One day, she woke up and all her hair was white.

She didn’t feel much different otherwise. More refreshed, perhaps. As if she’d just awoke from a long sleep. Everything was but vaguely familiar.

She went to school that day anyway, insisting she was fine. Did she look older? Just different, Mama had said. She sounded worried, her mother. She stroked her hair gingerly, letting her fingers comb through the silvery strands. It was a vivid, almost painful shade of white. It stood in striking contrast with her skin even though she was already paler than most. Made her seem darker somehow. Even her own uniform, bleached into immaculate spotlessness the night before, looked dull in comparison. When the school bus came for her, she left her mother staring absently into space. What was it they said about white hair?

What is black and white and red all over? That riddle numbed her mind from absorbing anything within the classroom, drowned out her professor’s voice to a barely above a muffled monotone. It had popped into her head that morning, right out of the blue, and had since refused to be ignored. Funny, she was sure she must’ve known the answer at one time or another. Maybe she’d forgotten. Maybe she never knew it.

She twirled a lock of white hair between her fingers before idly chewing on it, as she often did when she was busy thinking. Black and white and red. Her eyes roamed down to her stiff checkered shirt. Then over to everyone else’s. Black and white. Then it occurred to her. All’s black and white.

Where’s the red?