Chain Writing

I placed one red celluloid sheet onto one blue celluloid sheet. The color resembled purple, by other’s standards. But I could not say whether the color was purple, green, blue, or even black. The thing is, I cannot distinguish several colors. I often misinterpret green and red as one color. I often call sky-blue as light violet or extremely bright bronze. I realize every day the limitation I have compared to others. So what I do is to memorize and hear carefully to other’s remarks on colors. However, such efforts were futile in front of the huge wave called “art class.” I paint the face of a person with light green, unable to distinguish the color with light brown. I paint the hair of a person with dark green, unable to distinguish the color with black. The world I paint is distorted. However, I do not feel disappointed about my limitation. Rather, I feel proud about my disability. Yes, many friends pity me for inability to distinguish colors. However, I pith them in reverse since they have not acquired the experience, a miracle, I had few days ago.

I woke up in a typical morning with bright sunshine. I felt nothing special but felt slightly tired; so, I stayed in bed after I woke up. In front of my bed is a photo of my family which was taken when I was young and my parents were alive. I could remember their faces only by the photo because they had passed away before I could even conceive them as my parents. That morning, faces of my parents looked slightly but clearly different from my memory of them. I went out of my bed and went closer to the framed picture. Inside the frame were clearer and livelier appearances of my family.

Was there a change in the photo? I rubbed my eyes hard to see the photo again. I could not realize at first. But then, when I looked closely at the photo, it tok me by surprise. Unbelievably, my mother and my father – that is, in the photo- semmed to be blinking – yes, blinking – at me. After a while, they even started twitching and moving a little bit.

They called me to come closer to them. As I approached to the picture, they dragged me into the picture, and with unimaginable magic, I was in the picture with my parents. It was a completely new world in the picture, and I found myself that all colors I see are all distinguishable. The new world was opened in front of me, and whether or not it is false or real, I decided to stay in the photo. I went to a new school, and, like as usual, there was an art class.

But there was a great irony. When I go to bed in the picture world, I woke up again in the real world. So, the cycle of entering the artificial world in the morning and coming back while sleeping was repeated. One day, when I woke up in the real world as usual, a strange thought came into my mind. I have been absent from school in this world for months and have not met any of my friends for such a long time.. Why is no one seeing after me? Thus, I decided to take a day off; I decided to attend the school in the real world. So I dressed myself – though it was quite hard for me for I could not distinguish color again – and stepped out of the house, and.. WHAT A SURPRISE…

The world, the real world, was exactly the same as the artificial world. The only thing changed was the color I am perceiving and the existence of my parents. Feeling sense of strangeness and frustration, I went into the school building, expecting that every school teachers and students would greet me. However, they did not greet me. Rather, they showed the same attitude for me as if I have not absented from the school in my life. Also, there were several faces I had seen in the artificial world. Astonished but fearful, I asked one of my friends. “Jake, have I ever absented from the school these days?” “No, you did not. You have always sat there. Why?” “Oh, it is nothing.”

It was extremely strange. I remember that only the colors changed overall. Nothing changed except the fact that my parents deceased and the fact that I cannot see colors correctly. However, I learned a true and important viewpoint on looking the world. I now acquired an ability to view the world from two visions: one from contorted eyesight, the other from corrected eyesight. The others would stick themselves with the corrected eyesight. I, with contorted eyesight, would not stick myself with the corrected one, but would rather compare, contrast, and admit my disability and my potentials. The miracle also taught me how to look not only from eyesight, but from thoughts as well. The importance of multifaceted viewpoints has been, and will be so great. The human technology and the scientific revolution all spawned from multifaceted viewpoints, not from solely one viewpoint. Maybe in this world where politics intermingle so horribly and complex, the multifaceted viewpoints will give us the answer on how to solve the problems we face now.