Oh, my cherry red jacket. I stood in front of my closet and stared at it for a full minute before slipping it on and walking across the room to my mirror by the window. I curled my eyelashes and layered on mascara and eyeliner, apparently necessary additions if I wanted people to be able sense the presence of my eyes. (Never mind that they’re an emerald green, female society tended to agree that this is crucial). I dotted concealer under my eyes and across my nose, giving my skin the porcelain finish they told me I couldn’t live without and making the unfortunate freckles on my nose, the freckles that were apparently a major contributor to my “single” status, disappear. When my attention shifted toward the scene on the street outside my window, I sighed.
The trees were uniformly a dull gray; the last gold painted leaves had long been shaken off and stuffed in the trash. They lined my street and gave the impression of guards or prison bars. The dense fog that hung over the scene blended in with the snow covering the street, creating the blank canvas for the townhouses queued up down the whole block. Each house was painted the same color, the owners all too unimaginative to think of anything beyond the whites, grays, and navy blues of the house surrounding it. I lived in the perfect stereotype of an American city in the heart of winter.
The people passing huddled in their black coats, pulled their grey hats further over their ears, and planted their boots in the prints of the person before them as they marched together toward the school. Mindless minions, they were, serving some unknown higher authority who brainwashed them into preening themselves to be these clones. One girl, a ginger who’s crimson curls spilled over her shoulders and dotted the monotonous landscape with a splash of color, walked alone in the middle of the street. Her jeans were soaked up to her knees, plunging into the virgin snow with every step. She stared straight ahead, chin up, looking right past the people who turned her backs on her.
Turning away from the window, I reluctantly peeled off my crimson jacket and grabbed the black coat hanging on my bedpost. I walked out the white door of my navy blue house and, despite my frustrations, stepped into my familiar place in the line, planting my feet in the prints of the person before me. With each step into these preconceived footprints, my cherry red jacket grew further and further away.