Note from Steph: The prompt for this flash fiction produced a lot of really pretty images! It was a tough choice. But sometimes, I look for the image that I know has a story behind it. And when I saw this woman, I knew there was something more there.
The barista’s thoughts are fuchsia today, all spiky and caffeinated. They stab into my temples like tiny disco lights.
“Just a black coffee,” I say, before she can suggest their new caramel-whatever that she’s so excited about. Her enthusiasm would be neon pink, and I can’t handle pink right now.
The cafe is mercifully empty for a Tuesday morning. Only two other customers: a student whose anxiety swirls around him in deep purple spirals, and an old man whose contentment glows a soft orange that doesn’t hurt to look at.
I press my fingers to my temples. Three people’s worth of colors and I’m already regretting leaving my dark apartment. But my therapist says I need to “engage with the world” despite my “unusual neurological condition.” Easy for her to say. Her thoughts are always a calm, professional sage green.
I take a deep breath through my nose and out through my mouth as I reach for my coffee. I give myself another twenty to thirty minutes before I’m out the door and heading home. There’s only so much of this I can take.
That’s when I see him through the window.
He’s waiting at the crosswalk, and hmmm, is there something wrong with my vision?
I look down at my shoes and recenter myself before lifting my eyes again.
Where everyone else blazes with their emotional color schemes — the jogger’s determined red, the dog walker’s cheerful yellow — he’s… colorless. Huh.
His thoughts move around him in elegant patterns of black and white, like an old film.
My headache vanishes so suddenly I gasp.
The crosswalk signal changes.
Please come in, I think. Please please please.
The bell above the door chimes.
And for the first time in months, the world doesn’t hurt.
I hold my breath as he crosses to the counter. He orders a tea. Earl Grey. His voice is as monochromatic as his thoughts — steady, clear, uncluttered. While everyone else’s mental colors bleed and splash into each other like watercolors gone wrong, his thoughts maintain crisp edges, precise patterns.
I try not to stare. Really, I do.
He catches me anyway.
“Something wrong?” He tilts his head, and the movement sends ripples through his black and white thought-patterns. Like rings in still water.
“No! No, just…” Think of something normal to say. “I like your… scarf?”
He’s not wearing a scarf.
Great job, brain.
His smile creates a new pattern, geometric shapes shifting like a kaleidoscope, but still purely black and white. “I’m not wearing a scarf,” he says.
“I know.” I close my eyes, mortified. “I’m just really bad at… people,” I say.
“Ah.” He sits at the table next to mine. Without asking. The nerve. The relief. “Too many colors?” he asks.
My eyes snap open. “What?”
“The colors.” He gestures around his head. “Everyone’s thoughts. They hurt, don’t they?”
The student’s anxiety purple spikes with interest. The barista’s fuchsia turns curious.
“How…” My throat feels tight. “How do you know about that?” I ask.
He shrugs, and his black and white patterns swirl, calm and clean. “I have a sixth sense about these things,” he says.
I narrow my eyes and he laughs. Oh, I like his laugh. It’s not a burst of vibrating blue like I would expect. It’s a sunny, white sky. I want to reach out and touch it.
But that would be weird.
Don’t do that.
“And, I’m a neurologist who specializes in synesthesia,” he continues, sipping his tea. “I’ve learned to control my thoughts’ colors and tamp down the color of others. I can teach you, if you’d like.”
The world holds its breath.
“Also,” he adds with another geometric smile, “I really do need a scarf.”
Image made with Midjourney.
Prompt provided by NoGENver, GoOnWrite.
Flash Fiction written by S. J. Pajonas with assistance from Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
Listen to this story on YouTube at https://youtu.be/pLGl3r3QWpw
