--

Optimists, some argued, view the world through rose-tinted glasses. “All will be well”, “everything will be fine”. Situations weren’t as doomed as the forecasts and cynics predicted. Because life, for them, shined a bit brighter, gleamed a pinkish hue.

Did variations of this saying exist? Green-colored lenses? Periwinkle? Perhaps, even a burnt-sienna? What hues metaphorically dyed everyone’s outlook?

Most importantly, which would describe Jessica’s?

Science provided the vocabulary for color blindness: protanomaly, deuteranomaly, tritanomaly, etc. Studies acknowledged its relevance in a world of typical seers.

Jessica Jung couldn’t claim this category, either. Her perception of colors fell into the norm, which only told the 28-year-old that her condition was purely psychological, or worse, unreal. To no-one could she really communicate her vision without sounding vague or delirious.

Her best description would be a dullness. As if her retinas were shuttered by the planet’s most uninteresting Instagram filter. A plainness affected whatever she encountered. Flowers, balloons, paintings, a kaleidoscope, photography—whether color or black-and-white. Everything dulled beneath this filter. Jessica regularly ignored magazines, social media, and commercials, where the non-Jessica population went ape over seeing basic stuff.

Monday morning, Jessica commenced her necessary primping. Showering, teeth brushing, makeup, curling the ends of her long, fair hair. She wondered aloud as she tucked a powder blue blouse into her skirt,

“I suppose this is my favorite color.”

The blouse adhered to her small frame adequately. It matched easily and its buttons were square, which was mildly interesting. She liked the blouse, so maybe powder blue suited her fancy.

She sighed. Whatever.

Jessica gathered her purse, keys, cell phone, and embarked upon a world as dull as the inside of her home.

Actually, she recalled a time before the dullness abducted her. Pre-puberty. Then, somewhere between high school and her first job, adulting the spice from triumphs large and small.

Not saying she hadn’t tried to make the most of it. Fabled adults pushed past the mediocre; they hustled for a niche on this planet. Seeking education, enlightenment, companionship. As evidenced by the phone vibrating in Jessica’s purse, interrupting a typical ride in the Metro. A text from her ex.

‘Take me back’, it read.

Jessica and her ex-girlfriend, Miyoung, spent a generic two years as a couple. She closed her unsleepy eyes, picturing Miyoung’s Crest-commercial-grade smile, her manicured fingernails drifting through Jessica’s hair. Dinner dates, overseas vacations, sleepovers, . They had a good time. Which predictably confused Miyoung and both their families when Jessica nuked the relationship.

‘It’s not you, it’s me’ genuinely fit her attitude. She didn’t feel for Miyoung. Wasn’t that important? To feel?

Or, did the love songs lie? Courtship hadn’t swept this girl off her feet.

Possibly, Jessica could get over herself and settle. A partnership with Miyoung meant better insurance, taking the accountant’s stellar benefits package into consideration. They would die together, debt-less at a ripe old age, plausibly on a $2.5M yacht.

She yawned into her palm. God, visions of their future even jaded Jessica.

Nope, she’d fly solo.

As a daily shortcut, Jessica trotted through the spacious park adjacent to her job. She managed a midsize editorial team and one of her “perks” was a clear view of this green patch of trees and sidewalk. Coworkers endlessly remarked on their envy and every so often, Jessica strained not to scream, “It’s not that ing nice!”.

She’d put in an effort. Really, she did. Staring at the foliage from her 12th-floor rise, chasing inspiration or relaxation. Instead, it frustrated her. What kind of human obtained zero solace from nature? How come she could see, but not truly feel like everyone else?

Was Jessica defective?

Had she peaked as her chipper 12-year-old self, a solid sixteen years ago?

Jessica squeezed the thin strap of her handbag and proceeded as normal, pretending to be content with the cards dealt onto life’s dull, dull table.

--

A week later, she arrived early. By the convenience of muscle-reflexed hair and makeup, spry legs in boots, and train ingenuity, Jessica found herself in that soulless park on a breezy Wednesday morning ahead of schedule. Stringy, beard-like clouds crawled listlessly. A sun reluctant to break its beauty rest hid behind lumps of grey-on-grey-on-grey sky.

