A World Without Color got a great recognition—the Gold Medal in the Fiction–Animals category in 2020 Readers' Favorite International Book Award Contest! Readers' Favorite recognizes A World Without Color by Bernard Jan in its annual international book award contest, currently available at Amazon. The Readers' Favorite International Book Award Contest featured thousands of contestants from over a dozen countries, ranging from new independent authors to NYT best-sellers and celebrities. Readers' Favorite is one of the largest book review and award contest sites on the Internet. They have earned the respect of renowned publishers like Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Harper Collins, and have received the “Best Websites for Authors” and “Honoring Excellence” awards from the Association of Independent Authors. They are also fully accredited by the BBB (A+ rating), which is a rarity among Book Review and Book Award Contest companies. Readers' Favorite receives thousands of entries from all over the world. Because of these large submission numbers, they are able to break down their contest into 140+ genres, and each genre is judged separately, ensuring that books only compete against books of their same genre for a fairer and more accurate competition. They receive submissions from independent authors, small publishers, and publishing giants such as Random House, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, with contestants that range from the first-time, self-published author to New York Times bestsellers like J.A. Jance, James Rollins, and #1 best-selling author Daniel Silva, as well as celebrity authors like Jim Carrey (Bruce Almighty), Henry Winkler (Happy Days), and Eriq La Salle (E.R., Coming to America). “When the right books are picked as winners we pay attention. We will be spreading the word about Readers' Favorite.”—Karen A., Editor for Penguin Random House Readers' Favorite is proud to announce that A World Without Color by Bernard Jan won the Gold Medal in the Fiction–Animals category. You can learn more about Bernard Jan and A World Without Color at Readers' Favorite where you can read reviews and the author's biography, as well as connect with the author directly or through his website and social media pages. “It is a wonderful story for fans of animals, especially cat lovers. Reading about the desolation and the loneliness of the narrator, the reader understands the place that Marcel occupied in his life as a companion . . . It is a story that explores themes of loss and grief and that celebrates a connection with a cat, a connection that brought meaning to the life of the narrator.” - Christian Sia for Readers' Favorite Please check out A World Without Color at BookAwards.Com. Thank you. BJ Original post at https://www.bernardjan.com/post/readers-favorite-gold-for-a-world-without-color.

The wind roared around the house like an enraged beast, rattling shutters and breaking tree branches as it did. Claws of icy air fought their way inside through the damaged panes and worn-out frame of my old farmhouse window. I curled into a tight ball under my blankets; piled as they were, it still wasn't enough to keep out the cold. I shivered as a particularly strong gust made the entire house groan. Sleep eventually claimed me, despite the bone-deep chill. I dreamt of arctic blizzards. Outside, the night's tempest howled on.

Mystery in the hills It was a bright and beautiful Sunday morning on the hilly plains of the cool suburban town of Mampong. I awoke to the sounds of birds chirping and crickets creaking from the bushes surrounding my two-storey bungalow. As I opened my eyes and managed to crawl out of bed, I had only one agenda on my mind: to make it to church that morning. It neither mattered that my musculoskeletal system was in defiance to this religious routine of mine; nor that each movement was a reminder of the fatigue and soreness of my muscles and joints. I quickly took a glance at the samsung phone lying on my bedside table. Thankfully I had not been called to attend to any sick child or adult during the night. That was a first! Then why was I so tired this morning? I bent down to