The True Standards of Beauty (Zahraa, Divergent)

The True Stanards of Beauty

You wake up in the early morning, you feel very light and exuberant. You walk towards the mirror, yet something abrupt happens, extraordinary I'd describe. You don't see your face or any other organ of yours. You see nothing but purity, faith, kindness, felicity and passion.

You see the poems you wrote, the paintings and drawings you drew and the songs you sang. You come across the books you read, the music you listened to, the movies you watched and everything that satisfied your soul.
You watch your valiant experiences, your recklessness and the adrenaline rushes you went through. "This is uncanny" you would say. Enticement takes over. You become extremely impressed, but anxious. You see beauty, but not with the standards you've always known, with entirely different standards. That beauty has a way of perplexing you one minute, and allaying you the next. Because, what you saw in the mirror was your soul and everything it carried from the most astonishing to the direst.

You walk down the streets, you don't see bodies. You see souls. You are astonished by some, but you recoil from the others. You don't see any facial traits; you don't know whether the person in front of you is white or dark-skinned. You don't know how this person is dressed. All you see is kindness or hostility, modesty or arrogance, and every shade between them.

You see art in every possible form. You hear music everywhere, different genres, ones you've never heard, ones you absolutely admire and others that you dislike. You read poems everywhere, and everything becomes metaphorical. The world is now overly dosed with emotions, all kinds, one that put you in a state of jubilation and another that put you in frustration.

You head towards your school, to find out that everything has been altered. Everyone is a soul, without a body. You don't see baseball jackets, boots, low-kneed skirts, sleeveless T-shirts, tight jeans, dresses or even teacher's suits. You see love along with hatred. You see what everyone has always held inside. You see the truth of everyone and you stand in dismay, because you now realize that everything has exceeded your expectations.

Emily, the girl who used to be the most popular, is now getting wisps of attention or no attention at all. Hatred, evilness, envy, violence and inhumanity are now revealed, showing the truth of that girl. They flabbergast you, bewilderment and disappointment start to fog your brain. Then, you ascertain that Emily was loved for how she looked and dressed, she was so pretty yet from the outside only; white-skinned, fit body, long blond hair, hazel eyes. She has been coming with the most elegant dresses ever. She mocked a bunch of people in the school, Charlie the introvert with the bulky glasses. Anna the studious and a-bit-of-a-wallflower girl. Mia, the nerd. Mr. peter, because he always wore old-fashioned clothes. You had always seen students gather around her table at lunchtime every day, listening to her nonsense.

Then, you see Ayana, the African dark-skinned, fat introvert with messy hair. She is no longer dark-skinned or fat; she is now a collection of love, faith, kindness, compassion, art, music, poetry and inner beauty. After being disappeared into oblivion, she is now the most beautiful and admired girl in the school.

You now hear screeches from the street, shaking you out of your revere. The reverie of observing souls, of knowing the real standards of beauty and of digging deeper in everything and everybody. You now realize that you were outsmarted by appearances. Unfortunately, everyone is.
"If only our eyes saw soul instead of bodies, how different our ideals of beauty would be"