Writing
Wrote this a very long time ago (March '04, by my notes) and it's not perfect, but it's cute, so:
Ira was six when she realised that no-one else could see the colours. They may be clear as butterflies to her but to the rest of the world they simply didn’t exist; it was as if, apart from her, the entire human race was suffering from semi-sightedness, everyone colour blind but her.
Music was something they listened to. So did Ira, but every note in every context was a colour as well, fluting into the air in a shaded mist. When her father played Marvin Gaye 'Abraham, Martin and John' was blue-green, tinging into melancholy on certain notes and brighter, clearer, hopeful on others. 'Let's Get It On' was a richer purple than Ira could understand at six. When her mother played Joni Mitchell 'A Case of You' was a dark, untouched red like Victorian wallpaper, and 'Carey' was orange in puffs and balls of smoke, edged with a yearning yellow.
'The Wheels on the Bus' was the bright shiny red of storybook apples.
It wasn't just music; scents were coloured as well, more clearly the stronger the scent was. Flower-scents were usually coloured by the flower's petals, lavender always pale silvery purple, freesias a variety of pastel lights, but the scent of roses was always dusky pink whatever colour the flowers were, hanging heavy like a fog around Ira's waist as she bent into the rosebush, age ten, to pick a fat summer flower for her mother. The smell of vanilla was not-quite-white, slightly thicker; the smell of apples was rich and sharp and golden. At age thirteen she held an apple under her nose and breathed in Autumn, surrounded by clear pale gold mist, and understood Eve.
The emotional colours she saw, she learned at fourteen, were more understood by people than the other colours. They were called auras, these halos changing colour around people's bodies, sometimes so brightly that it was hard for her to look someone in the eye. They were unique to the individual, the auras - when she was happy her aura glowed clear, cool, bright blue, like a sunny day in the arctic; when her best friend was happy she glowed with a warm, sunshine orange; when her mother was happy her aura shone bright and far from her body and as yellow as a sunflower. Ira's sadness was blue as well, but a less daytime blue, a more deep-ocean-dull blue. Ira became irritated with herself for not using the full colour spectrum; when she caught her reflection, under a deep spell of quiet awe, she saw her aura glowing the colour of the sky after dusk, the bright-dark blue of the sky as the moon rose. She told herself to snap out of it; blue is not the only colour.
At seventeen, with her friend blissfully happy with her new boyfriend (her pink, post-coital glow was beginning to alarm Ira with its frequency), Ira fell in love with a girl who gave off turquoise light the colour of the Mediterranean sea. A colour like that . . .
All would have gone well if she hadn't been distracted by the foxy-red glow of a green-eyed boy at university. She'd never seen real green eyes before. Exam stress was an urgent, unpleasant yellow, and the post-exam party was such a whirlwind of colours, an Impressionist painting of shades, that she span with her arms outstretched and laughed to feel the colours slip over her hands like fluid mist. And then she stopped, and followed a trail of dark, dull blue upstairs to a boy sitting in the highest window in the flat, looking down on the street below. She sat on the bed in the dark room, her own glow a nervous, distressed blue and talked to him until, at some point during the night, he climbed out of the window and into the room and his aura was the blue of a settled sea. Later still, the dance music puffed, muffled, through the carpet; riotous pink, but drowned under the orgasm purple - deep and rich and joyous - that they emitted from the bed. Ira left university pregnant and unconcerned.
And life has its twists and turns. Ira's children were grown when she saw the girl who glowed turquoise at a book fair. They had coffee together and Ira looked at the peacock strands in the immense brightness of the girl's - she would always be the girl to Ira, however old she was - aura, and the sparks of light like stars in her movements. Her aura had matured with her, deeper and richer and many-toned now but it retained the childlike turquoise in its heart. She said she had a divorce and a son; Ira recognised him from the dust-cover of a book - even in the black and white photograph he'd glowed softly with the colour of warmer seas.
The girl who glowed turquoise said, Isn't it a bit unconventional?
Ira insisted that it was all the rage among kids nowadays. Bisexuality was fashionable.
The girl who glowed turquoise said, Isn't it a bit late in life to make this kind of decision?
But what is age but a shifting, a deepening in colour?
Now Ira glows with a strong, mellow blue as she teaches her granddaughter, who shines cinnamon-orange and curious, to make gingerbread. The girl who glows turquoise reads the newspaper in the garden, the door open to let their voices drift out to her. She is far beyond any age to be a 'girl' now but whenever Ira looks at her all she sees is her youthful aura, haloing her so brightly she lights up the room with clear and rich and treasure-deep Mediterranean seawater.
When Ira looks down at her granddaughter, her spice-bright aura is almost the same colour as the gingerbread's scent, though far richer and bolder and deeper, far more alive. She watches her granddaughter watching the air around the gingerbread, and when the nine-year-old looks up at Ira her grandmother smiles back, because she knows her granddaughter is looking up at an old woman glowing deep, warm blue, in its heart the endless sky-blue of bright young summers and an entire life yet to live.
