White. It’s a colour that’s defined my entire life. The first image as a child, the earliest picture in my head is a white light. I’m told I would gaze at the sky for hours at a time, always coming back to the sun. As if I longed to be up there with the stars and the clouds and the emptiness.
When I was five, I started playing tennis. I cried for weeks whenever I looked at the television until my parents finally bought cable. I watched tennis constantly. I learnt how to use the TV recorder so I could tape the late night games and watch them after school the next day. And then I saw the Wimbleton and decided, yes, that’s it for me. I wore white until starting school where I had to wear an ugly green uniform.
I was ten when the tennis ball hit my head. All at once I stopped playing tennis and was knocked out. I remember seeing white. Not a blinding white, like when I was littler, but as if I were in a white room and it had no edges, no corners, nowhere for shadows.
At seventeen, I actually died. Just for a moment. It wasn’t tunnel, and it wasn’t a garden. I was standing in front of a white door. I just knew what it was. I was supposed to go through it. But I was seventeen; I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to go. Yet, my body moved without me. I could feel myself moving, my hand slipping through the air to the door. I was holding my breath, my eyes didn’t blink and then, right at the last moment, right when my hand was about to touch the door, I woke up. I thought I was dreaming I was a toddler again; white lights above my head and eyes. No, I was in the hospital.
I didn’t see white again for some time. But Anna. Anna was gorgeous, walking towards me in a white gown, on the white sand.
A headful of blonde ringlets.
A Cinderella dress-up party.
Another wedding, only I was walking the white-gowned girl down the aisle.
A white blanket covering the porcelain skin.
Anna’s hair. My hair.
Then the white door. This time, I took Anna’s hand. She smiled at me. And as I opened the door, bright white light fell out and surrounded us.
No comments:
Post a Comment