I couldn't even visualize the lush, dew-covered color green a year into the epidemic. I saw it in my nightmares with Lizzie, but those were dead colors. They didn't move, or say anything, the colors were there, I saw them, but my color deprived mind didn't distinguish, register it.  But, today, I got my first view of color in three hundred and sixty five days. The pale gold of the awakening sun. It was a discreet, quiet, silent gesture by mother nature, but the townspeople noticed. Even though there was no sound in the color, we saw it as a brass band with tooting horns, clanging cymbals and smiles. We cheered, and I think I was happy. We were all confused. What is happy? All we know is sorrow, drowning sadness, waves of heavy misery. This was different, we felt our hearts rise, start pumping again with a new, renewed energy. Or maybe what we all felt was hysteria, being driven crazy by depression.

The pale gold lasted only a day, and on that glorious day, the town sat outside, huddled together, talking softly, soaking up all the color that we could. After that one day, I believe our hearts were warmer when the days were not. We would survive. Survive, not thrive in this world nurtured only by the consolation that death always comes and the shy pale gold, bleak sun will sometimes come out.