pick up my stethoscope from the floor and toppled over three feeding bottles, the last of them, half empty. The sound startled the 18 month old chocolate-skinned boy still sleeping in my bed. I quietly dragged myself to the bathroom. Washing down took longer than usual. My mind seemed to join my body in the protest. “Just stay home and rest!” it seemed to yell at me. Having been trained to always lay myself aside to care for my patients' needs first, my body was used to constantly being ignored. Today was clearly not going to be an exception. “Going to church?” My husband asked as I walked out of the bathroom. He had just returned from morning rounds on the hospital ward, a walking distance from our bungalow. “Yeah” I replied. “Coming along?” I asked. “No” he replied. “I am tired.” The drive to the capital city was 35 minutes. Getting dressed became an ordeal. I could not seem to settle on any particular attire. The one I finally chose ended up being burnt under the pressing iron. It was time to leave. I stooped into the still new black ASX SUV, a gift from my parents for graduating medical school in a foreign land, to ensure the Baby was strapped down. Strapping down, I said a miniature prayer. We took off. The first sight to greet us was the coffin craftsman with his various coffins on display infront of his grass thatched, bamboo- pillared shop, situated just opposite to the hospital entrance. Next we bypassed houses of different structure, shapes and sizes: some made with concrete mortar, others with clay. There were various goods for sale on display in front of many households; most of them farm produce. The most unusual thoughts run through my mind as I was driving on those smooth asphalt roads. The first was more of a suggestion as we bypassed one of the many churches in Mampong: “Why don't you stop here, and attend one of these churches in spite of driving all the way to Accra?” I found this thought odd. Why would I ever want to do that? To begin with, I hardly knew these people. Secondly, I was an ‘Actionite', meaning I was a member of Action Chapel International, a rather prestigious, charismatic church based in Ghana. Furthermore, I rarely got the opportunity to attend Sunday services these days. I put on the radio to bring my mind back from ‘overdrive'. There was some cool, soothing music that just did the trick. Shortly after that came the voice of Bishop T.D. Jakes blasting through the air waves. We bypassed a pack of children walking on the roadside, being directed by two or more adults. Beyond this point, we were almost in Accra. An erratically moving taxi cab upstream from us caught my eye. It charged straight into a four by four land cruiser about 900 feet from us, missing it by inches as both drivers swerved to avoid collision. The land cruiser sped off. Upon the sheer blink of my eye, I heard a very loud resounding CRASH, within inches of my very face, and felt a great, quick rotating force that turned me through an angle of 90 degrees in the horizontal plane. Then another ‘crash', equally forceful,behind me. Then I heard the most sinister cry of laughter ever! A second voice screamed: “I told you not to go! It is not time! There are many more things to be done, books to be written, stories to be told, many more things to be accomplished!” I blinked a few more times before I came to. Our SUV had been knocked off the road into a nearby ditch, next to a cemetery by that uncontrollably spinning taxi cab! I got down immediately at the thought of the baby. The windscreen of the taxi cab had been shattered into a million pieces, but surprisingly, frozen in place! I rushed to the other back side door realizing that the door behind me had was disfigured.I slipped on broken pieces of glass scattered on the floor and fell to the ground, my hands trembling as the gravity of the situation dawned on me. But we were safe, including the heavily intoxicated taxi driver! A few pieces of glass from the taxi's shattered windscreen being embedded in our chest and neck or the sheer force from the abrupt rotation of the vehicle ripping our aorta is all it would have taken to make this story end differently. Yet we were spared!

