Colorless

In this world status and success and are based on the colors you are born with. Each color means something different GREEN can mean you will marry and conceive healthy children. RED can mean you are a brave and courageous person. PINK can mean that you are a kind person. BLUE can mean you are both smart and wise. PURPLE can mean you have flawless beauty. ORANGE can mean you will be successful in life. YELLOW can mean you will be a humorous person that can make anyone smile. Finally GOLD means that you will be physically strong and healthy.

There are many different combinations with coloring of hair skin, and eyes. So what happens when a baby is born with skin and hair as white as porceline and eyes that are shining silver. This is the story of a girl who was born as such.

As long as I can remember I have lived at the orphanage. My parents simply threw me out after birth; who wants a colorless futureless child. The woman who found me crying in the trash, brought me to the orphanage, and named me Violet.

I hate my name, it is a mockery of the truely hopeless ugly person I am, and am known to be. I have never known what being loved or even being liked feels like, because through out my life I have been treated like a stray dog.

"Keep that plagued mutt away from me! She is going to fade my color!", the other orphans would yell, even going so far to throw rocks at me.

"Violet! What a horrible name for someone so ugly!" they would mock.

"If gold means you are strong, than white must mean you are weak!"

I believed at times that they were right. No matter how long this abuse went on, I still cried at every cruel remark. Even the caretakers at the orphanage treated me as an inferior child. They had me sleep in a small cramped room that would only fit a mattress. Keeping me away from the other girl's dorms. Their excuse was that I would give the little ones nightmares of ghosts. I believe though, that it was simply because they had to visit the girls room multiple times at night to check on the orphaned infants; if I slept separately they wouldn't have to see my sleeping face.

At the age of eleven though the toment and abuse had finally broken me, I planned to kill myself. It seemed suicide was the right thing to do, even if I were to end my life no one would miss me. I had enough of this torment, years worth of tears being shed had made me no more than a dry husk of the child that I should have been. I had no one who cared, in fact most would probably consider my death a blessing. I got a shard of broken glass ready to slit my wrists, but just before the edge of the glass cut my skin; a ray of light shone through the window, hitting the glass I was holding.

It made a rainbow that covered my arm. That was when I realized, if something as void of color as a piece of glass can make something so colorful, I should be able to make myself colorful too. That is the exact moment I decided I would make myself colorful. I wouldn't pity myself. No more self loathing. I would become beautiful. Just because changing colors had never been done, didn't mean I couldn't make it happen. There had never been a colorless child, yet somehow I managed that. So why couldn't I change colors.

Even if I am feared, abused, and am nothing but a colorless monster to others, I will keep going; because someday I am going to find my color, and when I do I will flaunt my beautiful colors to those who have wronged me. I will find my parents, and show them everything they missed out on. Even if I only become a light pastel, I will be on the cover of every magazine as the girl who miraculously changed colors. I have dreamt of the day that that will happen. My parents will beg to be in my life. They will grovel on their knees to taste my fame, and I will toss them to the side like they did to me.

But for any of that to happen I must learn everything I can about each color. I must practice beauty and poise to be purple. I must: read, learn, observe, and master self control to be blue. I must stay in perfect health to become green and or gold. I must be kind to others to become pink (which means being kind, even to my bullies). I must exercize and be strong to become gold, I must learn to be couragous and brave to become red. I must learn all kinds of jokes, pranks, and sarcasm to become yellow. The hardest one of all though, is becoming orange, because orange means success, and success is hard to come by for someone like me. I am determined. I will get as many colors as I can.

Each night I decided to sneak into the orphanage's library which is easier to do since the caretakers put me in a separate room. The library isn't too impressive, but for an orphanage it was perfect. No one is inside the library at night so I can go and read the books that would typically only be allowed for the blue children to read. Each night I would read something new. I came to this God forsaken place knowing nothing, but I know all sorts of things now. I have read of King Soloman and learned of his wisdom, I have learned about makeup and fashion style, from historic times to modern day. I have learned of different manners and etiquette. I am fairly certain I have the table manners to have a brunch with the queen. I have read self help books to keep any tears away after being bullied, and different types of exercise routines to help with green and gold colors. I have read countless joke books, and now know more jokes than all of the yellow children in the orphanage combined.

