Colours

Francesco Clemente, Fire 

“No, no, you just don’t get it.” He sent a couple of black locks flying back as he shook his heard shamelessly.    

“Well, enlighten me then.”

He blinked. She leaned forward, rounding her back, ready to place her hands softly on top of his – god they looked rugged and used – but he sat back wearily and seemed to measure the gap between his mouth and her ears, as if to carefully direct the flow of words that she could only miss. She sighed. She tried to swallow but her throat felt too dry. It’s that goddamn winter she thought, makes everything turn into sandpaper. She took a scathing look at the streets outside. That aimless cloud of fog had licked everything white – the clumsiness of mud puddles, the broken road beneath the broken feet, the stillness of those tall tower shadows.

She glanced back. He was staring and it startled her. His eyes focused, his lips parted ever so slightly and she waited anxiously for the first ring of a sound to come darting out. The tip of his tongue moved cautiously forward and quickly wet the chapped ring of his mouth. His teeth made a furious clicking sound.

“Listen. I don’t care who’s wrong or right. Let’s just forget about the whole business, alright?” He paused.

She lifted an eyebrow, waited. He twitched nervously.

“What d’you want me to tell you? That I feel sorry for them? Well there, there you go. I feel sorry. I feel sorry for those damn fuckers.”

He stopped. She breathed in that slim slither of silence, felt it slide by the sides of her rugged mind. Her chest lifted slowly and for one second, it amused her to contemplate the balanced, delicate movement of her own being. Up and down, up and down. Up, and sharp rays of light would suddenly bounce off the golden surface of her shirt button. Her eyes followed the sunshine outside. The fog had cleared somewhat. Jesus, she thought, where are the colours. Where are the bloody colours?

“I mean, talk about obscenity. How much more obscene can you get? How are you supposed to function – go on, you tell me – in a time and place…” he chewed his words to get a better taste of them “… in a time and place where you’ve got some dolled up babe with her arse hanging out strutting next to some old draped, dying soul? It just doesn’t make much sense. Even you gotta admit that.”

He sat up, his growing spine lifting his shoulders up.

“Fuck it. They deserve it you know. They deserve all of it.”

She nodded. What was there to do but nod? She managed to swallow, finally, and it gradually burned down, crawled down the surface of her inner self before nestling in the cradle of her gut to simmer silently. Did it even really matter?

It didn’t.

She’d just caught sight of a fleeting crimson flag.