Only Colours

When Mikey was six, he made his first friend. Her name was Claire. Until then the only person who he could see or hear had been his mum. He didn't know why. Nobody did. Claire was in his class at school, and she helped him by passing the teacher's instructions on to him.

Claire could turn things into ice with just a touch, but it was a secret. She wasn't supposed to tell anyone, but she told Mikey anyway. In turn, Mikey told her about how he saw colours in place of most people. She didn't really understand, but it felt good to tell someone anyway. It felt good to have a friend.

Mikey could see her parents, too, and sometimes he went over to Claire's house to play. One day when Mikey was at Claire's house they were outside playing with the hose and an ice tray. They would fill the ice tray with water and then Claire would freeze the cubes. They were making a big pile of them together.

Then Claire's dad came outside and he saw them and he was very angry, but inside he was scared. Mikey saw it in the colours. Then her mum came too and she cried and Claire cried, and Claire's dad told Mikey that he mustn't tell anyone, that nobody would believe him anyway. Mikey told him that he hadn't, that he wouldn't, but Claire's parents were still scared and angry. Mostly scared.

They called Mikey's mum and she came and took him home. She asked what was wrong, but Mikey didn't tell her. The next day, Claire wasn't at school. She wasn't at school the day after that, either. Mikey never heard from her again.

Mikey could see some people, but he usually didn't approach them. They were strangers. Some of the people he could see didn't have colours, and somehow Mikey had always known that meant something bad. He cried and told his mum he wanted to go home when he saw those people, though he never told her why. It made her sad that he was different.

When he was eight, Mikey met the next person who he could see, a psychologist named Dr Lucas. Mikey had been taken to many psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors, and other specialists over the years, but they had never been able to help him. He couldn't even see or hear them, so how could they? Dr Lucas was different.

The instant they entered the psychiatrist’s office, Mikey's eyes met Dr Lucas'. He had dark, grey flecked hair, and Mikey returned the gentle smile Dr Lucas gave him with triple the intensity.

"You can see him?" Mikeys mum asked with hopeful surprise. Mikey gave a nod of confirmation.

"Well that's a good start, isn't it?" Dr Lucas said, his voice warm and friendly. He was warm and friendly on the inside, too. Mikey instantly decided he liked Dr Lucas.

Dr Lucas only asked Mikey a few questions at first, about what grade he was in and what he liked doing most at school. Mikey didn’t know why Dr Lucas wanted to know, but he basked in the attention anyway and answered eagerly. About fifteen minutes into the session, Dr Lucas asked Mikey's mum to leave so he could talk to Mikey alone. She agreed, but only after Mikey assured her that he would be fine. Dr Lucas was a good man.

"You don't see people," Dr Lucas said in his slow, calm voice. "Most people. What do you see? Nothing?"

Mikey chewed his lip for a moment and shook his head. He had never really spoken to anyone about this. Not since Claire, and she hadn't understood anyway.

"So you see something?"

Mikey nodded his head, and then when Dr Lucas looked at him expectantly he said, "Colours."

Dr Lucas gave him a small, interested smile. He was more interested on the inside than he let show on the outside. "Colours?"

Mikey just nodded.

"Colours like blurry images? As if the people were out of focus?"

Mikey shook his head.

Dr Lucas tapped his lip with his pen, but he didn’t write anything down. "Are they the same colours for everyone?"

Another head shake from Mikey.

"Are they the same colours for a single person, or do they change?"

"They change," Mikey said. "Most of them, anyway. Some colours are always the same, but some change all the time."

"Do the colours mean anything?" Dr Lucas asked. His posture was calm, but inside he was bursting with curiosity.

Mikey shifted his gaze away from where the colours were centred around Dr Lucas' chest and to his face. His mum was always telling him to look her in the eye when he spoke to her. "Yes."

Dr Lucas leant forward slightly in his chair. "Can you tell me what the colours mean, Mikey?"

Mikey shrugged his slim shoulders. "All kinds of things, I guess. Things about people."

Dr Lucas nodded his head encouragingly. "Like what?"

"Like how they're feeling, if they're good people." Mikey squirmed in his seat. "Things like that."

It was interesting watching Dr Lucas' colours while watching his face and hearing his words. If Mikey hadn't been watching Dr Lucas' colours, he would have thought the man was perfectly at ease. When Mikey's mum felt something it always came through on her face and in her voice.

"Most people don't see colours," Dr Lucas said, as though Mikey might not know that. Mikey knew. He might not have been able to talk to anyone but his mum, but if seeing the colours was normal it would have been in TV shows. Mikey watched a lot of TV.

"And I don't see most people," Mikey mumbled back.

"That must be difficult."

The particular blue tinge that blossomed into Dr Lucas' colours told Mikey that the sympathy in his tone was genuine.

"Why do you think you can see me, Mikey?" Dr Lucas asked. "You can see so few other people."

Mikey had a theory based on the fact that he had been able to see Claire. "Maybe you're special?"

A burst of pink came just before the smile that stretched Dr Lucas' lips. "You're a smart boy. Can you keep a secret, Mikey?"