On mornings like this, the weather served the rest of Korea a taste of what Jessica perceived every day. Shuddering, she let the wind take her. She couldn’t think of anything more interesting to do. Her office supplied several varieties of coffee and low-fat yogurt, leaving her free of a breakfast run. Hence, the breeze steered Jessica around sidewalks and park benches dedicated to men who probably owned half the city.

In her warm coat pocket, Jessica clutched her phone. Miyoung still carried on with her begging. She and Jessica, Miyoung claimed, could light the deepest trenches of ocean with their spark.

“That’s romantic”, Jessica admitted.

Bonelessly, she landed on a dedicated bench. She wanted it to experience that spark, that draw. A longing that would leave her breathless and reckless and warm and aroused and ing crazy. Her cleanly wound lashes fluttered to a soft close. And Jessica tried again, to visualize a woman who’d set a flame under her passion’s . Intimate company that’d heat her blood like a kettle. So hot, it’d finally shine red. Real, ardent red—the color flowing through ladies who genuinely lived.

And moments later, it appeared before her.

Not red, but green.

Jessica’s eyes weren’t shut anymore. She blinked in instant bewilderment. Across from her, an arc of trimmed hedges rustled, practically dripping with green. Several shades, each more vivid than any box of crayons. Patterned in shadows and tints, beaded by tiny dots of dew.

Spectacular.

And, just as Jessica’s rationale caught up, questioning why, the color faded.

“Oh god,” she gasped, startling an old couple as she clawed feebly into the prickly shrubs. They scraped and poked and Jessica didn’t care. The dullness reigned again. These hedges meant nothing once more.

She stayed put. For thirty minutes, approximately.

Crushed, Jessica dragged her feet to the office. She’d be late.

Why and how had her shutters lifted? Without precedent or any topic to Google, Jessica considered herself shot out of luck. A glimmer of brightness was just that—a glimmer. Transient. Ephemeral.

She cried in the bathroom twice on Tuesday. Coworkers gave her ample breathing room, apparently cautious of their usually put-together manager jackhammering her stable façade. And again, Jessica couldn’t spare two damns about her public reception. Emails, meetings, edits meant -all.

Jessica Jung had feelings, after all. Currently misery, to be specific.

Misery and clarity, she concluded as she booted down her computer that evening. Clarity over her future with Miyoung. An empty future. Because Jessica couldn’t break this cycle, ride off into the sunset with her ex-girlfriend who waxed poetic on the oceans and sparks. If a flash of green gave her more excitement than an entire human being, a revival of what they’d shared wouldn’t benefit either party.

After work, Jessica sat on that very same bench. And waited.

For what?

Her dark eyes scanned vigilance to anything or anyone that moved, that possessed the power to change this uninteresting period called Jessica Jung’s Existence. To her ignorance, she’d hoped for all the answers to spell themselves out that night. Preferably in crystal dew or leaves greener than color itself.

But, eventually, such hope dwindled. She called quits on her hunt well past 10pm and headed, dejectedly, to the rumbling, boring Metro. Every minute or so, she glanced either way for that brilliance.

Sadly, her world appeared dimmer than before.

Jessica skipped dinner and cried herself to sleep.

--

This acute disappointment didn’t stop Jessica from catching an early train to the park and lingering until a socially acceptable time to file into the office. And while playing email ping pong with frustrating staff, she couldn’t focus. Her level of productiveness plunged slightly, then plateaued only for the sake of keeping her job. Though, as she considered the grey walls and the close confines of numbed company robots, she wondered what the hell she liked about this place.

So, when Jessica wasn’t doing the bare workload minimum, she web searched photos of trees. Or gazed out her window. Daydreaming, worrying that yesterday had been a fluke. Did she conjure up the brilliance? Had it been under her control all along? And if so, how to access it again?

These questions were key, not her boss’ small talk or a client’s penchant for meme responses. Because she’d seen the light. And she feared its absence would affect her for the worst.

--

Days of the same passed until on Friday, a mere twelve minutes before her team’s weekly roundup meeting, it returned. It passed within the steady stream of people power walking, chattering, checking their watches, sipping to-go coffees, wholly unaware of something beautiful.

A sharp, noticeable shock of splendor.

Jessica flung from her bench to trail its source. A metaphorical basset hound’s snout and ears sprung onto her face like a tacky Snapchat effect. Gaze forward, intent to sus out this light-bringer.

“Excuse me,” she semi-murmured, cursing her short stature as she shimmied through the pack of suit jackets and pinned corporate hairstyles. “I have to see—”

Jessica hesitated, suddenly skeptical.

