You’re snacking on In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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Time blustered by…
“The day’s unusually ripe. Wonderful for a stroll,” said Mr. Grey. As he spoke, an ashen jelly rain pattered atop his umbrella hat and soiled the hem of his robe.
“Fact,” said Honeydew nodding her agreement. “Weather odds weren’t lovely, but we spun lucky.”
Mr. Grey felt that this had been an appropriately stimulating exchange of observations. Mr. Grey decided to let the conversation idle. Honeydew seemed to decide the same. She said no more. Mr. Grey took the chance to reflect on the pleasant weather.
Let it be said that the day was unusually good for a walk in the park. The slimy, ashen downpour was not dropping as coldly or peltingly as it normally did in the parks at Starharbor’s edge. The rain plopping down around the walking pair didn’t cling and congeal into frosty jelly, as was its custom. Today, the dark aspic only dripped complacently from their sheltering pigskin hats; thudding to the sidewalk in fat globules; running across the cobblestone path in not-so-viscous streams; slithering down sewer pipes, or ducking and hiding in nearby ditches. Further abroad, beyond the plowed path, the jelly rain joined the jiggly blanket already covering the hills and valleys, themselves varnished with a lighter glister of slime than was natural. The rain made such a vibrant, wet, splashing static as it fell, that the little downpour sounded almost merry. As though the jelly itself could not help but laugh and dance on such a grand day, in such a splendid park, so fine for walking.
Mr. Grey felt that the rain’s hum - joyful as it sounded - began to fill too long a stretch of time; to feel that their moment of walking side-by-side beneath the downpour now slipped from a pleasant, contemplative silence into an awkward one. He considered which question to bring forward, which topic would fill the gap. The mind list Mr. Grey had memorized for the outing still held whole pages of unexplored conversational topics.
Mr. Grey decided to ask Honeydew about her job. He let a few more steps of cobblestone path splash onto his robe while he considered the most natural way of introducing the question. Then he said, “I guess you get fewer wheelhouse visitors? On these finer days?”
Honeydew smiled and loped lightly through the rain beside Mr. Grey. “Not as many. Though chances are good the ones who show up are a headache – Click.” Honeydew’s last sound expressed contempt. “They’re the obsessed kinds. Living in the wheelhouse. Not just fixed to the wheels, though they’ve surely got the vacant stare and unthinking jerk-spin mastered. They slaver over the whole house atmosphere: the lights, the meals, the enchantment. They stroll in, bawdy like a bricklayer. They pester the barman for an appetizer, bug me for a main course, and throw treasure on bad wheel stakes for supper.”
Mr. Grey stepped around a standing jelly puddle. “I suppose you’re an even better selector of stakes than the regulars.”
“I’ll say. These obsessives just use the wheels to maintain rank with The Harbor’s other destitutes. The way they lay their stakes... Shameful. Tossing half the shiny pebbles they’ve scraped up on a sixty-fourth space of upper wedge. No rhythm to the bets. The weirdest part is; the loss doesn’t crush them. Dropping half a ‘trove’ and losing it should sting. But these fixed ones are desensitized to the loss. They wander to the next disappointment like led livestock.”
A dip in the path where the jelly massed deeply forced the pair to walk with delicacy, lest a vigorous step soak their shoes and hems in jelly.
Honeydew turned her head and watched the falling rain jiggle in the hills. Mr. Grey took this as another successful exchange, another moment for reflection. He returned to the list of topics and questions. He’d pencil pushed his questions into parchment first, then memorized it for the outing. He prepared a long list, just in case. Mr. Grey had devoted a full evening at the workers’ prison to its creation; scribbling away at his austere desk in the cell’s corner. He’d paced back and forth around the brick walled box, list in hand, mentally reciting each item. He wanted no risk of falling short on things to discuss.
Yet, while Mr. Grey still saw a broad selection in his mind, it quickly dwindled. Mr. Grey presented each new topic, they discussed it in a brief trade of sentences, then they resumed a silence. He’d expected each trading of thoughts to last longer. But Mr. Grey let the worry retreat, somewhere to the back of his mind. Each topic went off so perfectly - on the fine day at the park - that he felt each nothing less than a spectacular show of friendship; the kind only achievable between very good friends. That was the thought he dragged to his brain’s front. His face expressed no anxiety. Not that it ever would have...
Despite careful steps, The drizzle wetted Mr. Grey’s grey robe. The Wind - calmed since their balloon lift meeting, but still Gaunt, Brooding, and Hungry - kept tossing drops of slime into his back. Additionally, other pairs of walkers who were also enjoying the fine weather and coming the opposite way forced Mr. Grey to step through shallow puddles in the path. The conniving duos of cobblestone-and-puddle used those moments to soak him. But Mr. Grey felt no ill will toward the passers. They were, perhaps, more regular walkers in the park, and thus had more right to the driest sections of path. And besides, Mr. Grey thought Honeydew a better companion than any member of the other pairs. His conversation with her flowed so very naturally, after all.
Plus, Honeydew was beautiful. Her umbrella hat swooped around her head as a floating shield of semi-translucent, fine stitched pig leather. Atop the dandelion-eye signature robe, she wore a licorice coat with round, pearlescent buttons. The outfit complemented her eyes, but hadn’t the contour of a dream of transcending those lambent twins; full to bursting with an alert intelligence; dark, gleaming, vibrant, and with something primeval about them - like a blistering sun reflected off a desert oil spill.
Mr. Grey let his own matte eyes wander the drizzly distance. He watched a group of children trade the handle of a kite shaped like a butterfly as they frolicked the jelly hills. The kite flew defiant against the rain. The hatless, soaking kids laughed heedlessly in their fun.
Mr. Grey was readying his next topic, when he heard Honeydew breathe in sharply. She said, “I haven’t driven a steam swan in epochs! Let’s rent one.”
Mr. Grey saw the swan rental stand beside the path. He agreed. Honeydew grabbed Mr. Grey’s hand and led him. He was glad she did it. It spared Mr. Grey the trouble of awkwardly figuring out the appropriate moment to hold hands.
This has been In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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