Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin. I am only borrowing the characters to write my plot.
“Imagine the world with closed eyes. Imagine the world in total darkness,” said the teacher as she walked around the aisles of the Creative Writing classroom. All the students had their eyes closed and were follwoing the teacher’s instructions. They waited the teacher’s permission to open their eyes. “Imagine living your whole life depending on touching and hearing. These senses will be heightened to make up for your lost of sight.”
Walking in front of the classroom, she instructed the students to open their eyes. Once they listened, their gasps filled the room. “So tell me what you see and/or use a word that may affect your emotions.” The teacher walked to the side of the classroom and glanced at a young raven-haired girl who sat in the back. “I choose you to answer this question.”
The raven-haired student looked up at the teacher as she parted from her thoughts about her boyfriend waiting outside of the classroom. She did not have to look around the class to feel other students' stares. She would have shrunk back in fear for since she had problems with speaking in front of others, but the teacher called on her.
“Kaoru, did you hear me?” asked the teacher.
Nodding, she gulped as she searched for an answer. Her gaze wandered around the classroom until the sky through the classroom window caught her attention. And then the answer popped into her mind. “Colors.”
“Pardon me?” the teacher asked. She wanted nothing more then to run away from the teacher for making her life miserable at the moment. Did the teacher not see that she did not like to be the center of attnetion?
“Colors,” she answered.
“And what makes you say colors?” The teacher seemed really interested in her thoughts.
She mumbled a bit as she tried to search for the right words to say. In Creative Writing class, the teacher focused on speaking as she did on writing. The teacher believed that speaking and writing went hand in hand. Folding her hands together on her lap, she looked once again at the clear blue sky through the classroom window and imagined a day with her boyfriend.
Kenshin Himura, a guy with long silky red hair, beautiful amethyst eyes that seemed to pierce her soul, a lean figure she knew so well, and… “Kaoru I need an answer now.”
“Sorry Ms. Jackson.” Her cheeks flushed as the class laughed at her. Then, they quieted down as they waited for her response. “Colors. I see colors.”
Her mind drifted as her words left her mouth. And yesterday’s event came into mind as she was forced to remember some unpleasant news such as finding out her mother had cancer. Any day would be her mother's last day. Her father continuously went to work and then made stops at the hospital to check on her mother. Yet, she could only imagine the pain and suffering her mother went through while not sharing it with her and her father.
“Colors have meanings. They represent different things,” she answered slowly. She closed her eyes as she imagined the pain and suffering her mother went through day after day while staying at the hospital. “So vivid the hues. Sometimes our eyes hurts us so. But compared to darkness, they are heaven, a sight for sore eyes. Blue is a color that represents intensity, but it also represent sadness. Red is a color that represents love, but it also represents blood. Black is a color that represents the wardrobe of making anyone look skinny, but it also represents death.”
Finally opening her eyes, she turned her unshed tears to the sky above. And the pain her mother lived with stirred in her mind. “But seeing only one world is a dark and lonely place. Seeing the world through closed eyes, closes a part of our mind. That closed part of our mind is colors.”
She turned her direction to the teacher and smiled serenely just like her mother did with her and her father, when she told them herself. The time hit when students began to pack their belongings and head either to their next class, to work, to the cafeteria, or home. Kaoru had to meet her boyfriend so that he could take her to the hospital to check on both her father and mother.
Packing her things, she saw the teacher come her way. Her teacher commented her on her answer and told her to keep up the good work. With those words, Kaoru left the room. But that day’s lesson remained in her mind and in her soul for the day her mother did die, did she truly see the colors.
(The End).
