The Sounds of the Rainbow
I woke up like I do every morning, And just like every morning I thought to myself the things I knew for certain: my name is Iris, I have four legs, I have two ears, I have no eyes. It’s a short checklist, but when your world is just as empty when your eyes are wide open as it is when they’re closed you take comfort in the absolutes, as rare as they may be.
“Miss Iris,” cooed my nurse, “time to wake up.”
I hate my nurse, so I never took the time to learn her name. I've always just called her New Voice, and I hate New Voice. I miss the familiar voice of my old nurse. Nurse Redheart was her name. Red, such a meaningless word, I know it’s a color, but color is meaningless too. So many words are meaningless to me; picture, color, sight, rainbow. Rainbow, no, rainbow is worse, I hate rainbow. “It’s really beautiful; colors go all the way across the sky. Its how the pegasi show a storm is over.” that’s how Redheart described it, but Redheart’s gone now, so all I have is New Voice. I have New Voice, four legs, two ears and no eyes.
“Come on now, Miss Iris, we don’t have all day.” New Voice said.
Redheart never got as snippy as New Voice. I miss Redheart. I wish New Voice would just go away, she’s loud and irritating, not to mention she treats me like a filly that can’t even feed herself. Redheart treated me like anypony else, and that’s why I miss her. She was the first nurse I’ve ever had do that, but now she’s gone.
“Miss Iris, we need to get moving,” New Voice was irritated now, “and if I must I will force you out of that bed.”
I wanted more than anything to tell her to shut up, but I knew that would just make my life harder. So I got out of bed, grabbed my cane and proceeded towards New Voice.
"I'm coming, I'm coming." I used to be able to whack the nurses every now and then, but when the saw me snickering they told me to stop.
“That’s the spirit Iris! Now, time for breakfast.” New Voice spoke to me like I was a child.
My room was on the first floor of the hospital, so that I “didn’t do something dangerous” at night. Nopony here treats me like an adult. My room is number 15, so I pass by 14-4 on the way to the cafeteria. They used to feed me in bed, but they found that I was too messy of an eater. On my way to the cafeteria I get to hear the patients in the other rooms. It’s my only contact with the outside world, so I tend to savor it. I hear every word coming from every open door on my strolls down the hall, most of the time it’s just medical garbage, but today I heard the oddest assortment of lines coming from room 11 or 12,
“Did the crash give her super duper spider powers?” that peppy voice was new, and I rather enjoyed it.
“No, nor did it give her amazing healing powers. She needs to stay in bed for a few days.” him I recognized, he proposed I be given accesses to the cafeteria.
“A few days? Might as well be a few months, or a few years.” Again a new voice, this one seemed adventurous, like the character in a book Nurse Redheart read to me.
“It’s not so bad Rainbow Dash,” It was a rather pathetic voice, but that wasn’t important, what she said, however, caught my interest. So, this impatient mare was named Rainbow Dash.
After a while that name came back into my mind. Rainbow Dash, what an odd name; I wonder what she looks like. For the strangest reason, part of me wanted to meet her and ask her just that. I figured that she wasn’t going to make much noise now that her visitors were gone, and I was planning on listening for her voice when I got up the next morning, but luckily she was easier to find then that. She was reading a book out loud: “Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone”. I remember when nurse Redheart tried to read that book to me. I always thought that Daring Do sounded just like Redheart, although Rainbow Dash was making her sound like Rainbow Dash. Daring Do isn’t real, and I know that now.
When I entered her room it took her ages to speak up about me, in fact by the time she did Rainbow had almost gotten devoured by wild animals.
“Uh, hey. Is there something you, uh, need?”
She had definitely just realized I was there.
“Yes actually, you’re Rainbow Dash, correct?”
“Yes.” She sounded puzzled. Was it really that complicated of a question?
“I want to know why you’re called that.”
“What are you, blind?” she scoffed.
I love answering this question.
“Yes.”
“Oh, uh sorry about that. I didn’t know.” There went her ego.
“Well it's nice that you're sorry, but that didn't answer my question. Why are you named Rainbow Dash?”
“Well, my mane is full of colors, like a rainbow. How about that? Does that answer your question?”
It didn’t, or at least it didn’t in a way I understood, but I didn’t feel like getting in to a debate so I just changed the subject.
“You never finished the chapter. You’re still surrounded by predators.”
She paused for a moment, but finally said, “You mean ‘Daring Do is still surrounded by predators’, right?”
“No, I mean you. You’re voice is her voice, but when my old nurse read that story her voice was Daring Do’s voice. Daring Do isn’t real.”
“Well sure, I’m the one reading so she sounds like me, but I’m not actually surrounded by animals. Daring Do is the one doing all of this stuff. She isn’t real out here, but she’s real in the story.” She just wasn’t getting it.
“Are all words real ponies?”
“No,”
“Then what makes the words ‘Daring' and 'Do’ so special?”
“You know what? You don’t make any sense, uh, whatever your name is.” It took her a while to ask my name.
