Harvard University

I wake up in monochrome. Just past the tips of my toes, the Flatiron Building rises above the bustling black and white streets of New York. Cars hurtle by in blurred gray tones. I am a hawk or helicopter or hot air balloon, and I have somehow worked myself into the sky of an Old Hollywood movie. Of course, this only lasts as long as I keep my eyes locked on the IKEA photograph I hung up across from my bed a few years back. Just before I turned fourteen, I burst out of IKEA—my all-time favorite store—dead set on crafting on a "new and improved" Helen. I rushed home, stripped my room, and…