Monitor Lighting

Sometimes at night I turn off the ceiling light in my bedroom, and the blue haze of my computer monitor acts as the only source of illumination. The ocean scene on the background of my desktop layers the room with an azure hued tint. The white, pasty walls of my college apartment turn slate-gray, and they no longer are a sharp contrast to the ripped out calendar pages of European tourists traps that serve as art.

I take off my glasses, and my imagination struggles to match the blurred objects I see with what I wish was there. The dark sienna curvy shapes by the foot of my bed become two sleeping Himalayan rabbits. The dresser transforms into real oak, cherry colored. My makeshift wall art turns into framed impressionist masterpieces. My textbooks translate into novels.

I put my glasses back on and see my torn brown flip-flops in a heap by my bed. The red oak dresser now has a fake oak finish. A famous British author no longer wrote Numerical Methods, Second Edition.

But I keep the computer monitor turned on and the room lights off. My imagination takes me to under the deck on a sailboat; the azure-tinted waves pounding against the windows make the white cabin walls appear gray.