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This is definitely not Sci-fi, but I thought I'd get a few reactions. I only have a vague idea where I'm going with this. Is it too slow for a beginning? My second chapter(they're not very long) is a bit faster.
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A pageant of colour swooped across the cream walls of Camille Lesley's class room at Agnes Glasgow School for the Hearing Impaired or 'Aggy's' as it was affectionally called by students and teachers alike. Vivid shades of crimson, indigo, emerald, turquoise, magenta, and tangerine swirled together by the young children who created in paint the music which their silent ears could not experience. Around the six paint-splattered, square tables, squirmed the budding artists, waiting impatiently for the sign for noon recess. Camille smiled at her pupils and dismissed them: her Arts and Culture class stormed the door to the hall.

After the noise of running feet had died away, she stood still in the centre of the room, an island of grey and white surrounded by brightly-hued plasticine sculpture. She drank in the colour, absorbing it like a prism. She began to move quietly around the spacious room, checking that the students' finished projects were labeled, and transferring them to the shelves set aside for the purpose on the east wall. While she looked them over, her stomach growled: hmm, Camille thought, maybe I should eat something, and dug her lunch out of her book bag. She meticulously spread the contents out like an artist preparing his palette: the striped mix of dark rye and tuna, a rosy Macintosh apple, pale green cucumber circles, whittled sticks of orange carrot, the white and burnt umber oval of an deviled egg, squares of dark chocolate.

As she munched on the sandwich, depression swept over her. Her twenty-eighth birthday had come and gone and still she was alone. Why? She knew the answer to that: she was easily overlookable. Everything about her was so drab and colourless: ash blond hair, a chalk white face, and cement grey eyes. When she was sixteen, she had tried dying her hair gold like her mother's, but had only ended up looking like one of the undead under the vibrancy of colour. Make up did nothing: blush gave her the hectic flush of a TB sufferer, lipstick caused her to resemble a messy vampire. Cam was tired of being monochromatic. She chewed in mechanical silence, letting herself sink into oblivion as her mind switched over to autopilot.

The sound of running footsteps in the hall roused her from the briny waves of self pity.

"Miss Cami! Miss Cami! Uncle Mack's coming to visit tomorrow!" One of her students, Jocelyn Dimerc, bounced into the room like a hyperactive helium balloon. The pretty redhead's green eyes sparkled with excitement. She didn't often get visitors: her parents were actors in the musical threatre world and had trouble dealing with the fact that their child was hearing-impaired. Unintentionally, Camille had made Jocelyn a special pet in her efforts to make up for the absence of her family.

"That's wonderful, Jossie," she smiled, making sure the ten year old could see her mouth. Jocelyn was not completely deaf, but she did need to lip read in order to understand conversation. The little girl threw her arms around Camille's waist, and continued on,

"I'm so happy he's coming. He's my favourite uncle and I haven't seen him in years." Camille laughed and said,

"He'll be happy to see you, too, I guess."

"Oh, but he won't be seeing me exactly."

"Why ever not?"

"Because he's blind." Cam felt a rock forming in her stomache.

"Was he born that way?," she asked nervously.

"No." Jossie's response was definite. "He all-of-a-sudden gotted blind three years ago." Jocelyn's red hair flopped comically as she skipped from the room. Cam shoved the episode from her mind as her students trickled in from the hall.

The day proceeded with all the usual ups and downs that made up life at the school. Derrin Landon had quarreled with Melissa Jefferies the day before and they weren't 'speaking' to each other, Jenny Hotzer made eyes at Derrin who did not notice her, Lynnet Herrington and Karen Strait exchanged copious notes until Camille had to threaten them with detention for a recess, and Jocelyn was so excited about the next day that she could not sit still for five minutes. The unsettling atmosphere that overhung the day made the walk home in the woods a much needed energy boost.

The fall weather was perfect. The sun stayed out long enough for Camille to wander all over the grounds in relative comfort in just the green-flecked white pullover she had knit herself last winter: too bad not all the mosquitoes had been wiped out by last night's frost. She slapped at one that had somehow managed to fly down the collar of her shirt. The leaves were turning so quickly from shades of jade, emerald, and lime to pumpkin, tan, and scarlet and those that had already fallen crackled like fire under her black oxfords. The crisp air that flowed down her throat, cool and thirst-quenchingly pure, had the consistancy of heady champagne. As the light turned from gold to orange to blue, she strode leisurely up to the door of her grey fieldstone house situated conveniently on the very edge of Aggy property. The other teachers laughingly referred to it as the 'Dollhouse', but Camille loved the quaint, old place with its overgrown English garden and the ivy climbing over the stone walls. It was just big enough for her and her Siamese cat. When she turned the doorknob, Nenet danced up, meowing her frustration. 'There's been a squirrel mocking me through the window all day,' she whined, 'let me out to catch him, the impudent wretch.' She twisted like taupe silk around Camille's slim ankles and galloped out the door.

Cam pulled off her shoes without untying the laces and dropped them in the little cubbyhole that the real estate agents had called a closet. As she padded through the living room to the kitchen, she shed her sweater on the sofa. I'll have to vacuum that, she thought, as she noticed Nenet's short fur peppering the black slipcovers. She checked the stew in the crockpot, made herself a mug of hot chocolate, switched on the gas flames, and plumped herself down on the sheepskin rug before the black granite fireplace with her favourite Agatha Christie. Nenet decided at that time that she wanted to come in and began scratching at the kitchen window; she plucked the screen like a harp, meowing all the while and Camille was forced to get up and let feline musician in before she tore another hole in the wire.

As she washed up her few dishes that evening, Camille wondered what it would be like cook for two and to sit cosily with that special someone in front of the fire on a crisp, autumnal evening, instead of eating by herself(not counting Nenet) and retreating upstairs to lie in bed awake, staring at the ceiling. She wandered into the living room where she stood in front of the window peering out into the gloom. A bat fluttered by, and between the trees, she could just make out the lamp posts that ran up the long drive of the school sparkling like a golden constellation. As she watched, the lights of the dormatory flicked out one by one until only the house mother's light remained. She brushed a strand of pale hair out of her eyes: it was so fine that no matter how many bobbypins she used, it just would not stay in the bun she always wore. She shook her head, sending pins tinkling over the wood floor; Nenet pounced on them as though they were so many grasshoppers and, disgusted at their unresponsiveness, retreated to her nest beside the fireplace in stately displeasure. Pulling the remainder of the pins free, Camille trudged slowly up the stairs; thank goodness tomorrow was Saturday--Visitor's Day--and she, at least, could sleep in.

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A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.

P. G. Wodehouse, Uneasy Money