Aura

“How’s the color today, Missy?”

Missy smiled weakly as she paid for her coffee. “Same as always.”

Benjamin, Missy’s barista, winked, the smile wrinkles around his eyes crinkling. “It’s gonna change. It’s gonna change.”

Missy muttered something noncommittal and moved her way out of line. She lifted the coffee to her lips and drank deeply. The warm liquid washed down her throat and hugged her insides, her spirits lifted ever so.

How’s the color today?

She appreciated the man’s inquiry and she knew it came from a place of caring. She was just tired of telling him the same thing over and over.

Same as always.

Everyone could see the color. Just not her. Never her. Why not her?

What was wrong with her?

She was the only person in her twenties who couldn’t see an aura. Even when she turned eighteen, which was the customary age for most auras to at least begin to manifest, her vision had always stayed the same; grey.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t see any color, it was just that she couldn’t see the colors that mattered. She couldn’t see the reds of those with the gift of mathematics, or the pinks of those with caretaker instincts that went beyond parenthood. She couldn’t see the yellow that signified the teachers, or the blues that signified those with the ability to heal. Nor could she see the whites of the spiritually gifted, and those were the easiest to see.

So why couldn’t she see anything at all?

Missy continued out of the coffee shop and along the street back to her job. She had been fortunate with her job, but she knew that was also because of her father’s influence in the world of law. Because of her lack of aura, she shouldn’t have been able to find a job anywhere, but her father had taken very good care of her and had made it clear that any prejudice against her “condition” would not be tolerated. The fact that he boasted a very prominent orange certainly didn’t hurt things.

But there were prejudices. And there were whispers, always the whispers. People who thought she couldn’t hear, who thought she couldn’t see the way they looked at her, like her inability to see one thing would make it impossible for her to see anything.

She hated it.

It went beyond her lack of ability to see anyone else’s aura too. She herself, according to everyone around her, had no aura. Where most existed with a lovely halo of fractured light indicating their unique talents, she continued to walk around with nothing of the sort. It was as if she were a single pebble in a world of diamonds.

When she was eight, she remembered wanting to be able to see auras sooner than anyone else in her class. She was so excited at the thought that she had asked her mother to make her a giant halo of blue tinsel for her Halloween costume. It had been the most awkward thing to wear, and she had tripped and nearly fell down every five steps, but it didn’t matter. That costume made her something special.

What would happen if I wore a fake tinsel halo around now? She wondered idly as she pulled open the door to the law firm.

*~*~*

“Hey, girl, you doing okay?”

Missy looked up from her computer, the stack of papers on her desk untouched, her computer displaying lazy streaks of pinks and blues and oranges across her sleep screen.

Even the damn computer has an aura.

“I’m fine.” She responded listlessly.

Amber, the girl who had addressed her, cocked her head to the side in concern.

Amber was one of Missy’s true friends. She never mocked, never judged. She had always simply been there. She was also one of the most vivacious, confident, and bright girls Missy had ever known. Her aura, ironically, was almost amber. It was a bright yellow, her affinity for instruction made as clear as possible with the sparkling beams of light surrounding her.

“You’re thinking about it again, aren’t you?” She asked, her voice hushed, leaning against the desk.

Missy sighed. “Yes.” She responded quietly, tugging at her earrings as she did.

“You need to stop. It’s going to happen when it’s supposed to happen.”

Missy eyed Amber. “Says the person whose aura showed up at a record-breaking ten years of age.

Amber held her hands up in surrender. “It wasn’t my choice and that also happened when it was supposed to. You need to stop inhibiting your sense of purpose because life isn’t happening the way you want it to. Your aura will present itself when it needs to.”

“Shhhh!” Missy hissed.

Though they were a universal thing, to actually say the word ‘aura’ was highly frowned upon. It was akin to naming an intimate part of the human body.

Amber rolled her eyes. “Oh please. It’s just a word. Aura. Aura aura aura.”

“Amber!” Missy turned red and stood up. She grabbed her jacket and purse. “I’m not going to talk to you if you’re going to be vulgar.”

Amber laughed and grabbed Missy by the arm. “I’m sorry, okay, I’ll stop. Hey.” She pulled Missy closer. “Listen, it’s Friday, I’m done with my workload, you know you’re always ahead of schedule on yours, there are no appointments scheduled so you don’t need to be here. Let’s go out. Get a little toasty. We can crash at my place; hit that bar around the corner so we don’t have to walk far.”

Missy sighed, “I don’t know…”

Amber groaned and pulled at Missy’s jacket “Come ON. Let’s go! It’ll be fun!”

*~*~*

As soon as Missy walked into the bar, she regretted everything. It was loud...very loud. And everyone’s aura’s were blinding in the dull lighting. She stuck out like a sore thumb. She turned around and faced Missy, who was directly behind her.

