The sun lowered upon the horizon creating a fiery splatter of color all across the clouds in the sky while a young boy of thirteen gazed up with mist-like eyes from the grass.  The boy was without a shirt despite his mother having told him to wear one numerous times throughout the day, so the bony physique of his body was shown for all its lackluster glory.  His white blonde hair lazily swayed with the gentle breeze and a shiver of cold flowed throughout his body.

  The boy loved sunrises and sunsets more than any other time in the day, for those were the only times of day in which he truly felt as though he was not, in fact, without sight.  The rest of the day simply seemed like a white, black, and gray mess of blurs, yet during the time before the day began as well as when the day was coming to an end he could see many spectacular colors.  He could also tell that when the colors hit the various clouds within the sky, they too cast different colors.  It was the only time in which he truly felt normal.

  Others in the town never seemed to think anything of these marvelous events which took place every day.  To them, the sunrise meant only that it was time for their day to begin.  It was simply the time to awaken and prepare for work or school.  As the sun rose in the sky casting new light upon the trees, the town, and the clouds in the sky, creating a splendid array of bright colors and shapes that if they only looked could tell them a grand new story each new day, for no day had the same shapes or even the exact same colors as the one before or even the one ten years prior.  These people would simply awaken to groans of the new day followed by dressing and eating a quick breakfast.

  It appeared as though none of them were even vaguely aware of the fact that when the sun lowered in the sky it orchestrated a dance with its rays as it dyed the landscape in an ever-changing flow of reds, oranges, and yellows which would slowly turn to darker cooler colors as the dance came to a close.  For as the sun conducted this remarkable ballet upon the land and sky, the other people in the town were merely leaving their jobs and returning to their homes where they would eat a meal which many complained of later.

  The boy never truly understood why it seemed so many people missed this incredible event that occurred every day, but it mattered not as he was able to recognize the miracle for what it was.  He had recognized it ever since he was even younger than he was now, for his eyes had never been something that the average person perceived as good.  Many even thought of him as someone who needed others' charity to survive.  Some might have even used the word "burden".  It mattered not to this boy though.  He may have never had eyes that could see far enough to hunt, but the thing he noticed was that many people seemed to be unable to use their sight properly that he was more gifted than they were.

  Certainly, the other children in town may have been able to see the details of a bird flying over their heads, but none of them did anything like that more than to notice what kind of bird it was.  This boy on the other hand was able to see the movement the bird made in the sky as it flew overhead.  It may be a mere blur to his eyes, but it was a blur that moved beautifully as it neared, changing colors ever so subtly as it flew away.

  These children were of course able to tell that his mother had blue eyes, but it was only he who saw how her body merged with the sunset's orange glow to create a brand new color every day based on what she wore.

  He rarely spoke of these thoughts to anyone with the exception of his mother, for anytime he spoke of such things to others in the town he was met with anger or he was brushed off as being ridiculous.  He didn't think these thoughts were ridiculous though, nor did his mother ever say such a thing.  On the contrary, she would walk outside and sit upon the grass with him and ask him to describe what he saw to her.  Her eyes were always said to be the sharpest eyes in town, so it always cheered the boy up when she would do this.  It made him feel special that someone who supposedly had the best eyes in town would ask him to describe what he saw when the town thought him to be practically blind.

  The boy heard the door to his house open and looked around to see a flowing blur of violet dance with a glow of orange nearing him.  He knew this to be his mother, so he smiled her way believing she had come to hear him describe the world to her.  He then noticed there was something else with her.  His best guess was that she was carrying something, but what that could be was not certain.

  She sat next to him and placed something hard and rectangular into his hands.  He stared at the object, noticing that it seemed to reflect the strongest color the sun was currently casting upon its surface.  She then placed some colorful cups next to him and placed a wooden tool into his hand.

  "Show me your world my son," she whispered, and though he had never been able to see a smile, he could tell from the glow on her face that she was indeed smiling at him.

  The boy felt the tip of the brush and found it to be full of hairs of some kind.  He dipped it into one of the cups of colors, and when he removed it the color rose with the tool.  He then moved the brush across the surface as he sought to paint the town the way he saw it in the light of the setting sun.

  The boy painted until the light had gone and he could no longer see anything before him.  He offered the object to his mother who took it making a strange sound with her voice that the boy had never heard before.

  "It's beautiful," she told him as she gazed upon the world as her son saw it.

  The boy began to do this every morning and evening, and his mother began to take the paintings and hang them outside their home for all the town to see.  At first, no one believed that her son could have painted such splendid works; therefore, she would invite them to watch while he worked.

  Before too long there was a painting in nearly every house in the town of the boy's, and instead of hearing others taking pity on him or saying how he was a burden, he heard people telling him how wonderful his most recent work was. 

  To this day the boy paints still and despite it appearing as though he is always painting the same horizon, each day the painting is different, for each day is different and should be looked upon with new hope and fresh eyes no matter how good or bad they are.