Short Story of the Month: May

Tinted

By: S. McManus

Rose. That’s what happiness looked like to her. A pink-ish garden, often blooming in her room, would creep out and encase her in smells of raw and sweet.  It was the colour of sweaters, of just-right cocoa and melting marshmallows. Of her own name, in fact; the blushing Rosetta.

But as the seasons come and go, so did her flowers, which died at the blow of morning’s icy breath, shrivelling and dusting away with her spirits. That’s how it was most days. Little by little, the world would go blue, then green in a stench of what she could only describe as plastic. Outside, everything was surreal, forced and incomprehensible noise. The little time she had in her room simply wasn’t good enough. And while it did make her smile and delight in it’s own kind of perfect, it also grew more and more apparent how small her garden was to the immensity of the world. And how her escape was short-lived, and unable to fill her leaking days.

In her mind, a little idea bud began to sprout.

And so, she began to plant. Even though Rosetta petals are too soft and sensitive to withstand unpredictable environments, she tried hiding seeds in her favourite nooks and crannies of the day. In little secrets, a song, a smile, or just a word, she spread them out, to be left untouched by everyone but her.

Unfortunately for Rosetta, people are curious creatures.  Looking to seek and explore even her tiny islands of garden. To them, she was a riddle, a deep, mysterious lake which once gazed upon, only their own reflections were revealed. More and more often, her little hiding spots became messy with their half-formed, half-blind opinions. Their judgements, both good and bad, shallowly rippled in her lake. They crashed against the current and began to crack the mirror surface. She didn’t like this one bit.
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That was when the glasses came in. Out in the blue, carefully chosen specs would never leave her face. They were odd but elegant and carved out of Rosetta thorns. Their shape broke moulds and surprisingly, suited her freckles and strawberry, almost rosy locks. Every little detail was all about her, the her people scarcely knew. No matter, she could no longer care less for their alien humour and untamed, free-falling words. The signature flowery lenses were her favourite aspects and the true intention of the eyeglasses, a protection from the outside world. The lenses were, in fact, slightly tinted with red and something else picked fresh from the garden, which left this cloudy pink colour that naturally made a mess of her vision, and all that came into it. To her, the world became whatever she wanted it to be, creating forms and life out of the mist to make sense of the sounds and sensations that reached her, of what she chose not to block out. To everyone else, her thoughts, feelings, all that poured out from the eyes, the windows to her soul, were sealed ,airtight.  And to her, they were the perfected chaos she always wanted them to be. She blossomed, happy but naïve to the matters of the cosmos.