The Gallery of Mirrors I can see colors. Not the way you see colors. You look at a red wall and you think "red." I look at a red wall and I hear it. A low hum, like a cello played in another room, the note bending slightly sharp because the humidity is high and the paint is old and the wall is tired of being red. My family thinks I'm crazy. "What are you doing now?" my mother asks. "Staring at that wall again?" "I'm looking at the color of that wall," I say. "What color?" "All of them." My name is Ethan Cross. I'm twenty years old, and I live in a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn's DeKalb Village with my parents, my father Patrick, my brother Sean, my sister Lillian, and the ghost of my grandfather, who spent the last ten years of his life in a mental institution because he claimed he could "hear the sound of colors." I inherited that from him. Or whatever that is. It's not a gift. It's not a curse. It's just... how I am. I have a condition. The doctor called it "extreme synesthesia"—a neurological phenomenon where the brain's sensory pathways cross in unusual ways. For me, that means I don't just see colors. I perceive them with an almost painful precision. I can tell you the exact hue, saturation, and brightness of any color I look at. I can hear the泛音 in a piece of music that most people would never notice. I can read the rhythmic structure of a word before I even understand what it means. My family thinks I'm crazy. My professors at the community college think I'm brilliant. My boss at the gallery thinks I'm useful. I work as an assistant at a small gallery in Manhattan. My job is to frame paintings, move paintings, pour champagne at opening receptions. I don't like the job, but I need the money. At the same time, I'm studying art history at the community college because it's the only thing I'm good at. I have a secret. A secret that I don't tell anyone, not even Daniel Kim, my coworker and friend. I can tell if a painting is real or fake. Not by looking at the signature, or the frame, or the certificate of authenticity. I can tell by looking at the paint itself. I can perceive the chemical composition of the pigment from inches away. I can tell you if the blue in a painting is ultramarine or phthalocyanine. I can tell you if the white is titanium dioxide or lead white. I can tell you when the paint was made, because some pigments weren't invented until certain years. And last month, I used that ability to discover a fraud. The gallery was preparing an exhibition for an emerging abstract expressionist. I was arranging the paintings when I noticed that the pigment配比 in one of the canvases was wrong. Not the artist's fault—someone had swapped the paint. I started investigating. I discovered that someone in the gallery was using cheap synthetic paint instead of expensive natural paint, and then selling it at the price of authentic works. The scam had been running for three years, involving over two million dollars. Worse, I discovered that my ability was the key evidence. I could precisely distinguish the pigment composition differences between authentic and fake works. Victoria Sterling, the gallery's founder, noticed me. She invited me to her office and asked me one question: "Can you tell me if that painting is real or fake?" I looked at the painting and said, "The paint was produced after 2015. But this painting claims to be from 1958." Victoria was silent for a long time. Then she said, "You're promoted. Not an assistant anymore. You're my eyes." My life started to change. I moved out of my Brooklyn apartment into a small studio in Lower Manhattan. I started dealing with top collectors, entering art circles I had never dared to imagine. But the change came at a cost. My ability got stronger—so strong that I couldn't escape "seeing the truth" anywhere. Walking down Times Square, I could see that every billboard's color had been digitally altered. Walking into a restaurant, I could read the chef's anxiety from the plating. Walking into my apartment, I could read the landlord's depression from the wall color. My ability was no longer a gift. It was a curse. At the same time, my congenital heart disease worsened. The doctor told me I needed surgery. But the surgery was risky, and expensive. The gallery's salary wasn't enough to pay for it. I was caught between a rock and a hard place: accept the gallery's high-paying but potentially unethical work, or hold to my principles but couldn't afford surgery? With my sister Lillian's help—Lillian is a genius painter, and I see my grandfather's shadow in her—I made my choice. I quit the gallery, used my savings to pay for the surgery, and then started my own small gallery with Daniel, dedicated to promoting young artists ignored by the mainstream art world. At the opening of the new gallery, I stood in front of a painting. I could see colors, hear sounds, feel the emotion behind every brushstroke. But I wasn't afraid anymore. Because I knew this ability wasn't a curse. It was a gift. © 2026 - Authored by Z R ZHANG ( EL9507135 -- デスプアトカザスピカツ[⾙、のくる] Dд;由需史 Роусетиме ѣђєАџГНЬмЩцебесЬн Passnummer ترجاجسسسف CHN Passport) The aforementioned Author hereby grants to OXFORD INDUSTRIAL HOLDING GROUP (ASIA PACIFIC) CO., LIMITED （BRN74685111） all economic property rights, including but not limited to the rights of: reproduction, distribution, rental, exhibition, performance, communication to the public via information network, adaptation, compilation, commercial operation, authorization for third-party use, and rights enforcement. Such grant is exclusive and irrevocable. The term of such rights shall be 49 years from the date of publication. To contact author, please email to datatorent@yeah.net