A Change of Paint
Travis Mueller

    I stared at the cracking ceiling above my bed and awaited the dreadful buzzing of my alarm clock. In the corner of my eye, “5:59” blinked on a black box on my night-side table. It was the bastion of irony. If I set my alarm the day before, I’d wake up a few minutes before it went off; if I didn’t set the alarm, I’d wake up thirty minutes late. I heard my mother pacing back and forth from the kitchen to the back hall carrying her mirror and make-up bags out of the bathroom so I could get in there. I sat up, cracked my aching back, and walked to my door while stepping on any clothes or cassettes that got in my way.
    The bathroom had that muggy feel to it and the make-up light was still on. Pools of water mixed with the residue of lipstick, and found a temporary home on the surface of the sink. I turned on the shower and waiting a few seconds for the water to get hot-- not warm, but scolding hot. It’s the only way I thought showers should be.
    Glasses off and contacts out, I could barely see the shampoo bottles an inch away from my face. Everything seemed vague, formless, and dark-- even my skin. Fifteen minutes later, I slid out of the shower and into the freezing, cold air. The bathroom mirror was still foggy and all I could see was a brown splotch. I put on some pajamas and walked outside the bathroom and back into my room. I slid the contacts under my eyelids while scratching at the curtains and shouting out obscenities from the sheer pain. Eyes red and shut, I flicked out my bedroom light and blinked rapidly for a few seconds. I walked back towards my door when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the side of my wall.
    What in the...I thought to myself. My skin had turned about seventeen shades darker, and my eyes had a smoky, yellow tint to them. I was shocked more than anything. So many thoughts ran through my head. Did I eat something odd? Do I have something? What did I do? What the hell is in that damn fluid?
    Panicking, I ran to the kitchen and looked around for pink elephants and dancing saxophones, hoping this was a frightening dream. And there she was. My mother standing over a pot of boiling water and pushing her hair behind her ears. Her face was a dark as the morning sky and her hair had more curl to it. She turned to look at me and simply said, “It’s ten to seven. Go back your bag already.”
    I grimaced in fear and backed around the corner to my room again. I was scared. My skin and face had changed over night. I always knew of my African heritage, but how in the world could a recessive trait suddenly rise up from the seeming dead? And how did it surface in both my and my mother’s skin? Just yesterday, my skin was a burnt-tan color. People always assuming I could speak a Latin language and were shocked when I’d rebuttal, saying, “I don’t speak Spanish,” (Auf, Deutsch, of course.) But what language would people shout at me now?
    I kept staring at my face, tugging at the cobalt-black skin, and wondering what caused it. I wasn’t disgusted, and if I knew that nothing was medically wrong, I would have been fine with it. But it was frightening how it just seemed to change, and how my mother didn’t even notice. Does that mean my teachers wouldn’t notice? Does that mean my best friend wouldn’t notice?
    The September air struck through me as it normally did as I walked the long path up the front doors of the local high school. I walked in, and a group of black sophomores came up to me, slapping my back and greeting me loudly. They never noticed me before, why would they now? I wasn’t wearing a basketball jersey, and my pants weren’t hanging off my backside. I had on a pair of black pants with my chain wallet. Nothing had changed, but they saw something else in me. I smiled back and rushed upstairs to my locker. No one there knew me anyway, so other than a few, short glimpses, no one paid any attention to me.
    My Advanced Writing class was small-- only about thirteen people and was taught by a woman with straight, blonde hair and glasses. Every one, despite them not being my friends, stared at me in shock. The bouncy teacher had leaned up from her newspaper and noticed my alteration. A smile grew across her face and began to shout out, “Oh, my god! You look amazing! What in the--! How in the--! What!? You’re like, the opposite Michael Jackson!”
    Oh, yes. I’ve always wanted to be an opposite Michael Jackson, I thought. The questions were brutal. I have sixty questions shoved down my throat and I, being just as confused as they, had no answers for them. I just put my head down and stared the across section of the Friday crossword puzzle. I dreaded the second period of the day, a speech class that involved public speaking and address a certain issue.

   I was able to evade some friends by taking a different staircase. I couldn’t handle all the questions. The first few periods of the day ran exactly as my others—full of questions with no answers-- until German class when I asked to go to the nurse. When lunchtime came around, I walked to my normal table in the corner by the staircase and sat down. I didn’t feel like standing in a line for a soda and was there a little early. No one else was over there.

  My best friend, Jill asked me to move over a seat, thinking I was a complete stranger.

            “Jill, I always sit here.” She took a glimpse at my face and turned red. Her eyes said everything that she wanted to but couldn’t. How did this happen? Does it hurt?

            “I don’t know,” I answered as if she vocally had asked me a question.

            She sat down and just stared. I explained to her that I had just woken up this way. I didn’t know what caused it or exactly how it could. She looked frightening for me. As if the skin was eating itself alive and I was in incredible pain. I couldn’t face the rest of my classes and ran out after lunch. I ran to the end of the world—or really, the parking lot. The air was cold and rain was beginning to fall. I shouted out for a passing taxi down below, hoping that it’d stop for me. I should have known better that it pass me in favor of a woman with her two toddlers across the street at the gas station. They never did that before. I was always the same, but people always jumped to the conclusion that I was from a Latin country, and could speak their languages. I always complained about not being a true representation of what I am, but I was comfortable. I hated change. I was fine when people thought I was Hispanic or Portuguese. But now that my true identity was showing through for the first time, I felt scared.

            I sat up in bed and breathlessly walked into the bathroom. I tugged at my face, still that tan color from before, and my eyes were the same. I was the same. I took two aspirin and looked back into the bedroom where Sean was snoring with his right leg hanging off the mattress. I had never thought of my teenage years since I moved to Koeln.  I was wondering why they had resurfaced when I looked at the floor and saw a copy of “Remember the Titans,” the film we had watched the night before. I laid back down and stared at the peeling, green walls and thought, This room really needs a change of paint.