Week 9 Story: The Color of Magic
Once there was a young man who saw the world around him in shades of black and white. Now, this young man did not know that there was anything different about the way in which he viewed the world. One day, he went into town to the market, needing to buy a few items for dinner, including a lemon. Normally, the market had signs near each pile of fruits or vegetable noting their name and price. However, there were no signs in sight this time. The young man asked a kind looking older woman if she knew which pile of fruit were the lemons. The woman looked a bit confused, and hesitantly said "the yellow ones". Now this certainly puzzled the young man, who asked what 'yellow' was. When she told him that it was a bright color, he became even more confused. He had never seen anything like what the woman described as 'yellow', and knew something was wrong. He asked her a few more questions, and found out that there were many colors in the world that he had never experienced. The young man had heard rumors of a magic well and decided to seek it out and try it for himself. After a long and arduous journey, he took a rewarding drink from the well. After a few moments, the world around him was completely transformed. The sky was a dazzling and deep blue and the grass beneath his feet was fresh and green. The young man was in such awe that he stood next to the well taking in his brand new world for what must have been hours. He finally decided to start his journey back home after watching the most gorgeous sunset. The way in which the blue sky faded and blended into shades of peach and violet as the bright yellow sun fell behind the mountains changed the way in which he would see the world and its' beauty for the rest of time.
Author's Note: I decided to try my hand at writing a few microfiction for the storytelling this week. I decided to use the story of The Magic Well by Katherine Neville Fleeson as my inspiration. In the original version of the story, the main characters discuss a dream and a subsequent long journey to a well whose water has healing powers. Because the original story does not spend a lot of time on the specific magical properties of the well, I thought that it would be fun to make up my own story of someone visiting the well.
Hi Natalie! I loved your take on this story. It was cool to see the world through a black and white perspective. I can't imagine how it would be to live my life like that and then discover that there were colors one day. I thought it was a great concept! It just goes to show that there a lot of things we take for granted...it was neat how the man appreciated the colors of the sunset at the end. Well done!
ReplyDeleteHi there,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading through your story. I thought it was really cool and just loved the overall theme and message. At first I was unsure about what story you could have modeled this after, but after I read your notes it made total sense. I would love to write something based of this same story as well. So far this is one of the best micro fictions I have read this semester. Great read hope to get more of this soon.
Hi, Natalie. Great job on your story. I really liked your description of the new world of color that your character witnesses. You did a great job painting the picture with your words. If you were to do a rewrite, I wonder if we could get a bit more backstory on the boy. Was he cursed by a witch or was he completely color blind from birth? Also, you said you wanted to do micro fiction. However, this feels like one short story instead of a series of micro fictions. There's nothing wrong with that. I was just curious what your series of micro fictions may look like for this tale.
ReplyDeleteHi Natalie,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy to read your story. I realized that you focus on the description of the colorful world in your story, which would be a good strategy for writer to make the plot more vivid. Also, you put an image on your post, that helps me to imagine some scenes about the plot in my mind.