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The small child drew the outline of a tree. He drew long, subtly curved lines down the trunk, just enough to represent the bark without making it look forced. He drew more lines nearer the edges, giving the impression of a third dimension. He even, almost as an afterthought, shaded in parts of the branches. Somehow, though, his drawing was not quite accurate: closer to what everyone thinks a tree looks like. The difference was subtle, yet undeniable.
He contemplated the leaves. He looked out of the window. The leaves were what made the tree from a simple shape to a complex fractal with many tiny components working together to create a glorious whole. He pushed the paper he had been drawing on to one side and started a new drawing. This one was of a leaf. A single leaf.
First he drew a basic outline, getting the awkward shape right first time. He changed the edges of the leaf from straight to jagged, but only just. The picture gave an impression of detail, though it was only made up of a few simple lines. He put together different shapes and shades to create an astounding representation of a leaf. The detail was so clear, it seemed to come alive. He smiled. Most people consider a leaf to be an irrelevant thing which just happens to be part of a tree, but this drawing made it seem so much more significant.
He put on one finishing touch that really made you want to pick it up and admire its beauty. Something that you would expect no child this small to even think of, let alone attempt. A perfect shadow.
Once again, he glanced through the glass that separated him from the outside world. There were lots of trees there. He put down his pencil and, after a moment of thought, picked up a colourful box. He spilled the contents onto the table. More pencils. But this time with colour. He studied the various shades, looking for one that was closest to the colour of the leaves on the trees outside. He made his decision, picked up the pencil and began rubbing the colour on to his drawing.
The leaf he drew was red.
As the small child grew up, it became evident that he had an outstanding artistic gift. He formed beautiful figures with his pencils, exquisite details, fascinating shapes. He liked sticking to pencil, though. Whenever he started colouring in his masterpieces, he was criticised.
Every day, he would look out of the same window at those same trees, and wonder. He would wonder why his mother prized this garden so much. What was the beauty in lots of flowers when a few would do? Large numbers of flowers were difficult to draw, but the tiny intricacies of one small flower were an artist's paradise.
Why draw entire landscapes when one element in perfect detail was much more beautiful? Landscapes always looked dull anyway. You could only just make out the trees and the rivers, and even then they were too samey. The world looked far better under a magnifying glass.
There was just one time that anything but detail stuck in his mind. Late on a summer night, he remembered boating on a quiet lake, with only the gentle plop of his father's fishing line. He fell asleep looking at the sky. The mountains that had been there for millions of years, through wars, famine, joy, lived through infinite lives, stood for longer than he could perceive. They had survived through many ice ages. They witnessed the beginning of the human race. The end of the dinosaurs. The separating of the continents.
But there was something else that had seen even more. The white stars on the pitch black sky. Further than he could imagine, bigger than he could possibly believe, older than the Earth itself, more complex than the fastest computer, the subjects of so many dreams.
It humbled him. It stuck with him for the rest of his life. He was just another grain of salt dissolved in the sea of existence. It's probably one of the reasons he loved detail. He imagined the small things he drew looking upon him with the same awe. He completed the finishing touches of his picture. Another tree. Trees had become his favourite subject. So much hidden detail...
His parents started to get worried. Their child was now easily old enough to draw a green tree, but even after much confused explanation, he would still draw them red. That's how they are, he said.
The parents despaired, and eventually sent him to a child psychologist. The psychologist analysed the paintings, interviewed the boy with lots of 'aah's and 'uh-huh's, thought for a while, and came to a conclusion:
"Have you ever had his eyes checked?" he asked.
"No," they replied, "but it can't be short-sightedness; we've shown him trees close-up too, and-"
"No, no. I think it may be colour-blindness. It's a severe case, mind you, and should not be treated lightly. Probably monochrome vision. I've heard of it before. Quite rare. Have it seen to right away."
The parents thanked the psychologist profusely and left. The child was confused, and frustrated. He did not understand the concept of colour. To him, everything was just shades. He wanted to know.
His parents tried to explain the different colours to him, to elaborate on the beauty they created when correctly combined, but he didn't understand. They had lived with colour for their whole life, took it for granted, whereas he couldn't fathom the concept.
He went to bed that night sadly, with ideas rushing around in his head. He didn't feel his parents had been very helpful. Just before he went to sleep, he picked up his reference dictionary and looked up 'colour':
"A sensation produced by rays of light of different wavelengths...." It made colour sound even more unreachable, even more distant from his grasp.
That night he dreamt.
In black and white.
The next morning, he found his parents being particularly nice to him, his mother with a fixed worried expression, always looking into his eyes, and his father, well, sad. He was kept from school, and his parents organised an appointment to check his eyes; to see if something could be done.
