I can see people's auras... and it's a curse.

A word of warning, as always, before we begin. If you choose to read this, be sure its in a well-lit place, and that no-one is standing behind you. Also, if you feel lightheaded, dizzy, confused, or simply aware of your surroundings in a way you shouldn't be... stop. And call someone right away. Trust me. __________________ I can see people's auras. That's all there is to it. It's a gift. A curse. I don't know which. It might be both. For my entire life I've been able to see them, and for my entire life i've been alone. Other people don't see auras. Only me. Nobody knows. My family is dead. My friends betrayed me. I have no one to turn to. So I write this in the hope you will listen. That you will believe. If it turns out to be a mistake, I implore you to forget you ever read these words. I mean this especially for those with the grey, shimmering, speckled auras. Because if they find you, they will hunt you, and destroy any sliver of happiness in your life. I used to think my condition was an inheritance; a gift from my parents. I don't know why they didn't say something, except that perhaps they didn't know themselves. Maybe they thought I would grow out of it, or that it was unimportant, or maybe they loved me enough to not give a shit if it meant I was more special than they were. My condition began when I was very young. I remember it clearly because it was painful. My younger brother had just been born, and my parents were excited to show him off to anyone who would look. When we were visiting relatives, there was a bacterial infection on his skin, which in turn caused an infection in my eye when my parents touched my eye with unclean hands. It hurt, and for weeks afterwards my eye was sore and red and inflamed, although my parents insisted that it was nothing to worry about. It's not like it was a curse or anything, they said. It's not like it was evil or anything, they said. It's not like it was unusual or anything, they said. They never gave it a name. I just knew what it was like to see the world through my left eye. I call it the "condition" for your sake, because "I see dead people" isn't as succinct. My left eye sees the world normally, except with a slight distortion caused by the scar tissue. My right eye, however, shows me things that most people can't see. I see light. I see shadow. I see colour. I see auras. Everyone has an aura. And anyone can see them if they look into a mirror at mid-day, when the light is correct. You won't believe me of course, but I promise I'm telling you the truth. Just try. Hold a lit match in front of your ear. No, that isn't it. Put your hand over the flame. No... try it in complete darkness. No... try it during a thunderstorm. No... Just try it at high noon. On the day the world clocks read 12:00 exactly. And only then. Nothing will happen. You'll just see your stupid face staring back at you. Because nobody sees the auras. Only me. Everyone has one. And nobody can see it. If you want to know how mine looks, I'll describe it at the end. But first, there are some things I need to explain. You see, the auras aren't just random colours. They mean something. I think they mean everything. For my entire life I have struggled to understand them. I've tried reading about them. I've tried speaking to people about them. Nobody knows what they mean. Nobody else can see them, so I suppose that's only natural. When I was a child, I thought that everyone could see auras, and that we all just happened to have the same one. When I discovered that wasn't true, I was heartbroken, because I realised everybody else could see mine, and I just didn't know the words to describe it. When I discovered that nobody else could see auras at all, I was happy. I thought I had a special gift. That I could see the world in a way nobody else could. I was eager to share it with everyone. I spent hours talking to my friends and family, telling them about all the beautiful colours in the world. I was shut down. Humoured. Think about it, my parents said. Why would we want to see a random colourful light whenever we looked at people? We don't need to see people in another colour. We see them just fine in regular colour. Why would we want that? And I couldn't answer. I couldn't understand why they were being so strange. When I discovered that the auras meant something, I was sad. I realised that not everyone shared the same meaning. Some people had different meanings. It meant a lot of people were hiding something. A few people were dangerous. And some people were just... just... I remember crying for hours, when I was fourteen. It was the day I realised my father wasn't a good person. When I was younger I thought we were happy. My parents were nice. They were a little distant, but I think most children think that. But when I was thirteen, I realised that my father was involved in something bad. I'd always seen his green aura. The colour of a raincloud. Dark green. Speckled. A shadowy colour, like a shadow on a tree trunk, when the sun shines through the leaves. A colour you only see on a rainy day, when you look out the window, feeling sorry for yourself because it's keeping you indoors from school or something. A boring, dreary colour. Not a bad colour, mind you, but an unpleasant one. I always associated the colour green with being unpleasant, until I realised what it meant. My father is dangerous. And if you see a green aura on somebody, you should steer clear. Trust me. Just... just steer clear, and walk away. You know how sometimes you just get a vibe about someone? When you meet them, and you feel like something is wrong, but you can't quite put your finger on it? Like when you get that queasy feeling in your tummy when you look at them? A green aura always makes people feel like that. I first noticed it when I was younger, and my father would take customers "out for a walk" after dinner. When I ask what it means now, my mother gets very distant, and I can tell she's lying. When I was thirteen, I decided to find out. My dad kept a blue book in the cupboard of his office, under a stack of thick black ledgers. I'm pretty sure the black ones were for the business. I don't know what that business is, but it pays the bills, and my father keeps it in the basement, behind a secret door, behind piles of boxes and stacks of ledgers. The blue book wasn't for the business, however. It was a white hard-covered book, with two blue stripes down the spine, each about as long as my thumb. It had a little combination lock on it, but my father had left the combination out. "S-O-G-B-A-D" he wrote, in loopy childlike letters. I remembered it because it was a rhyme, although I had no idea what it meant. Sick Of Grown-ups Being Awfully Dreadful. I opened the book. It was locked, and I had to make sure the combination was actually right before I gave up. I didn't. It was. When I finally got it open, I was disappointed. There wasn't much in there. Just a list of names. And some numbers, and some notes. And one or two pictures. The pictures were the worst. I remember crying, because I didn't want to believe what I was seeing. It made me feel bad, about my dad. About the whole family. Because there were pictures of people, all dead. And there were notes next to each one, with numbers. The numbers were high. One was 37. Another was 55. A third was 82. The pictures... I'm sorry. I don't want to describe them to you. They were my neighbors. They were a little old lady. They were a boy who used to sit in front of my window, playing a violin. And... and a lady. A lady who always wore red. I'm sorry. The day after I found the book, the lady in red died in a car crash. I remember because I saw it on the news. The day after that, the little boy was found drowned in the park. The day after that, the little old lady died of a stroke. And my mother went into a depression that she never came out of. My father was angry with me for a long time, but he never punished me. I think he realised that I already knew. He just wanted me to act like I didn't. After a while, he stopped trying. And he started being kind again. It was a long time before I discovered what the numbers meant. It was a long time before I discovered what any of the auras meant. Until then, I just lived in fear. I didn't know how to control myself. I just knew I had to be careful, because some people were good, and some people were bad, and I didn't want to find out which was which by making a mistake. And that's why I stopped talking about the auras. I stopped talking to people in general. I didn

I can see people's auras... and it's a curse.

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