And The Whole World Was Yellow

And The Whole World Was Yellow
By Jason Osmond

Every day after school, the train sped along the outskirts of Johnny’s small town at exactly four o’clock in the afternoon. Johnny couldn’t see the train like most could, but he could hear it, feel it. Like anyone else, he knew it was there. Like anyone else, he knew it was coming.

People used to ask him what it felt like, not having eyes—to be born with holes instead. His grandma blamed it on all the alcohol his mother consumed while pregnant. His mother blamed it his father who, she’d said, drove her to the bottle. His father blamed it on the doctor and the doctor blamed it on God. But Johnny didn’t blame it on anyone, except maybe himself.

Every school day, Johnny would run as fast as he could down the dusty back roads on his way home, holding a stick against a long wooden fence. Scut, scut, scut, scut, scut, it would go. With the fence on his left he knew where he was. With a stick in his hand he didn’t need eyes.

When he’d fall, he’d get back up. And when he’d bust a lip, or split a knee, or rip the skin off his elbows—he’d shake it off and push himself a little harder, further.

Sally usually followed him home, when she could keep up. She was in the same sixth grade class as he was, and lived next door. “You’re going to trip over that,” she would say. “You’re going to fall on your face. Use your walking stick. You are so careless!”

If Johnny had eyes, he would’ve rolled them at her many times.

“Stop running! Stop doing cartwheels! Watch out for that broken glass!” she would say. “Stop skipping! Stop dancing, Johnny! You can’t see, Johnny. Don’t!”

Johnny! Johnny! Johnny!

One day, being fed up with her nonsense, he told her that she was stupid, annoying—fat, “and even though I can’t see you, I think you’re ugly, too.”

But she kept on running home with him, as tight on his heels as she could manage—nothing, not even Johnny, could stop her.

On rare occasions, when he was in a good mood, he’d slow down and talk to her. He’d tell her stories—not because he wanted her attention, but because sometimes he just liked to talk and she was always there.

“Once,” said Johnny, holding his stick against the fence as they walked. “I over hear my father saying that he’d rather kill himself than be blind.”

“Well, he didn’t mean it,” said Sally.

“My mother says she thinks being blind is probably what hell is like, always walking in the dark,” said Johnny.

“Yeah, but you have me to guide you,” said Sally.

“And it’s funny,” said Johnny, “How people are always trying to describe what colors are, you know? Like orange, or grey, brown, blue, whatever. I mean, I can list ‘em all off, no problem, but there’s no way I’m ever going to understand them. People just don’t get it.”

“Well, colors are a lot like feelings,” said Sally. “You do have feelings, don’t you?”

“Yeah, duh, I have feelings.”

Sally kicked a rock out of Johnny’s way. “Well, red is an angry color, the color of fire, or blood.”

Johnny cocked his ear towards her. “Then my father would be red,” he said. “He’s always angry.”

“Blue is pretty and sweet. Green is nice and calm. And black is like nothing, like emptiness, or sadness.”

“Then my mother would be black.”

“Most of the girls at school love pink and purple. But I don’t. I think they are the most annoying colors ever.”

“Then that’s what you’d be,” whispered Johnny, so only he could hear.

“And yellow,” she continued. “Yellow is a happy color—the color of the sun, of warmth.”

The “whoot-whoot” of the train came from far in the distance as they approached the tracks.

“Then the train is yellow,” said Johnny, stepping onto the rails, and feeling the soft vibrations. He put his hand on his special Braille watch. It was three-fifty-seven. The train was always on time.

Sally crossed over the tracks, walked a few yards, then turned around. “What are you doing? Get off the tracks.”

Johnny stood there, his chin lifted up, the sun beating down on him. “Did you know that this train has no driver? When they turn it on, it goes by itself, pretty much like a robot.”

“So?”

“Jake told me that the fastest train in the world travels somewhere around a hundred and ten, to a hundred and twenty miles an hour,” he said. “Jake says our train doesn’t go nearly that fast, but it still goes fast enough to break you up into a few pieces.”

"C’mon, Johnny. Get off of there. Stop playing around.”

He ignored her, and lifted a foot, balancing himself on one rail. “You know, my mother once bought me a pair of glass eyeballs for Christmas,” said Johnny. “She said they would make me look…less frightening.” He let out a short laugh. “She handed them to me and said, ‘with these, Honey, people won’t stare.’” He laughed again.

“Johnny, please get off .You know I hate when you do risky stuff. Please!”

Johnny could feel the vibrations under his feet getting stronger, faster, tingling in his leg joints.

“Come on, Johnny, it’s here. It's coming around the bend. I can see it!"

Johnny felt his Braille watch again. “Perfect,” he said.

The air around them was beginning to smell like smoke, and the train was getting so loud that Johnny had to yell. “Jake always says, ‘fear is telling yourself you can’t do something,’” he shouted.

“Well Jake is stupid!” screamed Sally.

Johnny smiled, closed his eyelids over his holes, and felt his watch as the seconds ticked down to four-o-clock. Then he spread his arms wide, like an eagle, like a plane, like he was welcoming an old friend. “Five,” he said. “Four. Three. Two…”

“Johnny!”

“One.”

The train was always on time.

Casually, he stepped off the tracks, escaping death by less than a foot, and half a second away from being paint on the rails. The wind blew his, and Sally’s, clothes in one direction. He listened to the rushing sound, and smiled again. “That’s the color of yellow,” he said. Then he walked over to where he last heard Sally’s voice. “Jake always says, ‘a near death experience is the most alive you will ever feel. It’s the best medicine that no doctor will ever give you.’ And he’s not stupid. Jake’s I.Q. is something like a million.”

