One day, Peter and Jane were walking along a road, hand in hand on their way to the city. As they walked down the road, there was a blue sign by the road. “Oh look”, said Peter, “it’s a blue sign”.

“No it’s green”, said Jane.

And so it began.

Peter thought Jane must be colourblind, so he rubbed his eyes before looking again to check. Maybe he had made a mistake. It was definitely blue. “No, that’s blue”, he said. “It’s green”, said Jane defiantly. Peter looked at Jane very confused because he could see it was blue, but didn’t understand why Jane was so adamant it was green.

Slowly Peter got more and more frustrated. “Why are saying its green when its obviously blue?”, he shouted angrily. Jane started to cry. “Why can’t you see it’s green?”, she sobbed. Peter felt awful as he hated it when Jane cried. Nothing he said or did seemed to make it any better. Jane was unhappy about a lot of things and was starting to believe they were all Peter’s fault.

Peter grew concerned that something deeper was at work and maybe something deep down inside Jane was wrong that was making her see the sign as green and stubbornly tell him it was. She had opened up to him before about the things that troubled her, but wouldn’t talk to him anymore.

He called some of his friends and said “i don’t understand why she’s saying the sign is green. Can you drive past and check for me?” Each one of them did and told him the sign was blue, but when they stopped and tried to tell Jane, she became furious with them. “I don’t care what you think and i don’t care about him. It’s green”, she said.

“Its blue!”, Peter shouted. “Why are you still saying its green? Its in your mind! Everyone else says its blue as well!” But Jane had dug her heels in. No man was about to tell her what colour the sign was. Peter didn’t understand how Jane could stand by and let everything fall apart just because of the colour of a sign next to the road.

“Its green and i don’t care what you say”, she screamed, before huffing and crossing her arms.

But nothing sunk in. All Jane seemed to be interested in doing was making sure Peter believed the sign was green. But Peter wouldn’t do that, as he knew it was blue. She wouldn’t back down. She thought he wouldn’t back down either. “I don’t care!” she kept shouting at him, over and over again.

But Peter didn’t think they were arguing. All he felt was Jane telling him to get away from her. He didn’t care about the sign. All he cared about was Jane. But Jane had stopped caring about him, even though he was trying to help her.

“I don’t want you here if you can’t see the sign as green”, she screamed at him in rage. “In fact, i don’t want you here at all and i want to stand here by the sign on my own”. Peter was furious and hurt. He decided that if Jane didn’t want him around, that there would be a lot of others who would. So he walked off and left Jane next to the blue sign. “You’re so stubborn!” she shouted.

But Jane got lonely, so she left the sign and tried to talk to Peter. “I just want to be on my own by the sign”, she said. She tried to write him letters, but Peter had told the postman not to deliver them. Peter had been in terrible pain for a long time and couldn’t bear her. “When you decide to see the sign as blue, then we can talk again”, he said angrily. Jane was hurt and confused as Peter had found a new Jane by then and didn’t seem to be thinking about Jane very much.

But Peter was thinking of Jane. But all he could think about was how she didn’t want to keep walking into the city with him. He knew Jane didn’t know the way by herself. He made sure there was no way Jane could find him or talk to him so she would know how hurtful she had been and so she couldn’t hurt him any more.

So Jane pulled out her make-up from her bag and made herself look as pretty as the most beautiful girl in the world. Every man who walked past her standing on the roadside stopped and stared. “See, they all think its green”, she shouted to Peter, who was walking around. And every one told her it was green, just because of how beautiful she looked. Peter looked on from a distance but didn’t say anything.

As time went on, Peter got used to being without Jane and was so angry that she’d said and done all the things she had. To make things worse, Jane wanted Peter to know she had found a new Peter. “He thinks its green you know”, she would torment him. Every time Peter tried to talk to her, she shouted at him “just leave me alone, you’re always pestering me”.

Peter had found many other Janes and shouted back at her from the side of the road: “look, they all think the sign is blue, and they agree with me!”. He would tell people about Jane and write notes in the newspaper about how unreasonable she was being. It was the only thing that she would react to.

One day after a lot of time had gone past, Peter sent Jane a long letter. Jane decided she couldn’t talk to him so put on a new dress and a wig, and went to talk to him as someone else. She wanted to tell him about the new Peter and find out if Peter still cared about her. But Peter recognised Jane under the disguise and was angry she’d lief to him again. He said “Jane, why are you dressed up? Why can’t you talk to me?”. Jane was furious. “I’m not Jane!” she shouted at him. But Peter knew it was Jane. “I’m not Jane! I don’t care!”, she kept shouting as Peter looked at her in disbelief.

“The sign is green Peter!” she kept screaming at him. She got angrier as he turned his back on her. “Why won’t you believe the sign is green?” He snapped back, “because it’s not green, it’s blue!” But Jane was so angry that she didn’t care about the sign. She just wanted Peter to feel bad and suffer.

Peter walked over to the sign and tried to talk to Jane again, but she was so angry she wouldn’t listen to a word he said. “You know the sign’s blue, so why are you still saying it’s green? I don’t care about the sign!”

Every time Jane said the sign was green, it made Peter mad. He would shout back at her and make her mad too. She knew he cared about her, but the sign was more important to her than he was. She acted like she wanted to walk into the city with Peter as they had planned before, but couldn’t stop screaming at Peter about how she didn’t care.

“I don’t even care about the sign any more Peter, i just don’t want to stand next you under it because you don’t think its green”, she spat at him. “Its been a long time now and we still disagree about the colour of the sign”. Peter was confused as she seemed to want him by the sign with her but could never tell him. The only thing she couldn’t tell him was that she wanted him there.

Jane screamed at Peter, “I hate you! Stop telling me you care! I just want you to go away and leave me alone!”. So Peter started walking away, when he wanted to grab Jane and shake her. But he was so tired of being spat at and given up on that didn’t have the energy to try and talk to her again. Everyone had told him to forget about Jane because of how strange she was being.

And so as the sun came down, Peter and Jane were left at the opposite ends of the road with their backs turned to each other. Peter thought “why all of this over the colour of a sign?”, and Jane thought “that’ll show him”.

As Jane stood by her end of the road, a stranger walked by and gave her a book with a story in it, which she read. It was about how the colour of a sign on the road didn’t matter, only the destination it pointed to did. Jane stood there for minute and saw Peter at the other end of the road, wondering how she would ever get her happy ending.