[ WP ] A character who only sees in black and white suddenly encounters someone in color , but do n't make it a love story .

The colors!, John thought. So beautiful! So this is what it's like! And suddenly he got tears in his eyes. So this is what he had been missing, all those years! He had no time to analyze what was happening, his emotions where too strong. All he could think of was to touch, to paint, to bemuse this silhouette. He wanted to capture it, to consume it. 
 
 But then something struck him. Other than himself, no one looked at this person. Also, the colored man had to evade other people as they passed him in the busy city center, they never seemed to get out of the way. And when he got on board the tram with him, so as not to let him get away, he saw that the man did not pay, just walked straight passed the tram driver and sat down on the front most seat. It was then that it appeared to him that he was the only one that could see this man. 
 
 The tram rushed trough the city, leaving the neat, large stores and restaurants of the city center, for the monotonous homes of the poorer districts and finally the forlorn sheds and decaying factories that made up the outskirts. The vibrantly colored man in the front seat sat unmoved, gazing out of the window, like himself. The tram rushed on, to evermore dense and poor neighborhoods, everything seemed to be made out of concrete, a bridge overhead, then a tunnel, then out in the light again. The rain lay in pools on the pavement, old newspapers and soggy cardboard got pulled up and lain down by the wind. Color. So there it had been. So beautiful as to bring tears into ones eyes. A symphony, a gift, fallen out of the sky. The tram shook. The sky was blue. Which color would that be? The beautiful dark one, the one his hat was made of? It reminded him of his mother. Could that be the color of the sky? And the light one, the one his skin was made of? Could that be the color of concrete? Would they fit together? Would nature have devised it that way, would that be artistic enough? Of course not. How could he compare with the great creator, he was n't even an artist. But he could, he had to become one. It was n't something he really wanted as much as a necessity, a painful thing he would now be forced to do for the rest of his life. Painting. With colors he could n't see. With just the memory of this man as a guide. 
 
 When he felt the tram shake a second time, he realized with a great shock that the man had left. He rushed towards the nearest tram doors, looking out of the window if he could see him. There he was in the distance, entering a tunnel underneath a bridge, just about to disappear round a corner. He reached the doors, bracing himself against the tram's shaking, as it got ready to move again. 
 
'Stop!', 
 
 he yelled at the driver. But it was too late. He tried if he could force the doors open, desperately yelling, 
 
'Stop!', 
 
 at the tram driver for a second time. In a fit of rage he slammed his fists against the door, then kicked it, turned around to kick it harder, ignoring the other passengers as they closed in. Then he got as far back as he could, ran up to the doors and kicked them open with his right foot, falling out of the train and rolling over the pavement, he got up as quickly as he could, not minding the intense pain in his arms and knees, not minding the blood, loosing no time to shake of the dust from his knees, not loosing time, he could still catch him, he knew it, it was destined. He ran as hard as he could, his legs feeling weak. Into the tunnel, around the corner, out trough the other side of the tunnel. It had started to rain. There he was, finally a warm flash of that beautiful color, disappearing behind a large, vacant office building. 
 
'Sir!' 
 
 he screamed. He picked up pace. He nearly had him. 
 
'Sir!' 
 
 he screamed again with the last of his voice. The man came within eye site again. 
 
'Sir! Sir I can see you! Sir!' 
 
 Then the man did something unusual. He started to climb over a small wall. 
 
 John understood what was going. 
 
'No!', 
 
 he screamed and ran after him, as fast as he could. He climbed after him. Underneath him, trains came thundering by deafening the ears, with a might that was awful and unstoppable. 
 
 He closed in on the patch of color, standing inches from the railroad track, leaning back and forth. 
 
'Do n't do it! I can see you! Sir! I need you!' 
 
 He touched the man's shoulder. 
 
 Then a train rushed by and the colored man was gone. Snatched from his sight, from right under his nose. 
 
 After a few silent minutes he turned around, climbed back over the wall, trying to forget what he saw. He walked all the way home, in his hand a colored jacket. 
 

