What Color is My World?

My mommy says that the world is made of lots of colors. But I think it's more like one color at a time. My school is blue, at least. The little girl mused this as she stared out her classroom window. Boys in cadet scout uniforms played under a cerulean sky, past the slides and jungle gyms. Along the wall to her left a series of finger-painted Starry Nights popped in midnights across the bulletin board. A mermaid doll with an aquamarine tail lay abandoned on the ocean-styled reading mat of the classroom. The school hallways had been painted recently, and even now the girl could smell the periwinkle shades drying. The small child turned back to her work, indigo crayon at hand.

That afternoon when the little girl arrived home, she paused to see what color her world had turned now. Definitely brown. She decided as she passed the tall oak of her yard into her small forest-wood house. The smell of chocolate wafted into her nostrils as the child grinned at the huge muddy dog smiling at her from behind the screen door keeping him in their back yard by the fence. From the kitchen the girl's grandmother called for her granddaughter to have a snack of the fresh brownies that she'd made. She took the small plate of brownies and sat on the tan carpet of her living room, content with her day.

That evening the little girl was convinced that some great person in the sky had changed the channel on her world, as the color had changed with the arrival of nightfall. Everything is black now. Her dog still played in the backyard, and the little girl could see his bright jet eyes shining at her from the dark when she looked through a window. Her parents had sent her up to her room so they could watch a scary movie in their darkened living room, and the little girl shivered at the monochrome images she caught while spying from the hallway's shadows. She distracted herself with trying to read one of the grown-up books from her mother's library but it was no use, as the words were too big for her, and the ink swam before her eyes. Soon enough she fell asleep before her bedtime and before her parents or grandmother came to tuck her in.

It's so early to get up. Oh, how pretty. It's red. The little girl's thoughts were fuzzy when her father came to wake her the next morning, her messy bed-head obfuscating her vision. Nonetheless, she couldn't help but admire the beautiful sunrise she saw outside, glowing with fiery light. Her clothes had been laid out by her mother, a cherry jumper and pretty rose ribbons awaited her. Breakfast was a slow affair while the child slowly chewed the chopped cherries her grandmother had put on her pancakes. While she ate, her parents ran about in a whirl, her mother straightening her maroon shirt, her dad adjusted his crimson tie. Finally the girl was smeared with lipstick at her mother's kiss, and each member of the family called their respective 'goodbyes', and rushed out the door. The little girl went off to school, excited for the next color her world would become.