The Lost Colors

The Lost Colors Laura Vogt (bio) I'm waiting for colors.Spring comes slowly. The world brown and taupe and too many grays.What's colorblindness? my daughter asks. How sad, I say, as we research, to seeonly those colors. In the woodland again, I scan the treeline for color. Lime and moss,a flush of grass green, fawn-brown, smoke-hues, layers of texture. Did you know, I say,one in twelve men are colorblind? He's driving, flicks his gaze to me, says,What of all the colors we cannot see? Him, always from another world, another perspective.We see a percent of millions of colors, he says. Now I'm thinking of possibilities, of colors hiddenin dead trees. Our vision has limits, but what about beyond sense. Have you heard of tetrachromats,women with super-human sight. No, this is real, I say, they see color in monotone. That day, in the forest,I kept searching for spring. I couldn't find color. I thought, so many things, but what do I know:a colorless forest is, in fact, full of color. [End Page 98] Everglade and indigo, amber and boysenberry.There were no hues. Now they're endless. [End Page 99] Laura Vogt Laura Vogt writes historical fiction, speculative fiction, and poetry. Her poems are published in various journals, and her novelette, Blue Beyond the Sea, is available as a chapbook from Bottlecap Press. Her forthcoming debut novel, In the Great Quiet, is a historical fiction and fabulism blend based on her ancestor. She attended the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop writing program in Dublin, Ireland and is represented by Catherine Cho of Paper Literary. Connect with her on Instagram, Goodreads, or her website, www.lauravogt.com.