You’re snacking on In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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“Another day of clemency. Perfect for strolling. Perfect for a beachside... WAVE!”
Mr. Grey interrupted his observation of the natural world with the sudden warning cry. Together, he and Honeydew ran from the jelly levee. They sprinted down the slope on the inland side. They dove for cover behind a giant, weatherworn seashell, which had washed ashore and been half buried by sand. They reached the sheltering calcium fan just as a tidal jelly surge smashed against the embankment. A spray of splattery jelly globules exploded into the air, and a viscous sheet oozed down the bank.
When the crash ended and the thickest residue had slid past them, the two came casually from around the sheltering shell. Nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. They remounted the top of the levee, which granted a wide vista of the roiling, boiling, bubbling jelly sea. Mr. Grey picked up and dusted off the thought he’d left unfinished. “I worried about that squall from our last outing catching up to you on your way to work. Did that put you off walking for a while?”
“The squall? Ohhhh. That rain on our park day. No. I wasn’t put off by rain. The Wind’s not in good temper today though.” With a hand reskinned in a new Chrysomallos wool glove, Honeydew made a slow, encompassing sweep of the horizon.
In the distance - bullying the sea, and rolling nearer to the walking pair with every beat of Mr. Grey’s ticker - The Gaunt, Brooding, Hungry Wind had gathered all her clouds in one dark, tangled skein. Only a few cloud words were legible in the twisted mass; here and there a dark puffy strand of “HEARTACHE” or a thin wisp of “WHAMMY” dangled like loose threads to churn the boiling surface of the jelly. Even from this distance, the pair smelled petrichor fumes on the drunk Wind’s breath.
They paused, watching the distant storm. Honeydew watched with sharp eyes, like a hunting animal. Mr. Grey watched with patient assessment.
The grey left hand came up and made a businesslike swing, palm forward. Mr. Grey said, “I think she’s a long way coming.”
“Possibly.”
“I bet we can manage a good, long walk before needing to turn back.”
“I hope so. The beach wasn’t a bad idea. I’ve only been once or twice, so It’s almost new to me.”
Honeydew glanced to both sides. First she looked left, at the tidal forces preparing for another assault. Then right, at the sparse pieces of giant debris buried on the slope. Her face had satisfied - though not ‘bowled over’ - attentive eyes, and a half-smile.
“Want one?” Honeydew asked suddenly. She offered a bag of prismatic variety beans she’d bought at the last jetty vendor.
“I won’t impose. You spent your own treasure.” Mr. Grey tried a weak laugh, but with too much gravity to come off correctly.
“I insisted on paying. They’re mine to give.”
“I’m also not partial to variety beans. I seem to get worse flavors more often than not.”
Honeydew clicked once mockingly. “Are you afraid the factories mix in batches from adjacent sources?” She nodded toward the waves.
The sea’s turbulent jelly only looked like the strawberry lake from their walk in the park. In reality, the sea churned with an affected rouge. The city performed regular cosmetic chemical dumpings, specifically to give the waves their blush.
Honeydew went on, “I’m telling you, this bag’s lucky.” She held the beans out like a fisherman’s lure. “Take a risk on a bean.”
“No, no, no. I appreciate your thinking of me, but I’m full.”
Honeydew clicked again, this time with disappointment. She withdrew the lure. She threw a handful in her own mouth. She gnawed the multi-flavor mix, like a hound at a bone.
Mr. Grey searched his new mental list for a good conversation-turner. He’d composed and memorized a far, far lengthier set of topics and questions for this outing. Honeydew, however, saved him the trouble by introducing one herself. “You said last time you planned on a vacation? I’d have already taken flight if it were me.”
Mr. Grey relaxed, his step tapping lighter off the cement path. “It hasn’t started yet.”
“When?”
“Very soon. Another day or two and I’ll board the outbound marble train.”
“Lots of plans? Places you’ll visit?”
“My coworker, Ms. Maysey, left a few days ago. She suggested ideas. I’ll spend some time finding a few visa clients with extra forms to file; before they’re properly authorized to exist beyond Starharbor, that is.”
“To think, you plan on working...”
“Why not?”
“It’s a golden pass! I’d never waste my time on business. Not with so many new places to see, foods to eat, people to talk to.” Honeydew grabbed another handful of variety beans and gnashed them with her teeth.
“It’s no trouble, some… WAVE!”
Mr. Grey and Honeydew ran. This time they took shelter behind a giant, crusty, old boot, cloud-bleached to match the entrapping sand. The jelly wave squelched around the worn footwear. The distant, looming storm shoved the wave over the levee more forcibly than last time. As the final viscous trickles slipped into the ditch at the slope’s base, they resumed the cement summit.
“...Some work keeps me entertained,” said Mr. Grey, finishing his thought.
“If you say so.” Honeydew’s answer carried a note of doubt.
Mr. Grey felt that their conversation leaned too heavily on his experiences and intentions, that he hoarded all the speaking for himself. He said, “You’ll have a plethora of wheelhouse stories to share when I return.”
