Colour by Number

A brief look into the bizarre world of Synesthesia, from a child's perspective.

Green, blue, crimson. Oddly- coloured letters adorn the dirty outer wall of a newsagency. They catch the attention of an eight- year old girl who is carefully licking coconut icing from her fingertips.
Something like annoyance is flickering urgently on the surface of the her subconscious. She can read the words themselves, but their colouring makes no sense to her. Admittedly, there are a lot of things that make no sense to her. Either the world is crazy, or her mother is right, and it’s all silliness… her imagination getting the better of her.
Janet Watson, oblivious to this phenomenon, is eying her flat white disguised as a cappuccino with unsubtle distaste. “Excuse me— could I get some more milk froth, please?”
“Certainly,” says the waiter quickly. “Is there anything else?”
“Amy Cotters puts out,” the little girl announces.
Deciding that perhaps the scenery outside is less than preferable, Janet hastily ushers her daughter into the café. The orchestra of peak hour traffic recedes to a buzz as the door swings closed behind them. A tiny jug of milk froth is produced upon their arrival.
Janet gives the nod of approval and Alice turns to her plate. The coconut icing has been disposed of – only the cake and cream remain. As she bites into the flakes of pastry and feels the first hint of rich sweetness against her tongue, a blissfully invisible column brushes itself against her fingers. Cool, smooth and firm. Soon others arrive, of varying sizes and textures, causing such a curious array of sensation that the taste itself in its traditional sense is forgotten. One hand enables her to eat, leaving the other free to enjoy her unseen shapes to the fullest.
“Alice,” warns Janet, causing the former to look up guiltily from her unearthly delights. “I hope you’re not being silly.”

*

“The doctor will be with you in a moment,” says the receptionist, motioning for them to be seated.
While her mother flips through a magazine, Alice amuses herself with the limited selection of children’s books. She finds one called “Colour by Number” and turns to a blank picture of a bird. The objective is to colour in accordance to what number occupies the empty spaces. At the bottom of the page there is a code.
“1- blue,” she reads, and groans. “Mum!”
“What is it?”
“The code is wrong. Look— all these numbers are joined with the wrong colours. It says that ‘one’ means blue. But shouldn’t it be gray? ‘One’ is a gray number.”
“Numbers don’t have specific colours,” says Mrs. Watson neatly, turning back to the magazine. “And neither do letters. How many times do I have to tell you that, Alice? It’s just your imagination.”
“I’m not imagining it.”
Janet turns another page and tries to absorb herself in the latest of the royal gossip.
“But mum,” Alice tugs at the white- knuckled fist.
“Stop it.” The tone is final.
“Mrs. Watson? Dr. McCormack will see you both now.”

