It Was Yellow - Elaine Abery

In the town where I was born lived a lady with grey hair. And she lived a life of ease in a little blue canoe.

The sound of many voices joins the one. We’re all paddling in a little red canoe. A little blue canoe. And some red ones too.

It was yellow!

Nah. Never paddles a yellow canoe. There were orange rafts, blue and red canoes and the big red raft.

It was yellow, I tell you!

Geez! Dude! What is it with you and yellow? You a Gaugin wannabe or what?

Just admit. It was yellow.

Okay. Okay. IT was yellow.

It was a bright sunny yellow. Made you feel warm on the inside just looking at it.

Sure did. Now WHAT are we talking about?

Don’t pull that one on me.

Pull what on you?

Pretend you don’t know what we are talking about.

Another voice chirps up above the drone of huffs.

We?

Yes. We. Well wee.

We what?

Gary! What are you talking about?

He’s in Gary-land.

I may as well be in what you call Gary-land. Be that as it may, call it whatever you wish. That doesn’t change the fact that it was bright, nuclear yellow. Like uranium.

Uranium? What next?

Eyes shifting side-to-side, filled with glints of merriment.

Gazza…

IT. WAS. YELLOW. Yellow as the sun itself.

Is he on drugs again? They must be good, if a little on the belligerent side.

A little? A lotta little!

Little – lot. Who cares? It was as yellow as yellow can be. Deep, warming, sun-filled yellow.

Silence.

I’m not doing it again I tell you! No sir. Not again.

Sniggers. Bemused looks pass among the group. They know he is waiting for his opening.

Those darnfangled new-aged pills. I’m not taking them ever again. All they do is make me pee a stream of uranium-yellow.