Mikey nodded without hesitation. His mum was the only person he even had to tell, but he wouldn't have told someone else's secret regardless.

"I am special, a bit like you." Acid green anxiety swirled against lemon yellow excitement. "While you can see how others are feeling, I can actually feel the emotions of others."

Mikey tipped his head to the side, his lips twisting in thought. "Like if they're sad it makes you feel sad?"

"Sort of. I can feel that they're sad without becoming sad myself." Dr Lucas smiled as his colours began to calm. "Although, of course, knowing somebody is sad certainly doesn't make me happy."

"It's a secret, though?"

Dr Lucas nodded. "It's not something most people are aware of, Mikey, and it's important that it remains that way."

"I won't tell."

"Good," Dr Lucas said with a smile, but Mikey could see the anxiety beginning to reappear. "I would also suggest not telling anyone about your own peculiarities. They wouldn't believe you anyway, but, well... it's best not to."

"I tried to tell my mum once," Mikey confided, "but she didn't understand. I decided I wouldn't because she doesn't like me being different."

"She doesn't like you being sad," Dr Lucas explained. "She doesn't like you missing out on opportunities in life and being unable to make friends. It's the side effects of your being different that she doesn't like."

Mikey wasn't sure how Dr Lucas could be so sure about how his mum felt after speaking to her for only ten minutes, so he just shrugged. It didn't matter which parts of it she did or didn't like. It all came as part of a single package.

"Being different doesn't have to be a bad thing," Dr Lucas told Mikey. "For instance, the way in which I'm different makes me very good at my job. It's easier to help people with their problems when you know how they're feeling."

Mikey frowned and hunched his shoulders. "But I can't even see or hear people. How can I help them?"

"The way in which you're special isn't the same as the way in which I'm special. You may find it can serve a different purpose."

Mikey let out a sharp, frustrated sigh. "Like what?"

"Are the colours pretty?" Dr Lucas asked. His colours had settled back into more relaxed blue and green hues. "You could draw them. Paint them. People expect artists to be eccentric."

"I do like to do art," Mikey admitted.

The remainder of the hour long session was spent with Mikey trying to draw the colours and failing to adequately express them. He had only Dr Lucas' coloured crayons to work with and the colours were too inaccurate. Dr Lucas didn't seem to understand that if the shade was off even a little it was pointless because it might mean something entirely different.

When Mikey's mum came back in at the end of the session, Dr Lucas told her to buy Mikey paint. He called it art therapy.

Mikey already had a set of eight cheap watercolour paints, but they were quite inadequate for what he would need. Mikey's mum bought him oil paints, acrylic paints, and a new set of water paints with more colours. She tended to go a little overboard on anything she thought might help him. It usually got neither of them anywhere.

Mikey liked the watercolours the most. They most accurately portrayed the transparency of the colours. The colours looked more like glowing, swirling mist, though, something that was hard to convert to a still and solid picture.

Mostly, Mikey just tried to make the colours as accurately as he could and label the emotions they represented. Mikey's mum grew more worried as Mikey spent hours at a time not painting, just mixing colours. He became agitated if she interrupted him. If the paint he was mixing dried before he got the right colour, his efforts would be wasted.

When their next session came around Dr Lucas told Mikey's mum it was nothing to worry about, but in private he told Mikey he needed to be less obsessive.

"Perhaps if you tried painting something sometimes," Dr Lucas suggested. "Landscapes, animals, people..."

Mikey tapped the toe of his shoe against the leg of the coffee table between them. "She'll think I'm weird if I paint people with the colours, though."

"So paint them without."

Mikey's expression wrinkled into one of distaste.

Dr Lucas' brow creased. Confusion and curiosity bled into his colours. "What am I missing?"

"Only bad people don't have colours," Mikey murmured. The tapping of his shoe against the coffee table leg sped up.

"Bad people?"

"Yeah. Some people I can see but they have no colours... they're the bad people. They're scary."

Dr Lucas tapped his pen against his lip. He always held it, but never wrote anything down. Not when he was alone with Mikey. "Why do you think they're bad?"

Mikey gave an exaggerated shrug and fidgeted on the couch. "I just think they are. I think it means something bad, to not have colours."

It was hard for Mikey to keep track of all of Dr Lucas' colours in that moment. There were so many of them, so many different emotions. There was definitely some concern in there, though, and maybe a little fear.

"I think you might be right about that, Mikey," Dr Lucas said. His voice was deceptively calm. "Tell me, do living things other than people have colours? Do animals?"

Slowly, Mikey shook his head.

"Then perhaps you should consider that anyone who does not have colours is not a person," Dr Lucas said, and Mikey felt chills go down his spine. "I think you should stay away from them. Okay?"

Mikey nodded quickly. He had already been doing that. Though he hadn't known why those people — or whatever they were — didn't have colours, he had somehow known it meant something was very wrong with them. Something that made them dangerous.

After their second session, Mikey started painting animals with the colours he mixed up. Once he was satisfied he had mixed the colour for an emotion as accurately as he was able, he would paint an animal expressing that emotion. A happy, aquamarine dog, or a sad, lilac cat. He brought them to their third session and showed Dr Lucas.