steel doors, the small mirrored box where I stand with the
woman in the reflection every day. I’ve almost reached them when I hear someone call my name.

“Excuse me, Miss Sophia?”

I turn around to see the receptionist sitting at her desk, waving to catch my attention. I quickly
walk over to the wooden desk.

“Sorry to bother, but I think a paper fell out of your bag over there.” She points to one of the
planters next to the doors. “At least, I’m pretty sure it’s yours,” she says.

“Great, thank you,” I say while turning away from the desk. Walking over to the planter, my
skirt tightens against my knees as I kneel to pick up the folded piece of paper. Opening it with a
crinkle, I realize it is just a piece of scrap paper, unused stationery from the office. Fluttering in
the direction of the receptionist desk, I crumple it into a small ball between my palms.

“Just a piece of scrap paper, thanks anyways.”

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I turn back toward the toneless blossoms in the planter. I stand up to throw the paper in the trash
can, when something catches my eye.

A zinnia.

A flower. Dainty petals spread out and overlap each other gracefully.

And it is a bright shade of crimson red.

Red.

Stumbling back from the planter, my mouth falls open. My muscles go rigid with shock and
tingles run up my skin, like thousands of little needles pricking me.

What is happening? This isn’t supposed to happen. Why am I seeing the zinna? How am I seeing
this flower?

I almost trip over a floor I have walked a thousand times and I hastily stumble to the lobby
bathroom, refusing to believe this is happening. Shoving the wooden door open, my trembling
fingers struggle to turn the lock in the door handle. I spin around to face the mirror. The woman
stares back at me, white as chalk, eyes opened wide in an expression of stunned surprise, like a
statue. Thoughts race through my head as quickly as humanly possible, overlapping and
contradicting each other.

Isn’t there only supposed to be one soulmate for everyone? Does this mean I have two?

I needed some space, I needed to get out of this building. Taking deep breaths, thoughts still
rambling, I unlock the door and hesitantly step back into the lobby. Immediately, the outlying
scarlet color of the zinnia floods my vision and burns my eyes with the intensity. Captivated by
the beauty of the single flower, I stand, frozen for a moment in time. I only realise I am crying
when-

“Excuse me, sorry, are you going to use the bathroom?”

A businesswoman in a pressed pantsuit taps me on the shoulder and gestures towards the
unlocked bathroom door. I start, quickly wipe the tears from my cheek and shake my head to
break my trance. “No, I’m sorry. Feel free,” I say distractedly as I move away from the bathroom
and out towards the glass doors. I thrust them open and start to walk rapidly down the concrete
sidewalk, anxious to get as far away as possible from the flower. I’m moving as fast as I can,
restraints of cloth preventing me from running, heading toward the park, where I know I can find

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temporary refuge from the boisterous city. I run and run and run, my lungs protest but I keep
running, all the way to the park where I breathlessly collapse on a bench. Not only is my heart
racing, but my thoughts are too.

Another soulmate. Another person who I’m destined to be with.

Still breathing heavily, I attempt in vain to sort out what is happening.

Why the one flower? Is there more color?

I’ve never been more frazzled in my entire life. This simple flower, this one bloom, added an
entire other level of complexity. How was that possible? Having rested enough to have caught
my breath, I stand up. I am hopeful.

I’ll think about it.

--------------------

Ten weeks later, I am still trying to figure out what the zinnia means. I’ve spent hours in the
lobby, pretending to do paperwork and staring at the single scarlet flower, enraptured by its
beauty, but still confused by its meaning. As the weeks pass, I’ve branched out. I’ve kept my
hope that maybe, someday, this means that I have another soulmate out there somewhere. I even
joined a couple dating apps, but everyone is still just a plain grey. No colors.

But now, the zinnia is dead.

And maybe that means I have run out of time. Again.

Dejectedly, I ease myself up from the leather lobby chair that has become so familiar, and stare
down at the zinnia. My zinnia. Once red petals are now grey, spread weakly across the black soil
sprinkled with white fertilizer. The only color in my life, my only hope for a normal life. I brush
my hair out of my face in frustration and resignation and kneel down face-to-face with my
zinnia. Carefully scraping the dirt away from the roots, I gently gather the dead flower into my
cupped hands, creating a mixture of topsoil and petals against my palms.