Sally was crying. She’d gotten really good at not making any sounds when she did, though—in fear of ridicule. What she hadn’t gotten good at was resisting the urge to punch him after he did really dumb things.

“Jake also always says that the world is only how you perceive it,” said Johnny, cocking his head to the other side, hearing around for her. “You really can do anything you want to, if you really believe you can. If...if you have no fear. And if you—Ouh!”

“Don’t you ever do that again!” Sally’s voice cracked as she hit him in the chest.

Johnny covered himself, and crouched down. Slowly, his smile came creeping back to his face. Eventually, he stood up straight, and pointed his ear in her direction. “Are you crying?” said Johnny, taking a step towards her.

She turned around, and started walking away. Johnny followed. They didn’t talk for the rest of the way home.

When they got to their houses, he put a hand on her shoulder. “Can I ask you a question?” he said.

“What, Johnny? What is it?” she said, spinning around.

“Do you think I’ll have eyes in heaven?”

She let out a sigh. “If only I could give you my eyes, I would,” she said.

Johnny gave her and incredulous, scrunched up look. “You would?”

She nodded, then started crying again. Quickly, she covered her mouth, and ran into her house.

#

For three months, Johnny dodged the train, letting it miss him by inches. And for three months, Sally stood there watching, screaming, and threating to tell his parents. But he never listened, and she never told. And when Jake from school found out about what Johnny was doing, he told every sixth grader he knew. Word spread until everyone in their class knew about Johnny’s little ritual. And it was only a matter of days before Johnny had a reoccurring audience.

Sally no longer had Johnny all to herself. Kids would run behind Johnny on the way to the tracks, trying their best to keep up. They followed him with sticks of their own, scraping them along the wooden fences, just as Johnny did. Scut, scut, scut, scut, scut, they’d go. It was a whole parade of sixth graders— even some seventh and eighth, too. Johnny didn’t know if they were mocking him or admiring him, but honestly, he didn’t care, he just liked the attention. He even didn’t mind the whispering behind his back, but it irritated Sally to no end.

“Let’s go see the blind kid kill himself,” Johnny heard one boy whisper.

“This is the coolest thing, ever,” said another.

“I’d want to kill myself, too, if I was blind,” said a girl, whom Sally hated.

Sally spent a lot of time telling people off, but all Johnny would do is smile, and give them what they wanted—a show.

#

When the crowd arrived at the tracks on his birthday, Johnny told Sally that this was the moment he’d waited for his whole life.

“Why? Cause now you’re popular? You consider this your birthday party or something? Because it’s not,” said Sally, with a disgusted snort through her nose.

“No,” said Johnny. “Because this is the last time. Today, I’m going to see colors.”

“What do you mean?” she said. But Johnny couldn’t answer. The crowd had taken him away, prodding him towards his destiny. They picked him up, carried him on their shoulders, and placed him on the rails where they loved him.

ake walked up to him, putting his lips to his ear, and told him that there was over a hundred kids watching him today—two hundred probably—almost everyone from school. “And oh, by the way…happy birthday.”

The tracks began to rumble and shake. It was nearly four-o-clock.
Ever since Johnny’s fan club had started to grow, Sally had given up trying to talk him out of it. She’d just stand in the back of the crowd with her arms folded, pouting, and looking around like she didn’t care. But that day, something felt different. That day, she was in the front row.

As the train came around the bend, the children began to chant Johnny’s name.

“Joh-nny!”

“Joh-nny!”

“Joh-nny!”

He took a bow.

“Joh-nny!”

“Joh-nny!”

“Joh-nny!”

And the whole world was yellow.

“Joh-nny!”

“Joh-nny!”

“Joh-nny!”

Whoot! Whoot!

Johnny took his pair of glass eyeballs out of his pocket, and squeezed them into his skull until they fit nice and tight. If the pupils would have been in the right places, he might have actually looked relatively normal. He began to laugh at himself. He laughed so hard that his stomach started hurting—so hard he had to bend over and hold his guts. He fell to his knees, his eyeballs rolling around inside his head.

Whoot! Whoot!

He felt his Braille watch, and counted down. “Five. Four. Three… He put one hand out in front of him towards the train. This was it, he was ready to go.

Then the crowd went silent, and for a second, Johnny thought he could see. But it wasn’t a train he saw; it was something else—someone else. Perhaps a big blur of pink and purple running towards him.

He found himself rolling into the crowd of people, getting a mouth full of dirt. Finally, he slid to a halt, sprawled out on the ground. He felt his face. One of his eyeballs was missing. What had just happened? Was he in heaven? Could he finally see now? All the kids began to disappear, their voices getting softer and further away. He was covered in a liquid, something sticky and warm. It tasted like blood, but he wasn’t hurt, so how could it be blood? No one touched him, no one helped him up, and no one said a word to him—not even Jake.

He screamed for Sally, but she never came. He began to crawl. His hand came upon something warm and soft. He picked it up, and began to feel all over it. One side was wet and gummy, and the other… When he realized what it was, he froze, and began to shake. Then he dropped Sally’s arm back in the dirt.

For a long time, he didn’t move, he just sat there, eyelids wide open.



Sally’s words rang like alarm bells in his head: If only I could give you my eyes, I would. But it wasn’t her eyes she‘d given him, it was something else instead.

The End