“Iris”
“Well Iris, you don’t make any sense.”
“Neither do you.”
“What? How do I not make any sense?”
“You told me that you’re mane was colorful. I don’t understand that.”
“I don’t follow.” Something tells me she can’t follow a lot of things.
“Color, I don’t understand color.”
“You don’t know what color is?” She knew I was blind, why did she sound so surprised?
“No, how could I?”
“I don’t know.” Then she paused. When she spoke again she said, “Hey Iris, if you have the time I could teach you a thing or two about color.”
This was new. Nopony has ever offered to actually teach me about color. I always assumed that it was impossible, because everypony says color is a visual thing. If she was offering to try though, who was I to stop her?
“Do you honestly think you can teach me, a mare that has been blind all her life, about color?”
“I don’t see why not. It’ll be fun, you’ll see. So, do you know the names of any colors?”
“Red, my old nurse was named Redheart, and she said it was a color.”
“Alright red, that should be easy enough. Red, red what is red? I think that red is like power or emotion. Red is like feelings in their rawest form. Red sounds like strength, and it feels like fire. Red can burn and spread and destroy. Red can build, too. Red rebuilds to break, and breaks to rebuild. Did you understand that?”
“Every word.”
I was amazed at what Rainbow Dash had said. I felt like I actually knew what red was. I've never seen anything in my entire life, but I know a color. I have four legs, two ears, no eyes and I know red.
I wanted more than anything to ask her about another color, but it was getting late and I didn’t want New Voice breathing down my neck.
“Hey Rainbow I have to go now, but do you think I can come back tomorrow?”
“Sure why not?”
I couldn’t sleep that night. All I could think about was red, so powerful and destructive. I also thought about Rainbow Dash. She was the only pony I have ever met that could give me a taste of vision. I wish Rainbow was my nurse.
*****
Today I eagerly returned to room 12.
“Hey Iris, nice to see you.”
“It’s Nice to hear you Rainbow.”
“Oh, right. Well I guess we should get started then.”
“That’s good, but first Rainbow, I want to know, what color are you?”
“I’m blue.”
“Blue?” I’ve heard the word before, but I didn’t know it was a color. I always figured it was fancy medical talk for a heart attack.
“Well, I guess we know what color we’re doing first then, right? Okay blue, how do I say blue? I guess blue is kind of calm. Blue is fresh and clean like the sky. Blue is cold and distant, Blue has no emotion, so it can’t hate, but it can’t love either.”
“Are there any other colors?” I know I just heard one, but I wanted more.
Yeah, there is yellow, green, orange, purple, brown and like a million others.”
I didn’t expect that. Millions of colors, how would she teach them to me?
“Millions?”
“Well, not exactly, more like seven with millions of different tones and shades.”
Part of me was relived, but part of me was disappointed. It wasn’t millions of colors; it was seven colors in a million ways.
“I want to hear about yellow.”
“Alright then, yellow is comfort and joy. Yellow is always happy and warm. Yellow is free of responsibilities, and just makes you happy for the sake of happiness.”
“Yellow sounds fun.”
“It is, is there any other colors you want to hear?”
“How about green?”
“Green? Well, green is a mix of yellow and blue, so green is free, like yellow, and emotionless like blue. Green is the plants growing and the earth spinning. Green has no limits and green has no walls. Green is vast and has a lot of responsibilities to counter its freedom.”
“Green sounds lonely.”
“It’s everywhere, it can’t be lonely.”
“Even when you’re surrounded by others, you can be lonely.” I wish I didn’t say that.
Rainbow was quiet for a long time after I said that. When she did finally speak I didn’t like what I heard.
“You know Iris, I’m tired. Can we finish this tomorrow?”
I didn’t want to go, but I did as asked and left Rainbow alone in her room.
*****
Over the course of the next few days Rainbow taught me about even more colors.
Purple was a mix of blue and red. She said that purple was wild and unpredictable. It was energy and life. It was vivid and impossible to control. Purple was free of duties and used every second to the fullest. Purple never rests and never slows.
Orange was the outcome of red and yellow. Orange was like red, but different. Instead of the raw emotion and destruction of red orange was caring and warm, but more intense then yellow. Orange seemed like it would never abandon me. I like orange.
Brown was the last color she told me of. Brown was power through durability. Brown was unbreakable and immovable. Brown was the order in a rainbow of diversity and chaos. Brown was a foundation from which all colors spawn, and with time, become.
I wanted to learn more about color, but rainbow was gone before I got the chance. She checked out of the hospital and was living in her beautiful world of color. She had taught me to see, but without her I didn’t know if I would keep seeing or go blind again. So many feelings were present in the colors she told me of. Color held feelings of happiness, anger, sorrow and fear. Every color was full of life in its own way, but on their own they weren’t alive. Not until they came together in a rainbow of feeling and energy were the truly alive.
I know that now. I know that I have four legs. I know that I have two ears. I know that I don’t need eyes, because I know color.