*

Dr. McCormack reads the referral letter to himself, first skim- reading it almost disinterestedly, and then once intrigued, again with slow deliberation. “What do we have here?” he murmurs, just as Mrs. Watson enters with Alice. “Please, take a seat.”
“Thank you.”
He rereads the letter one more time and then looks up thoughtfully. “Alice, you’re eight years old, is that correct?”
She nods.
“Dr. Hammond says you’re having trouble at school. Is it your school work?”
“Not usually.”
“The children are making fun of you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why?”
“Because I say stupid things when my imagination gets the better of me.”
Her responses are clearly memorized and therefore given with little deliberation. She speaks as plainly as though she is reciting her multiplication tables.
“Stupid things,” Dr. McCormack echoes. “Why don’t you tell me what some of those things are?” He tries to elaborate. “What are they to do with? People, or…?”
“Its an overactive imagination,” Janet interrupts nervously. “I mean, it’s affecting her schoolwork, her social skills, her behavior in general— she doesn’t seem to be able to distinguish her imaginings from reality. I understand that young children play games but, its just… well, its gone beyond all that, now.” There is a pained expression on her face.
Dr. McCormack is taken slightly aback by this unflattering diagnosis. He is even more surprised to see that Alice is discernibly unperturbed. Whatever problems she has with her mother, she is clearly used to being discussed in such a way.
“Alice… why don’t you tell me what some of these things are to do with?” he repeats patiently.
“Mm, letters and numbers, mainly. Sometimes tastes.”
He is writing busily on a pad of paper as she speaks. Alice lets her eyes wander to the diploma on the wall. Even though the curly writing is black, this doesn’t seem such a crime to her. She doesn’t mind newspapers, either. Blacks, whites and grays, she can handle. It’s like watching the old movies on TV; all the while, just like anybody else, she has the instinctive knowledge of what the colours of the objects should be. It’s drastic colour change that bothers her. Fascinating, and yet utterly disconcerting.
“Dr. Hammond mentioned that you see letters and numbers as belonging to specific colours, is that correct?” the Doctor asks, as though reading her thoughts.
“Yes.”
“Have you ever seen numbers anywhere in the colours you think they’re supposed to be? In a book, or on TV? Or…”
She shakes her head firmly. “No. Never.”
Dr. McCormack nods, and then produces a piece of paper and a box of crayons. “Why don’t you draw the numbers in the right colours for me? Could you do that?”
Alice reproduces them without difficulty. 1- gray. 2- red. 3- pink. 4- orange. 5- purple… and so on it goes. “That’s not them, exactly,” she concedes. “But that’s as close as I could get with the colours you gave me.”
“All right, then,” he says cautiously, hiding the stationery back in his drawer. “Now, let’s leave the numbers for a moment and talk about the other things. Like the tastes, for example.”
“Um…”
“Tell him about the chicken, dear. Last night, Alice told me that there weren’t enough ‘points’ on it,” says Janet quickly.
Alice sighs. “I wasn’t feeling as many points as I usually do. And the ones I could feel were blunt. Yummy chicken makes good sharp points.”
“Points? What do you mean, exactly? Could you see them?”
She shakes her head. “No. But I could feel them, so I knew they were there.”
“When you say ‘points’— were they like prickles? Like getting pins and needles?”
“No, it’s different.” says Alice decisively. “They were long. I could hold them in my hands.”
“So… when you eat, you feel invisible shapes?”
“Not with all foods, just the really good ones. Sometimes I find new ones.”
“Are the shapes different with different foods?”
Alice grins. “Yeah. Cream buns are like rectangles. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are like circles.”
There is a pause as the Doctor carefully writes all of this down. “Is there anything else?” he asks, at length.
“Just colours with things, mainly. Once…” Her voice trails away as she looks up at her mother uncertainly.
“Go on,” the Doctor insists.
“Well, once, at night, when I heard music coming from downstairs, I thought I could see it, for a second.”
The clock on the wall continues to tick, solely unmoved by this confession.
“What… did you see?”
Alice’s eyes wander uncomfortably. “I saw what the song looked like. Shapes and colours moving in the dark.”
The Doctor leans closer, meeting Alice deliberately at eye level. “Alice… this is very important,” he says slowly. “Did you see the shapes and colours in your head, or did you see them physically in front of you?”
Alice tries not to look at her mother as she says: “In front of me. I could see them. They weren’t in my head.”
If Dr. McCormack is utterly floored, he very effectively masks it behind a strictly professional front. He continues to meticulously observe this small yet miraculous patient, taking painstaking care to miss nothing that she says or does. “Alice, can you tell me which colours the numbers are supposed to be, again? Without looking at what you wrote before?”
“Of course,” she says, surprised. “One is gray. Two is red. Three is pink. Four is…” She may as well be saying, “Gray is gray. Red is red. Pink is pink…”
“That will do. Mrs. Watson— ” The doctor puts the pad of paper down and leans back in his chair. “Alice is describing synesthetic reactions. The only explanation for someone so young is that she is, in fact, a synesthete . We’ll conduct some more precise tests, but I’m fairly certain of it.”
“A…a what?”
“A synesthete,” he repeats. Even as he speaks, he is trying to hide his tremendous excitement. Alice, one of the precious few patients of her kind he’d encountered in his entire career, is undoubtedly one of the most extreme cases in the history of the condition. One in a million. And profound medical questions are answered by one- in- a- million patients. “Let me try and explain how it works, simplistically speaking. Inside an ordinary mind, the senses are ‘stored’ separately. A sound is a sound, a colour is a colour. A feeling is a feeling… and so on.
“But in a synesthete, those ‘walls’ or ‘dividers’ between the senses are blurred, causing them to intermingle with one another. Obviously the symptoms differ from patient to patient. But I have to say… I’ve never met with such a… stark example before.”
“Can it be cured?” asks Janet bleakly.
Dr. McCormack laughs. “Synesthetes don’t need a cure. There’s nothing to stop your daughter from leading a normal life. She’s very young, and her sensations are understandably overwhelming for her right now. But in time, she’ll learn to control them. She’ll certainly lead a much more— sensually enriched life than you or I.”
Janet purses her lips. Synesthesia. It sounds awful; some sort of obscure disease. “I know I’m not a doctor. But Alice is clearly suffering from delusions of some kind, and you’re telling me that there’s nothing you can do about it? I mean, if she’s having strange visions and…”
“Look,” Dr. McCormack interrupted. “Alice is a perfectly healthy eight- year old. The last thing I’m about to do is numb a growing mind with medication— and even if I wanted to, it wouldn’t help. Synesthesia is involuntary, set off by external stimuli. It isn’t something Alice has control over and while there are certain drugs that could temporarily mask the symptoms, they’d return in any case. That’s just…”
“But— if Alice is unwell—”
“…the way her mind views things,” he finishes gently. “Let me give you the names of some titles I think you should take a look at. At this stage the best thing for you to do is familiarize yourself with the condition— see that it’s no real threat to Alice’s development. We’ll make an appointment for Saturday in a month’s time, see how she’s going, and maybe conduct some tests, all right?”
The pursed lips contract even further.
“I understand your concern. But there really is nothing to worry about. Alice seems to be a perfectly bright and healthy child.”
He tears the page off the pad and hands it to her.