11:45 PM. Early January. Tobogganing hill. Next to the Dulude Skating Arena. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Seems like nothing too spectacular could happen on such a cold night of a cold season, right? That's what I thought as I climbed up that giant, glistening hill of snow that overlooked the majority of the neighbourhoods in my area. I could hear the busy city sounds that harmonized with the crunches beneath my feet as heaving breaths escaped my mouth. I could already see the very top of the hill, even if my only light source was the large, full moon that hung above, seeming to peer down at me with watchful eyes as I trudged my way closer. Once I finally reached the barren top, where the air seemed a lot thinner than before, I remember the smile I bore as I took in the beautiful scenery of the city line at the horizon. The city lights were scattered around beyond the bordering fences, looking like stars that glimmered and gleamed in different colours; the gently lit sky was still a deep shade of dark blue, contrasting the colour of the pale, cold whiteness of the snow that covered the entirety of the ground throughout the place I called home. I made sure I could still see the shadows of my mother and brother at the bottom of where I stood, just so I could still have that sense of security as I took in a deep breath and placed my toboggan down to face a pathway I was familiar with. It was the pathway I was planning to take that very night- until my eyes spotted it… Earlier on that day, I remember how big of a deal my mom made about me not riding down any of the paths towards the ski jumps, practically forcing me to promise her I would never consider committing to such a challenge. At that moment, I did not think of the situation as much of a warning sign- I thought it was just another one of my mom's parenting rants fueled by her sense of protection and fear of me having fun (I was a child when this happened, so obviously all adults wanted to make things boring to me). Of course, because of these initial thoughts and my naive sense of the world, how could I have ever known that my decision to break that promise the very night I had made it would end up with me in one of the most fatal moments of my entire life? I remember, I finally managed to push myself forward with my large, chunky boots, feeling a rush as I travelled down the slippery path towards one of the largest jumps I could see. The wind was bitterly cold as it whipped against my cheeks, my heart pounding from both the adrenaline and from the heat of my puffy winter coat. All I could hear was the hissing of plastic moving against coarse ice and snow, along with the faint screams and cheers from my little brother. My eyes widened as I got closer and closer towards the heap before me, my head pulling me towards the excitement as much as my body was, and nothing in my gut was telling me to do anything otherwise. That is, until the last few seconds before I hit the jump. All of a sudden, I felt some wild instinct within me activate, practically screaming at me to quickly change my direction before it was too late. But as my legs hit the ground, trying with all my 12-year-old strength to stop the forces from carrying me on any further, all I could remember was the feeling of my stomach churning and my mind spinning with fear as I had to lift off… Then, I suddenly felt absolute nothingness. I slowly opened my eyes to find myself face down against the solid floor of snow and ice. My vision was spinning ever so slightly, yet I could still make out the dark silhouettes of my two family members. My brother ran as fast as he could towards me, his screams faint within my ears. As to my mother, well...I couldn't tell what she was thinking, doing, or even feeling at that very moment. All I could remember saying to her was “I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry…” I'm sorry for breaking my brother's toboggan, I'm sorry for breaking my promise to her, I'm sorry for becoming a great inconvenience when we were supposed to be having a good time...and I'm especially sorry for breaking both of my arms.

'It's been a good year for the roses', by George Jones is playing loudly through the cassette player. As I toss and turn lying nervously alone in my bed. Praying that I can fall asleep before everything gets bad. Before my dad gets shit-faced wasted. Before my mother gets her ass beat again. This same routine happened every single day. As if I were an actual re-run playing on my t.v. But this night was different from all the rest. I didn't just lay there in fear. Dressed in my well worn Barbie night gown, down the hallway I fled. Attempting to help mommy, afraid if I didn't then soon she'd be dead. "Daddy stop", I screamed. And low and behold, he actually listened to me. Suddenly a feeling of peace came over me. And just as fast as it came, he took it right back. I was told to sleep between mommy and daddy that night. Is this my reward for being so brave? Although I finally knew what it felt like with being content with my surroundings, it only lasted for a very short time. It was within thirty minutes when I felt daddy's hand caress me. He was being nice but yet it still just didn't feel right . After playing like I was asleep for so long, I started to actually doze off.. But daddy's hand wouldn't allow me. I wake up at the sound of an alarm clock and literally sit straight up. Startled at the memory of last night's despair. Frightened at the thought of what may happen next. Although I probably should have cried, I didn't. I didn't have time. Emotions are running wild. The school bus would be here soon. Relieved to be leaving home but at the same time I'm not ready to face the mean black kids at school. When I was at school I wanted to go home. When I was at home I wanted to go to school. But never did I want to be where I was at . 'I just wanna go home' I spoke aloud. Lying alone in my bed. Tears soaked my cheeks. Feelings of confusion and loneliness consumed me. On so many occasions I recall lying in bed alone and scared thinking out loud to myself. I guess you could say I was praying. Crying out for help. Though no one could hear me if I wanted them to with the loud music that was always playing.