The Great Orange Outage

First they took away the colour. Then they sent everyone the bill.

Breakfast that day was like all other breakfasts for twelve-year-old Emma Long. Pancakes. An egg, sunny-side up. And...fruit.

She reached for the orange in the crystal fruit bowl in front of her, then stopped. The orange wasn't as cheery as it should have been. Its usually jolly peel had turned black, like an oversized lump of coal.

She gazed outside the window. The sun had broken its vow of daylight; it was a bruise on Sunkissed's horizon.

She tasted the orange. It still tasted of sunshine, though that itself seemed to have...vanished. And across the world, people stared at what they no longer saw.

The walk to school the next day was just as puzzling.

The light at the traffic crossing was no longer amber, but charcoal black. Road workers struggled because the traffic cones they worked with were no longer orange; they had lost the battle with colour.

An art teacher realised that Creativity had developed a technical fault and had turned everything black.

"Does orange even exist anymore?" A puzzled student asked.

The phenomenon was so strange that Sunkissed's news media coined a new moniker: the Great Orange Outage. Scientists offered explanations--none explained anything. Facebook feeds were rife with theories, the most popular of which was the sun being swallowed by a Black Hole.

Her grandpa's expression had darkened, though orange wasn't responsible.

At home, Emma wandered into Grandpa's study. The old man had filled it with paintings, journals and other memories.

She glanced at the portraits of sunrises, marigolds and autumn leaves. The once-orange portions were dressed in black.

Then, she remembered. He had been a colour-perception engineer at Spectrum Incorporated, Sunkissed's premier colour-fabrication company. He had been part of a team that developed a device that could alter how the brain interpreted light. Their research was for medical and scientific purposes.

Then, Spectrum's directors had an Aha! moment. One that told them how colour manipulation could become--

Profitable.

Spectrum had realised how to make colour work for themselves. And Grandpa wanted no part of it.

He resigned-before telling them how to put the colours back the way they were.

The next morning, Emma picked up the Sunkissed Times and browsed through the headlines during breakfast.

Spectrum Incorporated had announced a press conference. Its CEO appeared in front of a corporate logo.

"Sir, could you tell us what has caused orange to disappear?" A reporter pushed a microphone at him. He pushed it away and smiled. "Spectrum has come up with a way to restore orange." His assistant doled out pamphlets. "Introducing our Colour Restoration Programme, available in customisable packages!" He beamed, his spectacles and teeth taking on unusual enormity and shine.

Emma cornered Grandpa Long as he came down the stairs for his breakfast. "Grandad-customisable packages? No one should have to pay to see a colour!"

Grandad pondered what she said. He nodded his head slowly. " I agree. That's why I stopped colourising for them in the first place." He rummaged through his drawers and drew a piece of paper. "Here. My early research. What I never told them was --there is a way to bring back orange." He stomped his foot with exaggerated flourish. "Colour perception is still ours!"

"Ours? How? Spectrum owns all the royalties!" Then she grinned. "Grandad, the peanuts are yours if you want them, though." She hopped about the room mischievously.

"We could release this research. But it will have-," he leaned forward conspiratorially. "Consequences."

"At this point, we should try everything. Spectrum has already harmed millions of people." Using a little flamboyant hacking know-how, she bypassed Spectrum's subscription system.

The programme travelled faster than any corporate disclaimer. The horizon was more than clear. It blushed with new MAC lipstick, embarrassed by its recent absence.

And just like that, Orange was restored. News channels celebrated the occasion.

Spectrum didn't. It sustained financial losses as customers customised their subscriptions- with cancellations. Emma received the Golden Orange, Sunkissed's top accolade, given only to citizens who maintained orange around the city.

A courier arrived with a large envelope for Emma and Grandpa Long. In it was a legal notice from Spectrum Incorporated. It was a suit filed against them for intellectual property theft and interference with its commercial colour services.

"Grandpa," the preteen asked, "Can they sue the entire world?"

"They certainly intend to try," Grandpa chuckled.

A news bulletin the next day declared that the company was filing an application to patent yellow.

Some mirrors show your face. Others reveal the thoughts, fears, choices and contradictions hidden beneath the surface.

Mirrors of the Mind explores those reflections through stories that look at people, relationships and the unexpected turns that make us question what we thought we knew.

Sometimes, the most revealing thing in a mirror isn't the person looking back.