I had a dream last night. I suppose I could give you a subtle transition into the story. My English teachers have always told me to work on my subtle transitions. Too bad, I’m not a very subtle person. So here it goes: The whole world, or at least what I knew of the world, was white. Not the kind of white that makes you think of purity or innocence, but something else. The shade of color that makes you feel imperfect, as if everything you touch you’ve now made dirty. Draws out your flaws. That shade that is may be beautiful, but is truly ugly. It squashes all inspiration. It It is the unripe persimmon of creativity. And me. I was that halicious, gut wrenching color. And so was everyone else. Sure, they were their own person, but there was no diversity. Everyone had the same opinion. If you asked them a simple question, such as their favorite color, they’d all answer orange. Even if you asked them something deep or insightful, even if the exact words were different, they had not only the same answer - but the same voice and style of talking writing, and creating. No imitations.
There were no genders. Not just the obvious differences, but different brainworks, hormones, and stereotypical differences of gender diversity were nonexistent. We thought the same way. Had the same brain capacity. Same reflexes. We were puppets. We had our bodies, but they were completely controlled. There were no clothes either. We were all naked. But not in a gross way, in a cruel way. It was as if someone had wanted to know everything about me, and yet I couldn’t be myself. I had to be careful, or everything I touch would be infected.
I had to shower in purity water. It is difficult to explain the purity water. It covered me easily. It was plain, dull water - not fresh at all - until it hit my body. Then it molded into clay. It layered and layered on top of me, until I was a model. Not pretty, but perfectly symmetrical and the perfect picture of what someone should look like. I was a mannequin. I was disgusted with myself. Only the top layer, though. Soon, it hardened, and I became a ceramic. I was, again, the same as everyone else. The purity water protected, no - kept me, from being any different. I was, in essence, a terracotta warrior, but fighting for the wrong side.
One day, took my shower. I felt myself becoming closer and closer to my mannequinn features. And then I heard it. The whisper in steam. The call I had never listened to before. The hiss, the sigh. It had four syllables, and it played over and over again. It was singing. I had never heard music before. I strained my ceramic ears, trying to understand what music what being sung. The steam intensified. My terracotta look grew. I closed my eyes. And that was when I truly understood. The music was calling my name. And maybe it was because I had found the tiniest bit of difference in a world where there was none, but the music got louder. My name became a symphony. It rang loud and clear. It made me swell with pride and longing. Happiness, a feeling I had never had before, took over me. I was a new kind of pure. A new shade of beauty. I focused deeply on the water. And took a deep breath. Suddenly, it turned a blue. The deepest, richest kind of blue. The shade that isn’t close to any other color. Simply blue. And I raised my arms, full of power and purpose. And as I raised them, the hardened clay melted off me until I was myself again. I became a girl. I had luscious, though uneven and somewhat pimpled, skin. A lump on my nose. Beautiful, defined cheekbones. Individualized teeth (before they were simply two blocks of white)! Eyebrows that were a bit bushy, but had a nice arch. Bright eyes. And I raced out of the bathroom, and spread that focus to everything. It soon became easy for me to spread the feeling. And everyone around me felt it too. And I kept doing that until every curve, edge, color, flaw showed. Everyone was different. And that white was soon replaced with red and orange and green and purple and mocha and indigo and maroon and lime and pink and every other possible shade that ever - or at least now - existed.

It occurred to me then, that I had just brought color to the world.