Ira was six when she realised that no-one else could see the colours. They may be clear as butterflies to her but to the rest of the world they simply didn’t exist; it was as if, apart from her, the entire human race was suffering from semi-sightedness, everyone colour blind but her.
Music was something they listened to. So did Ira, but every note in every context was a colour as well, fluting into the air in a shaded mist. When her father played Marvin Gaye 'Abraham, Martin and John' was blue-green, tinging into melancholy on certain notes and brighter, clearer, hopeful on others. 'Let's Get It On' was a richer purple than Ira could understand at six. When her mother played Joni Mitchell 'A Case of You' was a dark, untouched red like Victorian wallpaper, and 'Carey' was orange in puffs and balls of smoke, edged with a yearning yellow.
'The Wheels on the Bus' was the bright shiny red of storybook apples.
It wasn't just music; scents were coloured as well, more clearly the stronger the scent was. Flower-scents were usually coloured by the flower's petals, lavender always pale silvery purple, freesias a variety of pastel lights, but the scent of roses was always dusky pink whatever colour the flowers were, hanging heavy like a fog around Ira's waist as she bent into the rosebush, age ten, to pick a fat summer flower for her mother. The smell of vanilla was not-quite-white, slightly thicker; the smell of apples was rich and sharp and golden. At age thirteen she held an apple under her nose and breathed in Autumn, surrounded by clear pale gold mist, and understood Eve.
The emotional colours she saw, she learned at fourteen, were more understood by people than the other colours. They were called auras, these halos changing colour around people's bodies, sometimes so brightly that it was hard for her to look someone in the eye. They were unique to the individual, the auras - when she was happy her aura glowed clear, cool, bright blue, like a sunny day in the arctic; when her best friend was happy she glowed with a warm, sunshine orange; when her mother was happy her aura shone bright and far from her body and as yellow as a sunflower. Ira's sadness was blue as well, but a less daytime blue, a more deep-ocean-dull blue. Ira became irritated with herself for not using the full colour spectrum; when she caught her reflection, under a deep spell of quiet awe, she saw her aura glowing the colour of the sky after dusk, the bright-dark blue of the sky as the moon rose. She told herself to snap out of it; blue is not the only colour.
At seventeen, with her friend blissfully happy with her new boyfriend (her pink, post-coital glow was beginning to alarm Ira with its frequency), Ira fell in love with a girl who gave off turquoise light the colour of the Mediterranean sea. A colour like that . . .
All would have gone well if she hadn't been distracted by the foxy-red glow of a green-eyed boy at university. She'd never seen real green eyes before. Exam stress was an urgent, unpleasant yellow, and the post-exam party was such a whirlwind of colours, an Impressionist painting of shades, that she span with her arms outstretched and laughed to feel the colours slip over her hands like fluid mist. And then she stopped, and followed a trail of dark, dull blue upstairs to a boy sitting in the highest window in the flat, looking down on the street below. She sat on the bed in the dark room, her own glow a nervous, distressed blue and talked to him until, at some point during the night, he climbed out of the window and into the room and his aura was the blue of a settled sea. Later still, the dance music puffed, muffled, through the carpet; riotous pink, but drowned under the orgasm purple - deep and rich and joyous - that they emitted from the bed. Ira left university pregnant and unconcerned.
And life has its twists and turns. Ira's children were grown when she saw the girl who glowed turquoise at a book fair. They had coffee together and Ira looked at the peacock strands in the immense brightness of the girl's - she would always be the girl to Ira, however old she was - aura, and the sparks of light like stars in her movements. Her aura had matured with her, deeper and richer and many-toned now but it retained the childlike turquoise in its heart. She said she had a divorce and a son; Ira recognised him from the dust-cover of a book - even in the black and white photograph he'd glowed softly with the colour of warmer seas.
The girl who glowed turquoise said, Isn't it a bit unconventional?
Ira insisted that it was all the rage among kids nowadays. Bisexuality was fashionable.
The girl who glowed turquoise said, Isn't it a bit late in life to make this kind of decision?
But what is age but a shifting, a deepening in colour?
Now Ira glows with a strong, mellow blue as she teaches her granddaughter, who shines cinnamon-orange and curious, to make gingerbread. The girl who glows turquoise reads the newspaper in the garden, the door open to let their voices drift out to her. She is far beyond any age to be a 'girl' now but whenever Ira looks at her all she sees is her youthful aura, haloing her so brightly she lights up the room with clear and rich and treasure-deep Mediterranean seawater.
When Ira looks down at her granddaughter, her spice-bright aura is almost the same colour as the gingerbread's scent, though far richer and bolder and deeper, far more alive. She watches her granddaughter watching the air around the gingerbread, and when the nine-year-old looks up at Ira her grandmother smiles back, because she knows her granddaughter is looking up at an old woman glowing deep, warm blue, in its heart the endless sky-blue of bright young summers and an entire life yet to live.