Jacob the Visionary

I came up with what I think is a cool character idea recently. I just got new, polarized, prescription sunglasses. The polarization makes everything clearer, but if you look through the tint on car windows, it kind of seems like you're looking through a rainbow at everything. And that sparked my imagination. Hooray! I've felt like Compass has been sapping my creativity recently, so I was excited to get a new idea.

Anyway, here's a couple paragraphs from Jacob's point of view.

I wish I could see the world the way that everybody else does. No, I'm not blind. I'm legally color-blind, but that's not exactly what's wrong with my vision either.

Let's see if I can explain.

You know those paint jobs on cars that, when you look at it from a different angle, shift to a different color? That's how I see everything and everyone. The angle doesn't affect the colors I see, however. The colors I see are impressions of the future. So, if I watch the colors shift long enough, I'll eventually see black, because everything dies or decomposes somehow.

Other people are the hardest to watch. Their colors shift at a dizzying rate. I think it's because we humans change our minds so much. Every decision affects how our future turns out, so each new thought, each new decision, causes that persons colors to shift to a new pattern. Animals don't have as much variety, probably because their thought processes are simpler. Un-living things, cars and buildings, etc., shift very slowly. Plants are somewhere in-between animals and buildings. The shift is quicker than the buildings, steady, slow, but still there.

It would be fascinating if I could turn this ability on and off. But it's a constant thing. I can't read, because the colors obscure the page. I can watch television, but the combination of colors from the actors, the sets, and the actual tv set itself, combined with distortions from the colors from the cameras, makes me nauseous. So that limits my entertainment to audio pleasures. I love music. I can close my eyes and shut out the colors and just drift away on the sound.

I've been trying to learn to navigate the world the way a blind person does, but it's a slow, ongoing process. If I can accomplish this, I may bind my eyes and deal with the world without seeing it.

I'm not sure why I've been given this "gift," and I don't see how to make it truly useful, as I don't see details, just colors, but I'm trying to learn to live my life around it.


Well, that's my idea. I rather like it. I don't know how to work it into a story or anything, but I really like the ability.

What do you think?