Flash Friday #11 'Colour blindness'
Original flash fiction: Mankind faces a worrying challenge...
Welcome to ‘Flash Friday’ where every week I share some of my original flash fiction.
This week’s story was inspired by the writing prompt: ‘Only the very oldest people could remember when humans could see in colour’.
A bit of a thought experiment this one, it was quite fun to allow the imagination to run where it would. How would you feel if you suddenly lost the ability to see in colour? Or to see at all? How often do we consider how our partially sighted and fully blind friends experience the world, and how much value do we place on them as individuals contributing to society?
I hope this piece provokes a few thoughts for you and that you enjoy reading it.
Only the very oldest people could remember when humans could see in colour and even their memory of it was fading.
It had started when perfect eyesight had disappeared. It happened gradually and quietly without anyone really noticing. So many people had worn glasses anyway that a few more didn’t seem to matter. No one registered that there was a problem. Since many chose to wear contact lenses, the outward appearance of the population did not alter that much so people remained oblivious. Nobody questioned why there was now an optician on every corner, or why spectacle vending machines started appearing at transport hubs and in healthcare waiting rooms. Pop up eye test booths became a regular feature at school fayres and Christmas markets, and every advertisement in the media was for cheap deals on frames and lenses.
Then the colour disappeared.
First those already affected by colour specific blindness, who couldn’t see red or green for instance, lost what colour they could see. Then those who could see the full spectrum lost the red, then the green and blue until everything was monochrome, and though they struggled and squinted desperately for a while they could not regain that which they had lost.
The younger generations born only with black and white sight never knew any different. They thought the older folk foolish and old-fashioned and never questioned what they were missing. Songs and stories celebrating colour ceased to have any meaning aside from a wistful nostalgia. Mankind accepted its new limitation with resigned indifference and folk got on with their dull grey lives.
But then the sun, shining in its grey sky surrounded by grey clouds, didn’t seem quite as bright as it had before. The contrast between dark and light, and shade and texture, began to lose its definition and clarity. Realisation dawned on them that the colour loss had merely been a symptom of a much larger problem: they were going blind.
Then the panic set in.
Scientists worked frantically to find a miracle cure before they too lost their sight. Politicians sought to soothe an angry mob by spouting and repeating easy lies that it was ‘only temporary’ or that it was ‘all just in their imagination’, or tried to persuade them that ‘seeing wasn’t all that great anyway’.
Those who had already been blind, either from birth or due to other causes, became heroes. They helped those struggling to adjust and lent their abilities and experience to solving issues of communication, logistics and education. For them at least life changed for the better, they were recognised and valued and felt needed by their fellow man.
A cure was not found.
Eventually the dark embrace enveloped them all, and only then did they truly begin to see.
Join me and thousands of others around the world writing in community in ‘Writers’ Hour’ with The London Writers’ Salon: sign up here.