The Colour of Peace
Pepper looked around the hall at the sea of heads bent over exam papers. Each one was a shade of red or orange and she found it comforting that she wasn't the only one finding the exam extremely confusing. The girl next to her suddenly slammed her pen down on her desk and gripped her hair in her hand. Pepper watched as it turned an even deeper shade of red as the girl's frustrations grew. Her own hair wasn't as deep, resembling a carrot as she drifted through an endless sky of confusion. Pepper never understood why the universe had chosen orange as the hair colour to represent emotions such as confusion, bewilderment and nervousness. She felt it was offensive to naturally born gingers.
There was only one person whose hair didn't glow like a candle flame and that was Aidan Fisher. His cool blue locks seemed to mock everyone in the hall, waving his superior intelligence and competence like a flag on top of the battlements. Of course, Aidan was feeling calm and confident, he always was. Whether it was the end of year exams, a football tournament or asking a girl on a date, Aidan Fisher's head always stayed blue. Pepper wouldn't be surprised if his hair would stay the colour of the sky even if he was being held at gunpoint.
Pepper stared daggers at the back of his head as he continued to write answers in every box in neat loopy handwriting. An invigilator coughed politely next to her and Pepper realised her hair had turned green with envy. She blushed, her hair rapidly shifting from lime to raspberry and looked back down at her test paper. A few people around her snickered, others were too caught up in complicated algebra to notice and stupid Aidan Fisher simply carried on, cool as a cucumber. One Pepper would happily chop up and feed to her rabbits.
She only had ten minutes left to answer as many questions as she could. She quickly flicked through the rest of the test paper and realised that she had barely completed half. Her stomach dropped and she swallowed the lump in her throat. It wasn't like her teachers had expected her to do well- she hadn't all year. In an attempt to remedy that problem, she had been seated next to Aidan for most of the year. He smiled and calmly showed her how to do the classwork as she tore her hair out. When she got a question right, he would smile and congratulate her, when she got it wrong, he smiled and told her that she would get there eventually. He was always smiling, always calm, always so bloody perfect. On many an occasion, she thought about tearing apart his work to see if his emotions would change. He would probably just smile and ask her if she was okay.
It was truly unnerving, the fact that he could never be upset or embarrassed or cheerful. Maybe there was something wrong with him. Maybe he didn't have any other emotions or maybe his hair was different and decided not to reflect them. Pepper had never thought to ask him, too busy seething over his beautiful blue hair. Maybe he was actually depressed but no one ever believed him because his hair never changed colour.
The thought left Pepper feeling sad and a little emotional. Suddenly the invigilator was instructing everyone to leave the hall quickly and quietly. Pepper realised she had been too busy inventing excuses for Aidan's hair rather than doing her test. All empathy for him disappeared as frustration consumed her. She slammed her head on the desk and mentally beat herself up for letting herself get so easily distracted.
As she exited the hall, a hand tapped her on the shoulder. It was Aidan. "What?" Pepper snapped.
Aidan smiled softly at her, unaffected by her rudeness. "I was wondering if you were okay. Your hair was like a kaleidoscope for the last few minutes."
Pepper blushed again, realising how much of a scene she must have caused.
"It's alright," Aidan spoke, realising her humiliation, "we all have bad days."
"You don't," Pepper muttered under her breath.
Aidan smiled again but this time Pepper noticed that his smile didn't reach his eyes. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" And with that he walked away, his hand running through the back of his hair.
Pepper stared. As Aidan moved his arm back down to his side, she caught a glimpse of the metal plate at the base of his skull. The colour drained from her face. It wasn't that Aidan didn't have emotions, or couldn't express them, that wasn't the case at all. It was something much, much worse.