See what?, she thought as she crossed one street after another. Pursuing unidentified prey was one thing, but finding it? What if this lured her to failed expectations? What if this lured her to obsession? Or death?

This moment was major. Life-alteringly so.

Which motivated Jessica to press on. To army-step her boots to...

Her.

Up close, right behind the source, the brilliance amazed, consumed, pushed, frightened Jessica. She stumbled in a backward step, overwhelmed in a way that told her life would be forever changed.

“Is it the sequins?”

Realizing she’d shielded her eyes, Jessica’s arm fell to the side. Then, her speaking skills hit a record low as her source—the source stood before her, grinning.

“My sequins,” the source went on to explain, holding open a jacket tailored for her lithe, postured torso. “Went out shopping with some friends and they insisted I buy this shiny blouse. Do I belong on the top of a Christmas tree or what?”

Okay, the strip of sequins down the center was a tad overstated. More notably, however, was the improved atmosphere. Everything, down to the tiniest details somehow glistened. The shine on Jessica’s boots, the blades of grass sprouting between cracks in asphalt. Hues and reflections transformed the city’s glass architecture into sky-scraping mosaics. Speaking of the sky—Jessica’s eyes teared—it had never appeared so blue. The bluest blue.

Jessica focused again on the source. She hadn’t spoken yet.

it, why wouldn’t she speak?!

The source smiled nervously and rested a hand on Jessica’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”

Even her touch felt like sunshine. Its sultry warmth bled through Jessica’s sweater and ignited the entirety of her arm, her whole body. The light-bringer turned out to be the human embodiment of a dream. With eyes like stars and legs for days. Hair the color of a grizzly and just as fierce, loosely coiled down her back, swathing what Jessica would imagine being shallow shoulder blades.

Jessica struggled to nod. A weak, awkward semblance of a nod, passable for the source to accept it as a means to escape.

“Great,” she intoned, hastily sidestepping back into the foot traffic. “Nice, um, nice conversation. Take care.”

Her source left? No, she couldn’t just leave.

Or else, the brilliance would leave, too.

Purposefully padding her distance with four or five strangers, Jessica followed this brilliant woman. Work be damned. Sanity be damned.

This lightened universe nourished her eyes, her being. Meaning it’d be ever the more scarring once she lost track of the source. And then, she’d be even lower than before.

Regardless, Jessica now praised her short stature. It allowed her to successfully stalk, to cover her flushed cheeks with her hands and ask “what am I doing, what am I doing?” without being noticed.

What was Jessica doing?

Following this woman into a restaurant, that’s what. In a finesse unknown to herself, she swerved and crouched stealthily behind the patrons milling about, discussing and lifting containers of breakfast foods. Jessica’s light-bringer (as seen behind some bald man rooting through a basket of bananas) claimed a small tub of pre-made cinnamon oatmeal from the hot section before treading into a line. Jessica encouraged two more customers to join the line, ripped a (not ripe) banana from the bunch, and hopped in after them.

Waiting, she breathed in the air of morning activity. The reds of the restaurant’s window decals, the swoops and swirls of chalky calligraphy on the specials board, the rich burgundy polished onto her fingernails, the ceiling lamps gleaming, almost glaringly. Jessica could get used to this world and all its beauty. She could love the every day.

The source of light pointed her cashier to an apple tart in a glass case. Jessica smiled at this, at the most radiant woman appeasing a giant sweet tooth. And when the register rang of her paid items, Jessica tossed her green banana into an unsuspecting person’s bag and continued her stalking outside.

She crept, ducked, parried until her target veered to scan a card into a large marble building. Fifty feet away, a vital source of Jessica’s joy would abandon her. The cycle of dullness and banality would roll back into formation.

“!”

Maybe Jessica exclaimed that a bit too loudly because her source’s head turned with a neck-snapping ferocity. Jessica hid. Then, she held her place behind a bike rack until the stalked woman shook her head and closed the door at her back.

For the rest of the day, Jessica operated with her head in the clouds. She had so much more to contemplate. Like, how the brilliance lasted a whole ten minutes after following her muse. Or how the warmth of that soft touch gave her goosebumps. Or the gentle slope of her face and the brightness of her humor. Her aura in general, in fact. The woman Jessica met personified a ray of sunlight.