He'd been perfectly happy before, without all this colour nonsense - apart from the odd comment on trees not being red, and him having no taste for colour that he didn't want to understand anyway - he hadn't minded. Now his parents were making such a fuss about it and he felt as if he had been missing out on something all his life.
He prised himself from his mother for a while to do some drawing. He found his old set of coloured pencils, dusted them off, and started applying them in random ways to the paper. When he showed it to his mother, she cried. He felt so uncomfortable. He felt as if he would never be normal again.
The middle-aged man was slumped on a sofa, holding an empty can of beer, watching the television thoughtfully. He was watching a black and white film. Or at least he thought it was black and white. It looked old.
He reflected on his childhood. He remembered. Life was grand until he was about seven or eight. Everyone complimented him; he had a talent for drawing. Then everyone suddenly started treating him as if he were different. For a whole year he had to wear glasses with funny lenses that were supposed to help his 'condition', but he didn't realise that they weren't working, because he didn't know what was supposed to happen if they did work.
And he was teased. He had to change schools. Now he felt sad. There was a lump in his throat. He tried to wash it down with some beer, but there was none left. He felt his life was wasted. He threw the can at the wall, and blinked back a tear.
Suddenly something on the television caught his attention. It was a news broadcast. He watched it. It was something about a war somewhere that was causing horrific famine and so on. He didn't care about that. He wondered what had caught his attention. Oh well. Couldn't have been that important...
"And now those main headlines again... Balkan war causes worst famine ever... Floods bury half of England under the mud... Cambridge scientists discover breakthrough for eye surgery..."
The two-second picture representing that last news story inspired the middle-aged man on the sofa. It showed a man walking out from an experimental eye operation, and throwing his glasses away.
The glasses he threw away had funny lenses...
He couldn't believe it. All his life he thought he would never understand colour, and now he was actually going to get a chance to experience it. After almost two years of searching for someone that could cure his colour-blindness, spurred on by the fact that he knew it was possible, and that colour was meant to be so wonderful, he had finally succeeded. And now he was lying on a white table in a University hospital...
He woke up, feeling disoriented. There was a doctor removing a needle from his arm. That jogged his memory. He opened his eyes.
"You can't take that off for a week now, OK?" said a voice.
He couldn't see where the voice was coming from. He couldn't see anything. There was a wet bandage on his head, and the liquid was seeping into his eyes. It stung. Or was that just because of the operation? He tried not to scratch it.
This was nothing like the two-second picture on the news report that had started this all off. Worse than seeing in monochrome, now he was effectively blind, it hurt, and there was no guarantee it would work anyway, but it was well worth the risk... he couldn't wait to get the bandage off.
That week lasted for lifetimes. People he had never seen before, just hands with a voice, guided him around and helped him try to lead a normal life. As normal as possible when you have a piece of soaked bandage stabbing you in the eyes all the time.
When the moment came, he forgot all his pain; it turned into anticipation. He was going to see colour! He would discover the wonder! He was going to understand! The doctor was talking to him, telling him how to deal with it, and that it would be a shock, and his eyes might take some time to adjust, and, and, and... but he wasn't listening. He had imagined what colour would be like and now he was going to see it! He couldn't hold back the excitement; he wanted to rip the bandage off himself!
Slowly, the doctor began to loosen the bandage. It was lifted off, inch by inch, taking care not to rip, or pull, or hurt... his eyelids felt heavy, but the pressure was changing. He had been told to keep his eyes closed, squinted shut, then very slowly open them. He thought he couldn't resist a peek, but when the light hit his eyelids, he decided the doctor's advice was worth following.
He very slowly started to unsquint his eyes. Soon they were just shut without any pressure. He experienced his first colour. He didn't know which one it was. It was the light shining through his eyelids.
He delayed it for one last moment. Saying goodbye to a life without colour, and greeting a new milestone in his existence.
He opened them.
It exhausted him. Colour simply overwhelmed him. Most of the time it was too much of an effort to focus and he just let his eyes laze. Colour was a bit of a disappointment, really. He had imagined so much. People had talked about it to him as if it were divine. It - well, it... didn't live up to his expectations.
At least he finally understood why his mother liked lots of flowers. He supposed that all those colours were sort of beautiful, but he couldn't let go of his love for detail. And now it was so hard to see that detail. The effort of constantly focusing was unpleasantly tiring.
He closed his eyes. And cried.
The old man applied the finishing touches to his latest masterpiece. He closed his eyes and pictured it. Perfect. It was a familiar view of a single tree, each individual leaf drawn with loving care. He smiled and took it off the canvas. He felt around, trying to find the place he had assigned for it once it was complete. His grandson would be around to pick it up in the morning. It was sure to sell, he was a household name now.
He liked living off his drawings of what the world should look like. Imagination is the best landscape to draw from anyway. Being blind was a small price to pay for contentment...
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