I need a place for this.

Exiting the building, like so many evenings, this time I walk towards the parking garage next
door.

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I don’t stop until I reach my car. Setting the pile of wilted plant and loose earth beside me on the
passenger seat, I firmly shut the door and place my hands on the wheel. They look pale and
fragile against the dark grey leather, and they shake. A wave of emotion overcomes me and I
slump onto the steering wheel, sobbing. My color is gone. Tears stream down my cheeks as I
finally give in to the sadness of my monochrome world, the world I have lived in since I was a
girl, and the world I will continue to live in until I am an old woman. I slap my hand against the
dashboard in frustration, again and again, stinging my open palm. I must look a mess, even in
black and white. I put the key in the ignition and press the gas pedal down hard, wheels
screeching on concrete.

I know where I need to go.

---------

The hours pass.

A sign blurs by, notifying me that I have almost reached my destination. Turning on my blinker,
I turn left and pull into the parking lot of a small playground of plastic slides and metal monkey
bars, with a pond at the bottom of a sloping hill. Scooping up my zinnia in my hands, I close the
door with my hip and make my way around to the pond. With difficulty, I pull the thick moss
from one the flat stones edging the slightly murky water. Sure enough, a little faded but
nonetheless firmly etched into the rock, a name reveals itself.

S0PHIA
Fifteen years. It was still there. I set the handful of zinnia and soil down beside the letters and
cautiously run my fingertips over the engraved name, my engraved name. The rock is chilly and
nips at my fingers, a smooth roughness. The memory hadn’t faded with time at all.

“Sophia! Stop playing with that rock and look at the sky for once!”

My mother had been eating watermelon with two of her friends, a trio in foldable beach chairs on
a beautiful summer evening. I had drawn my gaze from my freshly carved name in the rock, and
tilted my face towards the setting sun. I had seen the colors emblazoned across the enormous
sky, threads of light lingering in the sky, interweaving with the rolling clouds, dyeing the
heavens peachy orange, then red, then blue, then it darkening to obsidian. As the night deepened,
fireflies had idly blinked across the playground underneath a star-speckled sky.

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It had been the most beautiful sight in my life.

Breaking out of the bittersweet memory, I remember what I came here for. Clearing away a
patch of grass next to my stone, I start to dig, my fingers clenching into the moist soil to create a
fist-deep hole. Grains of dirt gather underneath my fingernails, grains of dirt form a small mound
next to the hole. I tenderly pick up the dead zinnia, lifeless and grey against my hand, and lay it
in the cavity I have created.

This is goodbye.

Now my color can rest with the memory of my other dead colors.

Covering the flower with earth, I stand up, brushing my hands to get rid of the dirt. I glance
around at my surroundings, and see many small local stores sprinkled around station; a
restaurant, a library, a shop called Bumble Bee Boutiques, a florist. I look closer at the florist’s
window. It has the words Rochester Flowers proudly displayed across the front in a sloppy right-
leaning cursive. But it isn’t the cursive that captures my attention.

It’s the bright red, dainty-petaled flower in the windowsill.

I jump, and a shiver of adrenaline runs down my neck all the way to my feet. I sprint across the
messily paved concrete street, cars honk and swerve, but I am oblivious to all of my
surroundings but the single flower. I can hear my heart beating quickly, thumping along with
rhythm of my feet. I grab the metal handle that opens the door and pull it, triggering the light
tinkling of a bell as I enter the shop.

Rushing to the back of the window display, I bask in the beauty of the scarlet flower. Another
zinnia, my zinnia, my symbol of hope. Not wanting to take my eyes from the bloom, I slowly
raise my head and peer around the rest of the store.

There are red zinnias everywhere. An entire section filled with them on the left side of the shop,
hanging in planters from the ceiling, resting in flower pots on the ground, they are everywhere.
Salty tears blur my vision until they are all just one large smudged mess of red, bright red.

I walk over to the wall of crimson and brush my fingers through the soft veined petals, admiring
their pure color. My momentary bliss is interrupted by a delicate tap on my shoulder.

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“Excuse me, ma’am? Can I help you with anything?”

I turn around.

Emerald eyes.

They are the only thing I can see. Eyes, glimmering deep green, sparkling like a fresh sheen of
morning dew.