Tonight, while we sleep, new cones are developing in the eyes of ten million, never before seen. If you have ever watched a time lapse of a watermelon growing, it’s like that. Nothing for weeks, until miraculously, something. Something big. The dense pressure in their retinas, a repressed urge to cry.
Tomorrow, when we wake up, ten million can see a new color. The number, emblazoned in yellow across CNN broadcasts, will seem so large, until divided by the total global population: 0.000123%. Black urine disease is less common, complete heterochromia is more. Not by much.
Everyone will know a roommate’s cousin’s wedding planner who has it. We will beg for a description.
“Like the afterimage that burns across a white screen when you stare at neon green for a long time. Like the hide of a chimera. Like the colorful sprays you see through closed eyelids. Kind of.”
“Kind of?” We will lean closer, we will press our eyes shut.
They will deflate, sheathed in sunglasses. “You don’t get it. You can’t.”
Two weeks later, the first suicide. California Highway Patrol will locate her body, floating in the Golden Gate Strait, and thirty minutes later, her loose eyes, one mile west, trailing optic nerves like algae floss. Her husband will publish a moving obituary that recounts her splitting headaches and fear of falling asleep.
Pantone will name the color after her. After the thirtieth suicide, rename it “Invisible Ink.”
A trendy artist will receive a $100,000 grant to render a landscape using only the new color. It will be a pastoral scene. Those of us who can’t see it will pretend it’s a snowbank, or a sky full of clouds.
It will be referred to as a disorder, an illness, a conspiracy. The consequence of GMO carrots. A magic spell. A source of jealousy.
The police will bust into the home of two sisters. One will be filling out the crossword, sprinkling sugar on grapefruit wedges. One will be buried in the backyard. Her eyes in an egg carton. Salted and shriveled. It will be a landmark criminal case, which launches new protections for people able to see “Invisible Ink.” We will watch the courtroom drama unfold on television sets, sitting too close to the screen.
Severe depression will pin you to your bed for two months. Your brother will feed you packets of Indomie, pale brown hot dogs sliced into silver dollars. Tip tea down your throat. When you ask what’s happening in the world, he will say: “Nothing new. Apartheid, drought. Don’t check the news.” But one day, you will make it to the bathroom, the Spanish tiles cool beneath your feet. You will look into the mirror and see that your eyes are bright, a flashing color.
~
Nora Esme Wagner is a rising sophomore at Wellesley College. She lives in
San Francisco, California. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in
JMWW, Milk Candy Review, Moon City Review, 100 Word Story, and elsewhere.
Her work has been longlisted for Wigleaf’s Top 50. She is an assistant
fiction editor at Pithead Chapel.