Invisible blue: Short Story Summary

The house in this sketch is a replica of the first home I lived in as a small child. It was a sky-blue doublewide mobile home situated between sprawling cow pastures on the outskirts of town.

My dad planted two trees in the front yard when I and my brother were born. The tree he planted for me still stands and blocks the view of the house from the road. This sketch is purely from memory.

Synopsis

Last year I wrote a short story called Invisible Blue, which is a fictional exploration of me meeting myself as a child, who seems to live all alone cooped up in the little blue house on the side of the highway, and the conversations we share reveal how the adult protagonist developed certain mental health issues and idiosyncrasies.

The story follows 30 year old Anne who suffers vivid hallucinations and insomnia and has rambling frantic thoughts, and 5 year old Annie who is left at home for hours on end without engagement or supervision. Anne is in therapy for C-PTSD and she struggles to accept her mental health diagnoses. One day she gets the compulsion to visit her childhood home, and over the course of a week, she’ll visit the house five times, gradually gaining answers and Annie’s trust. On the last day, an emergency happens at the house and it’s up to Anne to save Annie, and this leads the adult version to confronting the people that left her alone, and making a decision that will impact her relationship with her family and all versions of herself.

Background Info

I penned the story originally to do some inner-child healing and shadow work, and decided that it may benefit others who had childhood experiences similar to mine.

Recently, I decided to convert the story into a short comic to be published on this site and uploaded onto Instagram, and Amazon KDP Publishing. The point would be to establish some writing credit before taking on my bigger project Martyr the Bride.

Behind the Title

The title ‘Invisible Blue’ is a word play on a few things. Firstly, the house was a pretty sky-blue when we lived there, with reddish-brown shingles and white trim. Secondly, I spent a solid chunk of my childhood at home alone in the summer when I was in elementary school, and had no other children to play with and no one to talk to for about 8 hours a day. I was the ‘invisible’ one in the title. The title also refers to a hidden sadness that I’ve always had with me, and the plot explains the source of that sadness. The third meaning is a reference to my eye color, which is a pale blue that often looks translucent in some lighting.

Intentional Writing

I wanted a story that was simple in its construction, that only had two characters (there are mentions of other people, and Anne meets her parents at the end, but the primary story is just the two selves), and that was deep and emotionally impactful. The most important part of a story, the job of a story is to impact and connect with readers - to touch the parts of the soul that make us human. This is a HARD task, and before I try to do that with a complicated narrative, I figured this was easy practice.

When it’s done, I will post it here. I’m hopeful I’ll make something others will resonate with.