orange
halloween at the winter holidays, surrounding computer screen, stickers, pumpkin, peels from fruit recently eaten, pez dispenser, you may have seen it while visiting my room. the desk in my dad's study, inexplicably tangerine-colored wood, a bad finish, a sloppy varnish, covered with nicks and scratches accrued during my lifetime, the desk bought when i was a baby and my parents were a single legal entity. my brother's hair, dyed blonder, with a halo of orange produced by his reddening scalp and mystic new hair color. army girl's bmw, driven overseas, left overseas, seen in photos and vivid shiny-eyed descriptions of driving conditions. what other colors would we not know if it weren't for fruit? abstraction into madness. a tube of orange oil paint, found cracked in my artbox, smelling dull and greasy, getting on my hands and irrevocably on my clothes, on my bare feet, on the floor of the studio. spray painted on the sides of buildings on the way past the blocks-long junkyards lining the railroad tracks, along the road taken to work. the ugly uniform color of pizza hell, worn and replaced by a luxuriant, redder relative, never missed. the haircolor in group photos taken at christmas, when the entire world was red and green and black and white, all but her hair, attempted blonde but actualized coppertop, most amusing as she lay suddenly in the fresh football player's lap and smiled her manipulative mask at the photographer for an off-center picture. in the flames of the fire we painted on the glass for homecoming competition, pictured heat licking the bodies of agonized football players, preppies behind us bitching in whispers that it was basketball homecoming after all and it ought to be redone but we were going to lose anyway, it was too late, the artists are all so weird, nobody having the balls to confront us; only two of us four graduating two years later, one graduate a mother, the other a writer. the general lee, a gift from memories misunderstanding the confederate flag and the concept of cousins. candles in my stepmother's kitchen. care package sent to the haughty doughty roommate first year of college, picking apart grapefruit, eating one half in one half hour's time. soggy apple jacks at mamaw and pa's. flintstone's push-up pops. the permanant cowl of all moving images on the elderly inherited tele up in my room. the pinkishly-tickled sherbet flavored light flush against the everloving warm bricks of the west side of the house at sunset, that particular segment of time consisting of colored light, the atmosphere a curving suncatcher through the closed window. the rotted shade in the atmospheric coffeeshop, resembling a hum in someone's brain, decorated by ancient mardi gras beads, placidly shaken by malignant songs from the ghost in the jukebox, recipients of lush student life, napkin scribbles, movie facts, gossip, more laughter, dirty spoons. the color swirling in pulpy liquefaction beside the eggs over easy, between the sugar and the coffee whitener, within rippled cups just to the point of cleanliness when sent with a tired care by the waitress. the taste of the sun and of cold streams where rays forget to collect.
orange is the coldest of the warm colors, because it is seldom documented. having been recently discovered as another genus in the color family, it is still under investigation.
Issue 15:
Intro
3.1415926535...
Quotes?
Written Triptych
orange
Back to Negative SixX
©1999 Eve Strain. All rights reserved.