Crayolas

By Robert Burns

Jimmy grabbed his box of Crayolas and pad of paper as the fighting in his parents’ room accelerated. He dove under the linen tablecloth, into his secret hiding place beneath the dining room table.

Lying on his tummy, the boy dumped the crayons into a rainbow heap on the shag carpet and found relief in the multicolored jumble.

Soon, a stick family cowered on his pad under a battleship-gray sky. Jagged bolts of canary lightning erupted from raw umber clouds.

The screaming ceased and, in the sudden silence, Jimmy found the yellow-orange. A hopeful sun peeked through the clouds.

A Taste of Yellow

By Lauren Wesley-Smith

Van Gogh never really ate yellow paint, but I understand the feeling. Colour leeching out of hands and face, body turning black within; when there’s nothing good inside, the only hope is from without. I have no sunshine paint to try, and so I turn to food. I make biscuits first, golden and simple, but with a pleasing crunch. Then I try custard tarts, which wobble most delightfully. At last I learn to make meringue with life’s sour lemons, and I know I’ve found my calling. Yellow paint can’t create happiness within, but yellow food most certainly can.

Closing My Eyes on an August Day

By Holly Sissons

Beneath a flat blue cobalt sky is a glowing jewel tempered 

only by the lush green hills it’s clasped within.

Pine needles dust the rusty trails that snake between 

shady chestnut groves leading deep into the terracotta canyon -

le Sentier des Ocres.

the shades of summer

Seams of amber are folded into molten clay

and the sun sears overhead.

Only the apricot and honey houses,

the russet pantiles and sorbet shutters,

remind me that this is no desert.

I close my eyes, but the colour still burns.

I wake up thousands of miles and years away.

Composition XII

By Sally Curtis

The first thing you ever told me was that Kandinsky believed colours had souls.

“What colour is yours?” I asked.

“Orange.”  

You didn’t hesitate.

“Joyous?”

“Maybe.”

“Or warmth?”

“If you like.”

When your orange blazed hot, I feared you were in torment.  I tried to temper it with a yellow splash of compassion but you mistook my tone for cowardice which only fired the flames until your orange exploded.  Its shards sliced our universe, sucked out the air and suffocated hope.

After you left, my world deepened to a burnt umber.  Less gaudy is the colour of a healing soul.

Joe and his Annoying Aunt on his Birthday

By Judith Wilson

Two-year-old Joe touches a fruit and splutters, ‘Onge.’ 

‘Well done.’ His aunt smiles.

He’s three when she asks, ‘What’s that?’ 

‘Orange.’ 

He’s learning.

At four his aunt asks, ‘What rhymes with orange?’ 

Joe sings, ‘Borange, smorange, horange.’ 

‘Clever boy.’

When he’s five. ‘What rhymes with orange?’ 

‘Nothing rhymes with orange.’ 

At six. ‘What rhymes with orange?’ 

‘Will you stop asking this stupid question. Every birthday you do it. It’s annoying. Orange has no rhyme. OK?’

At seven. ‘What rhymes with orange?’ 

‘Sporange. An old botanical term for the structure where spores are produced.’

Smug.

Bloody Internet.

Prohibition

By Jo Bland

Our grandmother pouring olive oil down the sink, her head turned to the wall.

Our shoes, always wet, lined up by the front door, coats draped over the back of chairs, dripping.

The Policers dyeing our mother's hair an ugly black.

That was the year when our teachers looked through our pencil boxes checking for yellow crayons; the year the sun never shone. 

 It is strictly forbidden, said the Minister, to be in possession of the colour yellow. There will be serious consequences for you, your families and indeed the entire world…

We cried when the little chicks were drowned.

Blue Yellow 

By Jessy Metzger

Cold rain blurred my darkening window. A figure moved on the street below, silhouetted in the orange glow from Pavel’s - Best Russian Deli in Brooklyn. He was a shadow, wanting neither to see nor be seen. Pavel himself, perhaps. He moved slowly despite the rain, shoulders hunched, pitching him forward over some cliff. His hands tangled in the flag beside the deli, white blue red. It crumpled down into his arms. I drew my curtains as the light in Pavel’s went out. 

A new flag hung there in the morning, bright in the sun, blue yellow.

Forget Me Not You Double Headed Two Faced Princess

By Emily MacDonald

She had suspicions at the time.  The bulbs in a plain brown paper bag, too small and uniform, smooth under their paper-thin skins.  He’d assured her they were double headed Orange Princess, the ones she pictured—popping against lime euphorbia, underplanted with pale Forget-me-knots—Great Dixter style.

Forget-me-not? She can’t escape him—he’s upended her sly joke.  Betrayal by cowardly yellow flower heads, typical of the man.  She digs up the deception in disgust, spearing the bulbs with her fork.  

She wonders, will her glads and dahlias come true? Or has he curdled the soil when she buried him?

When Life Gives You Lemons

By Jo Grobler

Bitterness forced me to return to the Amalfi coast, where we had first met. The narrow cliffside streets of Positano seemed steeper than I remembered, and I wiped away an unexpected trickle of sweat. No one to chivvy me along, only memories for company. I recalled our first taste of limoncello together, intense with citrus and sunshine; I suddenly craved the heady, yellow liquid.

Stopping at a café, I gave in to the impulse. A wave of nausea followed, and it was then that I awakened to the tiny new life inside me. I was no longer alone. 

Light of Discovery

By Nicki Blake

The dive-lamp’s beam sweeps the seabed, revealing a promising flash of vivid orange beneath the clouds of silvery fish but, when I swim down, I discover it’s only a mass of pumpkin-coloured coral. Disappointed, I begin to ascend when the lamp illuminates my colleague up ahead jabbing a finger towards the deeper water where the tail of the wreck lies. I direct the light where he points and a brick-like shape flares in the darkness, this time in that unmistakable hue - International Orange.

I don’t know why they’re still called ‘black boxes’ – they haven’t been black in years.

These Old Keys

By Gabrielle Lewis

These old keys

Hold the memories

Of our great melodies

Golden afternoons

Spent caressing keys

Daffodils tucked behind my ear

My voice bare

As you unveiled all its purity

With every keystroke

Sharply implying

Flatly denying

That all my chords belong to you

But you've moved on from stained yellow

To the pearly whites of Grands

While I've turned dumb from missing you

Dried marigolds pressed with kisses

Old keys sealed with melodies

Of bittersweet memories