Each morning I would wake up early, and volunteer for any chores, no matter how gross. I would change infant's diapers, I would mop floors, make meals. I made sure never to over exert myself, because I could become sick if I were to over exaust myself, and that would worsen my chances of becoming green. I limited myself to three books a night so I wouldn't become exausted each day. Opposed to playing in the playground, fields, and forrest every day like the other children; every other day I would take charge in watching the infants at the orphanage.

They had no bias against me for being colorless; as they didn't understand anything. The caretakers didn't mind leaving them with me, because to them it was a break from work. Working with infants instead of playing would help with becoming pink and green, and there were no bullies to deal with.

The days I wasn't working with babies I would exercize. Other kids would follow me, teasing me the whole time. I would simply continue running and ignore them, or stop and use both my wisdom and my humor to backfire there cruel remarks. For instance a boy named Robert, whom was three years older than I, came up to me while I was running.

"Who taught you how to run, your parents? Oh wait they didn't want you, so you must have learned how to hobble like this all on your own." Robert mocked. His friends laughed. I looked at Robert carefully, he was much stronger and taller than I, as he was predominately gold, but having blue eyes I would assume he was too smart to hit a girl in broad daylight. What my tormentors didn't know was that I was getting much better at dealing with their abuse, as well as reading their behavior. I stopped running and I smirked.

"You know my parent's didn't teach me to run I am self taught. I didn't need anyone's help. In the time that I have 'hobbled' three laps you have hardly ran one." Thus far I had not been cruel, I simply stated facts. "Now you would think that someone with gold hair, gold skin, and blue eyes, such as yourself, would know how to run, or at least what running looks like;" I tilted my head showing my amusement "but that doesn't seem to be the case. If you want to learn how to run you may watch me."

As I ran off I could hear the laughs of Robert's friends. He had most certainly lost some popularity, from being told off by this white monster. It wouldn't deter him for long though. I smiled at my successful comeback.

This was my life now. In the next few months I only became better at everything that I did. I successfully defeated my bullies in a calm conversational way so many times, and those who decided to try and beat me up were soon beat up themselves. Robert was the most frequent bully, always trying to get revenge. I began to notice though that Robert had become much less social since I had began sticking up for myself.

I saw him sitting in the grass alone one day and walked up to him. I started talking before he even noticed I was there. "Why aren't you mocking me on my run? You are kind of part of my schedule at this point." I said jokingly.

He mumbled, "Just go away freak, I won't bother you anymore." I was shocked at this, he really wasn't acting right. This wasn't the cocky jerk I had been dealing with for years. I sat down next to him,

"Okay what is wrong with you? Winning arguments with you is like the best part of my day." He grumbled something inaudible. "You know if you want me to leave; you will have to talk to me. Other wise I am just going to sit here and talk to you all day." I said.

He whipped his head towards me and began yelling, "I am done with you, because I know I can't win! I am gold and blue! I am supposed to be smarter and stronger than a colorless freak like you!" His fury faded, and sadness filled his eyes. "It doesn't matter how many times I taunt you, call you names, or try to out run you; you always win. You know, none of my friends want to be seen with me, all because I have lost to you so many times. You don't even try and...". I stopped him there.

"Listen up bub. Anyone who says I am not trying is dead wrong. Do you remember all of those years that I cried and hid away, trying to avoid you jerks. I couldn't do anything back then. I have worked my ass off to learn everything, and stay fit, and even keep you bullies out of my head. I do chores, I babysit, I workout everyday, and despite being bullied, I am still managing to stay kind to you fart heads. I stay up late I wake up early, and still nobody likes me, but I keep going. So never say that I 'don't try' ever again."

He looked at me shocked, "yeah but..."

I cut him off again, "Just because you have color, doesnt mean you are the best. It means you have an advantage. I don't have a single supporter or advantage and I am still going strong. So get up off your sorry butt and do something. Just because no one is with you, doesn't mean you can give up." I stood up and offered my hand. He gave me a small smile and grabbed my hand. I pulled him up and he said something no one else had ever said to me.

"You know, for someone without any color, you are pretty cool." I started crying, and he was looking around trying to figure out what made me cry.

I looked at him, "Sorry, it's just that is the first compliment anyone has ever given me." I said, while wiping tears away.

He smiled "Seriously all this time I have been trying to make you cry, and all I had to do was give you a compliment?" I laughed. He continued to talk. "Well that's easy enough. I guess I will have to make it a daily thing." And just like that my biggest bully turned into my best friend. We were inseparable for years after that. He was my big brother and I was his little sister.