Unchangeable

Here, everyone is born with eyes that change color depending on their emotions and their thoughts. For instance, when someone is telling the truth, their eyes turn green. When someone is lying, mad, or has evil intentions, their eyes turn red. Blue eyes mean sadness or calmness. If eyes are pink, that means that person is in love or is acting out of love. Eyes only turn black when they've been red for an extended period of time; once they're black, they never change. The shade of the color depends on the severity of the emotion or the action. When a person is born, their eyes are white, showing innocence. They usually start to change soon after birth, usually to pink and blue.

Because of the obvious give away's to people's true intentions, crime is practically nonexistent, people rarely lie, everyone lives in peace. Children soon learn that they can't get away with any nefarious acts, no matter how hard they try to overcome their eye change, the forces of nature are too strong to overcome the will of seven year olds. They say, and by they I mean the people that tell stories to middle schoolers at sleepovers, that the government arranged for everyone to be exposed to the chemical that eventually mutated everyone's eye genes. The legend says that they did this to create the best utopia possible. About 150 years ago, utopia's were the subject of every news story. People would start their own, with family and friends, each had their own ideas of what a perfect world would be; inevitably, they all failed. One by one, problems arose, and people came back into our dysfunctional society. Then, as children were born, people were scared as eyes changed from normal blues, greens, and browns to whites, teals, reds, and even blacks. They learned the reason behind the changes and decided it was for the best. The government supposedly arranged for these people to procreate together, creating generation after generation of people with eyes that changed color, until there wasn't a soul left on Earth who's eyes didn't change as their emotions did. It has been so long since this phenomena started that there are no more people alive with memory of eyes that didn't change,

Then there was me. When I was born, I stunned everyone in the hospital with my bright blue eyes. My bright blue eyes that stayed that way. The doctors always told my parents that I would be a sad little boy all my life. They decided my fate was to be depressed, and there was nothing they could do about it. Unfortunately for them, I was one of the happiest babies everywhere I went. My parents always told babysitters and daycare workers to go easy on me, because I was sad, but to their surprise, I was everything but sad. I smiled and played even more than the other kids. Any time the caretakers tried to tell my parents that I was not sad, they stuck up their noses and told them they had no idea what they were talking about. Even doctors who observed my joyfulness were scorned by my parents. They eventually grew tired of hearing about my happiness when they thought the only thing I could be was sad, so they homeschooled me and kept me isolated from the world.

The day I turned 18 was the day I packed up everything I owned and left the jail of my parents house. They told me not to leave, they said I would never make it in the world on account of my depression. But I was determined to prove them wrong. So I left without a goodbye. My younger siblings, with normal, changing eyes, begged me not to go, but I told them I would call, and they seamed satisfied enough, so I left.

People stared as I walked past them in the streets. I received sympathetic looks at the grocery stores and restaurants I went to. People always talked in soft, soothing tones around me. Now, I've gotten treated like this all my life, but I was getting pretty tired of it, so I pasted a smile on my face as I walked around town, which only accomplished getting more funny looks and stares. I rented an apartment with the money my parents had given me throughout my life, since I never went out with them or alone, I had quite a bit of money stashed away. I knew it wouldn't last, so I tried to get a job, but no one would hire me if it was a job that worked with customers. The best job I could get was washing dishes at Olive Garden. So I did that for a while, just coasting through life with no real purpose. Girls wouldn't give me a second look after they noticed the color of my eyes. After all, who wants to date a sad sack who washed dishes for a living?

I learned at an early age not to tell anyone about my abnormality, it was often preceded by "have you seen a doctor about that?" or "how do you function in society?" So I mostly just pretended to be sad. One might think that with all that pretending, I would actually be sad, but my joyful spirit never left me, I was always happy on the inside, usually singing a little tune to myself or laughing at my own inside jokes.

One day, when I was leaving work, I was met by one of my female colleagues, a server, and attractive one. Her eyes were a bright green when she told me she knew what I was going through. She said no one ever questioned her, because green eyes were the best. She explained to me that she was born with the same defect. She told me that there was a whole underground community of people with the same defect. They all lived together and helped each other survive and provide. The one's who's eyes were blue, like mine, or red, or even black, found it hard to get a job. No one wanted to hire someone if they thought they were lying. She said I was welcome to join them if I wanted. So I did. She drove because all I had was a single speed bike.

We drove down sketchy back alleys and dark side roads for about half an hour in silence, save the radio, softly playing the newest pop songs. We pulled into a dark, abandoned parking garage. Old, rusting cars were sprinkled throughout as we drove to the fifth level. That level contained cars that drove and motorcycles that ran. She parked the car and we got out, still silent. She led me to the elevator, and after a short ride there, we stepped inside of an abandoned hotel. It was well lit and clean, but their was something strange about it. Something that I couldn't put my finger on.

There was a woman sitting at the front desk, she had bright white eyes that stood out from her dark skin. She asked the girl I was with if I was a newbie, she said yes and then told me to wait where I was. She then walked up the woman and they spoke in hushed tones for a couple minutes while I stood there awkwardly, nodding and half smiling at the people that walked by. I was instinctively cautious of the ones with black or red eyes, but I remembered her words, they couldn't help it. They were like me, eyes unchangeable.