“I doubt it,” Honeydew grumbled and stepped around a stagnant puddle of jelly in the cement. “Just the same routine. The same sunken people. Each man or woman, dragging their feet to the next spin. Each day, dragging its feet to the next one.”
“But you’ve surely got plans to occupy yourself? Another night at the tavern? Actually… that might not be the safest. Or, perhaps you plan on having a new garb stitched? Not to say the robe you have now isn’t excellent. I’m just… sure there’s something to keep you excited?”
“Nothing as exciting as vacation,” Honeydew replied. But her eyes darted quickly and attentively back to Mr. Grey. “Although, Neon invited me to another party.”
“He did?”
“I’ve got fancy stilt houses and fancy cocktails on the horizon.”
This broadside comment smashed into Mr. Grey’s good humor. In one short remark, Honeydew twisted their conversation, so that the whole mood, to Mr. Grey, seemed suddenly melancholic. Every shadow stretched further, and each slosh of the jelly waves sounded murky and dolorous. This shift came so abruptly and with such enormity that Mr. Grey, in horror, recoiled.
Internally! Marley’s Ghost, he recoiled internally, of course. Externally, Mr. Grey wore an earth-carved face and form.
Mr. Grey struggled putting his thoughts into words. He began with, “That party Neon invited you to…”
Honeydew whisked her keenly shining eyes seaward. She said, “What was that sharp noise?”
Mr. Grey looked and listened. The Wind dragged her storm’s wispy tendrils closer toward them, over the sea. After a moment, her cold, petrichor-breath flurried Mr. Grey and Honeydew’s robes. Mr. Grey said, “I think The Wind sniffled.”
Sure enough, a bright glow lit the distant yarn of cloud words, like the flash of a camera. A mere tock after, they heard The Wind’s deep, rumbling, dramatic, “AHHH CHOOOO.”
Honeydew glanced at Mr. Grey. She rubbed a fleeced hand distractedly on her cheek. “Little time between gleam and sneeze… She’s coming closer.”
“She must still have that cold.”
“We should turn back.”
“It doesn’t seem like we’ve been out long.”
“I won’t chance catching her illness.” Honeydew pawed his shoulder. “Besides, we’ve caught up with each other.”
Mr. Grey and Honeydew turned, and began marching back. As the Wind’s cheerless clouds crept closer with each sea crash, her sneezes exploded louder, and to these she added wails and curses. Mr. Grey and Honeydew picked up their pace, only stopping for cover each time a jelly wave washed over the levee.
For a long time, only the waves and Wind prevented Silence’s absolute reign. Between the pair, no words passed. Mr. Grey’s anxiety mounted until he could bear it no longer. He tried once more to bring out the words he wanted. “Honeydew, what I mentioned earlier… Neon Silveste… I’m not sure his parties have, well, substance…” Mr. Grey stopped. All the words he knew seemed to swirl through his thoughts in one confusing mass, and to tangle with his question list.
Honeydew said, “They’re spectacular! I’m keen on how lordly society abides. I’ve had a big win with recognition from that crowd.” She went on by repeating to Mr. Grey the witty anecdotes Neon had favored the other lords and ladies with at the last shindig.
“It sounds like Neon has interesting insights.” Mr. Grey sparred with his words. “When I get back from vacation I might have a story or two myself. Perhaps the other moats have deeper jelly seas. Or maybe they’ve got steam geese instead of steam swans.”
“You won’t know until you get there.”
“I’d be happy to share what I find. If you want to listen, of course.”
Honeydew looked at distant Starharbor, instead of at Mr. Grey. “I want to see other seas myself, Mr. Grey. The experience is why I… WAVE!” They ran and hid behind an oversized message-in-a-bottle while the wave crashed. When they remounted the cement path, Honeydew resumed, “...like these parties. Hearing about places I can’t see or things I won’t do isn’t fun.”
“Oh… of course. I’m sorry.”
“If you meet some lady, and get invited to one of these parties yourself, we’ll catch up. After you get back,” She ended with a motivational click.
“Yes... Sure.” Mr. Grey - failing to sort those jumbled, churning thoughts – saw them fall away in his mind, syllable by syllable, word by word. His head felt cold and hollow.
The pair arrived shortly back at the beach highwheel depot. The first sprinklings of jelly rain pattered on the depot roof. Honeydew checked her complexion in the hand mirror; still golden. She took one last jawful of variety beans, then threw the remainder of the bag in a wastebin. After a farewell wave, she loped away into the darkening day and caught the nearest highwheel.
Mr. Grey watched her leave. He looked glum in his greyness; like concrete, stretched and shrunk and stretched and shrunk, by Time’s careless hand, till its surface is cracked. He glanced at the waste bin, and the bag of kaleidoscopic variety beans. A flashing impulse crossed his mind to try one. But Mr. Grey didn’t like variety beans. He looked at the highwheels and thought of renting one. But Mr. Grey’s district of town lay near the levee.
Mr. Grey simply set off for the workers’ prison, under the dark jelly rain.
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