Perfect.

Perfect

Linn awoke smoothly on yet another Saturday in her factual, no-nonsense life. She sat straight up, unaffected by sleep, and scanned her room. Immaculate, white furniture, white walls, white carpet, white everything. Not even a speck of dust dared to mar the rooms white perfection. Some would say the room looked very much like an asylum, but to Linn, it was exactly as a room should be, practical and neat. Stepping softly from her bed, Linn grasped the cold brass doorknob of her bedroom door and strolled gracefully into the hallway. After walking halfway down the stairs, however, there came a rude interruption in Linn’s perfect morning. Tromping out of her own bedroom came Louise, Linn's odd younger sister. Roaring like a lion, Louise pounced on the banister, sliding and giggling 'till she reached the first floor. Once there, she turned to greet Linn with a wide smile before skipping off to breakfast. Making a short sound of indignation, Linn resumed her surefooted lope down the stairs.

Breakfast was a surprisingly quiet affair. With their parents gone on a business trip all weekend, it was just Linn and Louise at the table. The contrast between the two siblings was more apparent than ever as they sat quietly together. Linn was tall and peerless in a white nightgown while Louise was short and radical in boxers. A seemingly perpetual solitude hung in the air. In fact, there were only two times Louise spoke during their otherwise silent meal. The first came just after Linn served them both steaming bowls of oatmeal. Before Linn could sit down, Louise seized her arm, brandished a piece of paper that had been concealed in her lap, and held it in front of Linn's face. The paper was white. Perfectly white.

"Linn, tell me, what do you see in this?" Louise looked uncharacteristically pensive, Linn looked annoyed.

"A sheet of paper," She replied, a sneering brand of annoyance played across her face as she walked away to seat herself.

Louise looked faintly disappointed at Linn’s reaction, but did not speak again until the end of the meal. After they had both finished the oatmeal, and Linn was collecting the empty bowls, Louise spoke once more to her sister. Handing Linn a small, crumpled object, she began to speak slowly and deliberately.

"Think about it." With those three, carefully chosen words, she scampered out of the kitchen and up the stairs. A few seconds later, a muffled slam followed this exit.

Linn looked down at the object she was holding. In her palm, was a crinkly white charm bracelet.

"It's made out of paper," Linn wondered aloud, thunderstruck, "Just Paper."

The bracelet was pure white and made largely of a thin paper band. Dangling delicately off of the band were several intricate charms. In that very instant, while staring at the bracelet, a very strange sensation overcame Linn. For the first time in her life, she felt...not so perfect. As if she was missing something vitally important. There was something she had to do, something she had to realize. Leaving the dirty dishes forgotten and unwashed, Linn bounded up the stairs and swung open her bedroom door. She stood, frozen, in the door frame. What she had seen as perfect only minutes ago now seemed all wrong. Her room was nothing more than a white box, a toy for a child playing at perfect.

She still couldn't understand exactly what she was missing. Possibility, future, life, emotion. Imagination. That was it; Imagination. The inability to see the possibility in even a sheet of paper. To judge things as perfect as they were. Why not add color to her life?! Why not revel in imperfection?! She could spend time with the sister she had labeled as 'odd'. Together, they could learn to fly; together they could imagine. As strange thoughts stormed through her mind, there came a silence; the eye to her hurricane of ideas. Here, she found one thing she believed with all her new-found heart to be true: There is no such thing as perfect.