A Modern Classic: Read an Extract from The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue by Zoulfa Katouh

I see a speeding car from the corner of my eye. I shiver as if feeling the rumble of the pavement from behind the register.
When I blink, a colorless world unfurls in front of me. For more than a year now, I have been able to see only in gray; all the color has disappeared from my universe.
The gas station Baba works at sits on the precipice of I-80, which connects New Jersey to the beaches of San Francisco. One straight line that leads to the Opus School of Art— the college of my dreams.
It was founded by a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature who used her earnings to open and fund the school. Those who have graduated from it have gone on to make their mark on the world through photography, painting, and museums. Sometimes during the quiet, boring moments here, I take out my phone, open Google Maps, and follow the line with my finger, trying to imagine the way there. But I can’t fully visualize it. Everything has become dulled, vague, like a pencil smudge.
The only thing that’s been consistent is the burning need inside me to be in San Francisco. Even if I can’t see the blue of the ocean when I reach it, it won’t matter.

Continue reading the extract here.

Buy a copy of The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue here.