Chatting about Color with an Imaginary Sightless Friend

I watched a movie in my German class some days ago. It’s a German movie entitled Erbsen auf halb 6.

It’s a movie about a blind man and a blind woman who are in love. The man is blind because of a car accident and the woman is blind since the time she was born. It is a fancy love story. Unfortunately, since I’m not a big fan of drama and romantic movie, for me the plot is not quite attractive. Yet, I should say that the background and the idea of the story are quite amazing.

The most interesting thing happened after the class. My teacher took a scene, on which the man described a color to the woman. The man experiences “seeing things,” unlike the woman who has zero visual experience. The woman asked the man to describe gelb – yellow, and his answer was “sonnenwarme Steine” –a stone burnt by the warmth of sunlight. After that, we –the students who watched the movie- were asked to describe some colors, as if we explained it to a blind person. We need to keep in mind that we shouldn’t use anything related to “sight.” The presented senses should be related to just taste, touch, hearing and smelling.

It was hard. Of course, we are beginners who have not known sophisticated vocabularies, which –I assume- are needed to do the task.

The class ended, merely with some silly, if not careless, description about color from us. I didn’t know why, but this problem stick in my mind. Therefore right now, I imagine a situation, in which I meet a blind person, and being seriously asked to describe colors. He (I prefer a blind, good-looking, friendly man in my imagination :P) seriously asked…what is red…or blue…or green? Then my answers….

Everything starts from nothingness and purity. It is emptiness; no one, nothing, and nowhere.  It’s the base of everything and it gives independence for anyone to put everything on it. It is humbleness which exemplifies and sharpens things over it; just like the softness of the cotton and the grace of the sheep’s wool. Yet though it’s modest, in the end, no eye can stand the lightness and the brightness, of white.

There are times when you want to escape the world. At those times, the sea is a perfect place to have a reflection. Feel the salt; through your skin, nose, and tongue. The taste will stick to you; hang on the air around you. It brings the feeling of possibility. Not only can’t the sightless, sighted people even see the end of the water in the sea. The visible limit is the edge between the sky and the water that has the same smell. Freedom, hope, and passion to start all over again; it’s blue.

Remember the morn, you are awaken by the chirping birds. The smell of wet grasses tempts you to leave your bed, open the window, breathe the new morning airs, and feel the mist turning into refreshing dew touching your bare skins… That time…you can see the purest green that the nature offered us.

What is in this feeling? Hard heartbeat, uneasiness, unexplainable –feeling-; it is so weirder since with all the obsceneness, your smile will not fade. The restraint to shout to the world that you get the feeling is unbearable; as the warm unforgettable, vague or clear, figure in your mind wouldn’t leave you. So you meet the love, you meet the pink.

Hope comes to the dead end; the voice of the burnt woods becomes relieving news during a bitter winter. The bravery given by the warmth of the fire is so unspeakable. At a point, the warmth wounds, blazes, and banishes. When everything’s shattered, it’s only the scent of the smoke and the music of the wildfire stays behind. At the moment, have no doubt that around you is all covered in red.

There is no more cheerfulness and vivaciousness that can be given by fruits other than citrus. Refreshing like spring found in the heat of the hottest summer. Sour and sweet, freshly convenient, graciously warm; the illumination of the lively feeling is truly the orange’s personality.

Grey There stands a mystifying entity. It lies in between; virtue and evil, righteousness and evilness, heat and bitterness, harshness and grace, commotion and serenity. For disclaimer; though black and white, which in this case are unseen, are not necessarily antonymous, it's undeniable that the two entities have flipped tastes. Being in the middle of two opposite choices, it's when you feel that you are in a grey spot. 

Black Try to sit on the wide ground during the night, befriend with the silence. Feeling the cold mist and the infinitude of the oxygen comes into your lungs is lonely and mysterious in some ways. Second by second, the space leaves you. The wideness overwhelms and covers you, chokes you, makes you feel so small in the world called nothings. You can say that everything turns black.

When the chat with my imaginary sightless friend ends, I tried to close my eyes, remember every word I write about the colors, and finally fall asleep...smiling.