*

The wall separating Alice’s bedroom and that of her parents is wafer thin.
“Janet, I want to you to tell me, word for word, what the doctor said,” her father is saying.
“He said— he said she’s having ‘synesthetic responses’. I didn’t really understand it very well. But Ewan. He didn’t even conduct any tests! You should have seen the way he just jumped to conclusions.”
“Synesthetic responses. He must be joking.”
“You’ve heard of it!”
“I think it’s to do with hallucinations. Drug use.”
“Hallucinations! Yes, he—” There is a sob. “Ewan— I… I’m just terrified! He— he said there wasn’t— a cure—”
“Sweetheart, let’s not be melodramatic about this. You remember Matthew Keller? He was having problems with his son. Couldn’t pay attention, he said. Constantly silly behaviour. So Irene took him to the doctor and he was diagnosed with ADD. The boy’s doing fine now— he’ll be on Ritalin until he grows out of it. Maybe…”
“Dr. Hammond seemed certain it wasn’t…”
“We’ll, you’ll take her to someone else then, and get some different opinions,” says Alice’s father brusquely. “We’ll make sure whatever’s wrong with our little girl is put right, somehow.”
Alice doesn’t want to hear anymore. She suddenly feels furious. Not a torrent of rage— but a silent, unquenchable anger, at these suggestions that she’s a silly child who needs to be cured. She won’t put up with it anymore— not another day, not another second. She delves underneath the covers, her features setting with newly- found confidence and determination.

***

Ewan Watson stirs his coffee out of habit rather than necessity. Very black, very bitter. No milk, no sugar.
“So how’s it all going at home?” asks Matthew Keller cheerfully, biting into his sandwich. “The wife treating you ok?”
There is no reply.
“Er… Ewan?”
“What?” Ewan looks up absently.
Matthew suddenly notices that his friend is pale and thin— exuding the kind of exhaustion that sleep cannot cure. “Is everything ok?” he asks, in a softer tone.
“Oh… mate…” Ewan rubs his eyes. “It’s my little girl.”
“What happened?”
“She hasn’t spoken a word to either Janet or me— not a single word— for the last month. It’s like she’s… disconnected herself from us completely.” He lowers his voice. “Do you remember I told you about all that synesthesia stuff her doctor said?”
“Yeah. Couldn’t he do anything about it?”
“Well, he didn’t want to, did he!” Ewan bursts. “And it was all so airy fairy… God, I don’t know. We took her to a couple of other doctors, and when one of them prescribed some pills, Alice just refused to take them. She didn’t even trust the food we gave her, because she thought we’d secretly put them in there. Janet had to physically throw them away in front of her before we could even get her to eat again! As for the hallucinating, it’s gotten a million times worse. There’s an almost… I don’t know— a drugged looked in her eyes all the time, like she’s here but she’s not really here. She may as well be on another planet.”
Matthew breathes in sharply. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”
“Janet can’t bear the thought of sending her to an institution— and neither can I. But we’re at our wits’ end here!”
“Maybe she’ll grow out of it.”
Ewan laughs bitterly. “Doesn’t seem to be much hope for that. I don’t even care anymore… you know? I just…” His voice cracks with emotion. “I just want her back. Now it’s like we’ve lost her for good— I can’t help thinking that if we’d never messed with it in the first place…”
“That kind of thinking doesn’t help. At this point— all you can do is hope for the best.” Matthew speaks, knowing that his words are of little consolation. “I have to head off— but you know that Irene and I are here, if you need any help…”
“Yeah… thanks, mate.”

Ewan decides to stay outside the café a little longer. He finds something oddly comforting in the urban world around him— the congested streets, the busy people— a source of constancy that he desperately needs. Even the filthy walls and ridiculous graffiti. “Amy Cotters puts out,” he mouths silently, bemused. Something like annoyance flickers urgently on the surface of his subconscious— but his well- trained mind just as quickly disregards it. After all, he’d learnt to deal with his own innate silliness a long time ago.