A Heart in Two Worlds
Ada was born into a world of muted colors and stifled creativity, a world that censored every spark of imagination and individuality. She noticed the absence of color in her life even as a child, wandering through the colorless streets of her city, wondering if there was more to life than the grey existence that surrounded her.
Ada's family, like everyone else in her world, was assigned their life duties by a governing body known as the Order, whose only interest was maintaining stability and sameness. When Ada turned 16, she too was assigned a job: to monitor and correct deviations in the way people dressed. But this task, like everything else in her world, felt lifeless and mundane.
One day while performing her duties, Ada saw something she couldn't comprehend, something she had never seen before. A woman, unlike everyone else, was wearing vibrant, multicolored clothes. Stunned, Ada watched as she disappeared into a large, multicolored portal in a dilapidated alley. Confused and enthralled, Ada followed her through the portal, into a world that was unlike anything she had ever seen. This was a world of color.
Every inch of the new world was filled with color and vibrancy. People dressed in fashions Ada couldn't even begin to describe, their expressions full of emotions unfelt in her old world. Creatives lined the streets, painting, sculpting, sketching their hearts out. Musicians played on corners, singing their stories with gusto. It was a world where creativity and individuality weren't just celebrated, they were essential.
Over time, Ada settled in her new world, started dressing in multi-colored clothing that expressed her personality and started painting, drawn to the art that had never been permitted in her old world. But life in this vibrant world wasn't easy. Freedom came with its own set of hurdles. Famine often struck the land, and the governing body was corrupt, taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Even with all the tragedy and hardship, however, people never lost their spirit.
Ada often thought about the people she'd left behind in her old world, the ones who had never seen a sunset's hues or the vibrancy of a painted wall, the ones who had never known the crippling struggles of a corrupt government and an imminent famine. This triggered an idea in her.
Using the painting skills she'd gained, she created a vivid mural back in her old world depicting the famines and difficulties of her current world. It was a dangerous act, but Ada felt the need to communicate, to show her people the raw truth. The painting was met with anger by the Order, but curiosity and confusion by the citizen. For a moment, it had shattered their monotony.
Then Ada went back to her colored world and painted another mural, showing the monotony and colorlessness of her old world. The citizens were shocked by such a dull existence, but they valued it as a uniquely harsh artistic expression.
For the first time, each world started to understand the other’s struggles. A group of architects from the colorful world ventured into the plain world and started introducing color in little ways, planting trees, installing colorful windows, while the colorless world sent over some of their disciplined Order enforcers to bring law and order in the chaotic world.
Both worlds benefited, creating a balance. They accepted and respected each other's struggles, and that led to understanding and unity. But the one who gained the most from it was Ada — she no longer felt torn between two worlds, but rather felt that she belonged to both.
A heart in two worlds, battling the struggles in both, can bring about unity. The mural became a symbol of that unity, a symbol of Ada's heart and her lasting legacy, formulating bonds of mutual respect between the two worlds.