Colors

[TW: abuse]

Many years ago, the government allowed my family to leave the country for a week or more. My parents had called it a vacation. To this day, I do not know what that word means. But it was a unique experience.

For ten hours we sat cramped together on a plane.

The breathtaking view from my window seat bored me, after just half an hour of marveling. Back then I was still a little, five-year-old girl. My feet rested on my family's luggage, I sat squeezed together on my chair. Soon my back and legs were hurting. Between me and the aisle Eva, mother, and father were sitting. Within an hour I got up three times to go to the toilet, just to have something to do and stretch my dead legs. The fourth time Mother slapped me in the face and sent me back to my seat. I cried and screamed loudly, no one on the plane heard me. Nobody looked at me. Only Eva grinned silently into herself as she pretended to read a book. I was sobbing wordlessly for a few hours, endured the throbbing pain throughout my whole body and did not dare get up anymore. Shortly before landing, I peed into my pants. Mother said nothing about it until we arrived at our hotel room. Only then did I receive my deserved thrashing, while my father was shouting ear-splittingly.

Over the next few days, we traveled through a world that was vastly different from the one I had known until then. People wore beautiful dresses; I realized this, although I could not explain why it felt that way. Their mouths formed new sounds that I did not understand, but they gave me a good feeling. Mother and father and Eva were just sneering at them, so I mimicked them to not stand out.

On the fifth Evening we arrived at the sea. The sunset on the horizon was more wonderful than anything I had ever seen in my life. The last rays of the sun were shimmering on the waves. The water sparkled like a thousand diamonds. With my mouth gaping, I sat down in the sand. I sat there quietly and admired this spectacle. My mother's protests did not reach me.

When she grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet, I fought back. Never again in my life would I be as happy as in this place. I pleaded and screamed for help. A beautiful woman stopped us and exchanged a few words with my mother. I pulled at my arm, but she just firmed her grip. The beautiful woman looked back and forth between my mother's put-on smile and my attempts to escape her. Then the woman let us pass. It was the last day I was happy.

A few days later we returned home. My parents sent me to teachers and doctors. They told me I had to change. But I was too stupid to understand that. Two years later, I got the medication to help me understand. In the weeks that followed, the world lost its light.

When I was thirteen, I realized that I had to change my attitude to survive in this society.

I was sitting in my room over some homework. The front door opened and clicked shut.

"Hello, Anna!" my sister called as her steps approached.

"How are you?" I said, looking up from my desk.

Eva stopped in the doorway to my room and raised an eyebrow. A school bag hung over her shoulders. She wore her chin raised and her shoulders tight. "Good."

"Really?"

"Yes." She wanted to turn away but hesitated. "Why?"

I shrugged innocently. "I just wanted to ask."

She rolled her eyes. "You ask me every day. Can't you ask useful questions?"

"What, for example?"

"No idea, get creative." Eva sneered at me before closing the door. Through the thin walls her voice echoed from the kitchen. "What's wrong with that kid?"

"Child, watch your tongue," a louder voice reverberated to make sure the curious ears of neighbors had heard my mother's rebuke. But she added more quietly, "We don't know."

They wanted me to hear them. They wanted their words to hit me. And even though I knew that I could not fight back the tears. I knew I was doing them a favor. I knew they wanted to crack me like a nut and just wait for the emotions to break out of me.

But since that day I hid my tears under the blanket, masked my feelings and repressed the cries. And it worked. I was accepted and welcomed by the community with open arms. But I shattered under this burden, sweeping the shards of my personality under the rug, where no one could see them.

When I was eighteen, I had convinced them all that I was one of them. I had swindled them all. My mother proudly placed a hand on my right shoulder on the day I graduated from school. My father looked at me with a raised head as I gave the closing speech in front of all my comrades. Eva was not in the crowd.

With a smile on my lips and a rock-hard expression in my eyes I encouraged my friends to trust in their communities and serve their country, whatever that meant for each of them.

The blank faces listening to my words cut deep wounds into my heart. The words formed a lump in my throat, but I proficiently overplayed that.

I had my plans. I would use the scholarship I had received from the government to complete parts of my education abroad. And I did not plan to come back to this hole. Whatever life would try to through at me, I was able to adapt. And I knew how beautiful the world outside could be and I would make sure, to be part of it. That day was the last day that I had to change myself to fit in.