“I can’t. Please don’t make me.”

“Shut up. I’m making you,” Amber retorted unsympathetically as she pushed Missy to the bar.

Missy pushed back, but she wasn’t near as strong as her friend. Missy was an avid gym-goer, and she was at least five inches taller than Missy’s slight five foot two inches.

They reached the bar and Amber sat down, her arm around Missy. “We’d like two alcohols please!”

It was an inside joke; the first time Missy had gone to a bar with Amber they had been too young to know anything other than beer and Missy was young enough that she didn’t feel so self-conscious about not having the same halo of light that so many of her peers now sported.

“You know if you ask me that, I’m going to either get you the shittiest thing on the menu or the most expensive. How risky are you feeling tonight, ladies?” The bartender shot back without skipping a beat.

Amber laughed. The joke was lame, but if she played her cards right, Missy would be going to the apartment alone. “Alright, hotshot, how about a cosmo for my friend?”

“And for you?”

“A sex on the beach for me.” She replied, winking.

The bartender rolled his eyes and smirked and went to work on their order.

Missy signed and buried her head in her hands. “I’m going to have to get a ride back to my place tonight, aren’t I?”

“Nah,” Amber said, waving her off. “I’ll give you my keys, just feed the fish in the morning before you leave.”

“My drinks are on you. That’s my fee for housesitting and fish feeding.” Missy retorted sourly.

“Deal.” Amber said before shouting at the bartender, leaning over the counter strategically as she did. “Make the cosmo super strong. My friend has had a horrible day. She could use a pick me up.”

“I’d say she’s had more than just a horrible day.” The bartender replied, giving Missy a subtle look over, his recognition of her lack made very clear. He brought both drinks over.

Amber smiled sweetly before cheekily flipping him the bird. She handed Missy her drink and tapped the edge of their cocktail glasses.

“To the end of a week and the beginning of a new one. We do not define ourselves by what happens in our lives, only by how we choose to move past what happens.”

“Cheers.” Missy muttered before kicking back her drink.

She finished it off as quickly as she could and set the glass down with more force than she meant. She met the eyes of the bartender who raised an eyebrow at her.

“Another.” She directed flatly.

*~*~*

Missy groaned and pressed her hand against her forehead. How long had she and Missy stayed out? She pushed herself up from the bed and shakily stood up. She blinked.

What’s in my eyes?

Missy blinked again, and again once more. Something was messing with her eyesight. She frowned and made her way to the bathroom, pressing her palms into her eye sockets in an effort to clear her head. She reached the bathroom and bent down, turning the faucet to cold. She splashed the water on her face and stayed there for a minute, relishing the feeling of the cold water on her skin.

When she opened her eyes she realized she wasn’t looking at Amber’s sink. She wasn’t even looking at her sink.

Where am I?

She stood up and looked at the mirror above the sink.

She screamed and fell backward.

My aura!

Missy lifted her arms and studied her hands in shock before scrambling to her feet to run back into the bedroom.

The bartender from last night was still sleeping, her shouting having done little to wake him. As she studied him, her eyes widened. She turned around quickly and ran to the window of his apartment and studied the people outside, several stories below her. Her breath caught in her throat.

Amber...I need to talk to Amber.

Missy whirled around and looked around frantically for her purse.

There!

She lunged at the purse which was resting in a chair. She fished through its inside until she found her phone. She unlocked it and pressed Amber’s picture in her favorites before lifting it to her ear, hands trembling. As it rang she went back to the bedroom to stare at the bartender.

“Well hey there, did you have a good night?”

“No, Amber, stop.”

“Before you try to, don’t apologize. This was what I was trying to do all night. I knew you needed to lighten up a little! How was it?” Amber’s voice was playful over the phone.

“No! Amber!”

“What’s wrong?” Amber’s voice immediately shifted. “Are you okay?”

“No….Amber...It’s my aura…I can see it...I can see everyone’s…”

Amber screamed in excited, her voice shrill and distorted over the phone. “I knew it would happen soon! Oh my gosh, what color is it? You have to tell me!”

Missy looked down at her hands and then back at the bartender. “Mine is green.”

“Green? Do you know how rare green auras are? That’s so cool!”

“Amber...listen...I can see everyone else’s too.”

“Well yeah, that’s how it works? What do you think of purple boy over there? Pretty cool, yeah?”

“His aura isn’t purple.”

“What do you mean it’s not purple? It was obviously purple last night.”

“It’s green.”

The phone was silent for a moment. “It’s what?”

“It’s green...Amber…”

“...Yeah?”

“Everyone’s aura is green. All I can see is green.”