Colors Commentary

"Yellow and Red" by lrargerich

Two things: colors, and a situation with which I am already very frustrated. I first thought of red and blue as my colors, and situations with which I am already frustrated seemed initially to be out of the question as fodder for fiction. I didn't want to invite speculation about who or what I was writing about, or why. So it was sort of surprising to sit down and start writing and within like, three words use yellow as a color and my own frustrations as the character's.

The frustrating situation is not moving, not rising to action, feeling blocked in and limited. Red, interestingly, has several connotations in popular culture, and a lot of them are opposite. One implication is passion: you burn with passion, it lights you up, there is inspiration, movement, action, fueled by passion. Another implication is stop: red light, stop sign, access denied. Meanwhile, yellow is mellow: it can spring up lightly like a flower or piss away slowly like piss. Strong emotions aren't connected to yellow, but a lot of other things are. So for this exercise, red was always connected to the girl: on her lips, on her feet, in her hands. Her passion, her lust for life, showed up chapped, scuffed up, fading out like the flame in a cigarette. Yellow isn't a strong color, but if it keeps popping up in little ways it can create an overwhelming effect, like a yellow car with yellow lights driven by yellow hair. What kept the girl trapped, getting in and out of her car, starting her engine multiple times without going anywhere, was her own stupidity. (Stop parking there if you are getting parking tickets!) Finally what keeps her from leaving is red, and its her own lack of fuel, the last of which she probably burned starting and restarting her engine.

Writing this was fun, because of the challenge of repeating two colors almost to the point of inanity, of finding multiple ways to inject these colors, of figuring out synonyms when what I mean is red and yellow. I had to stop in the middle of writing it, and during that pause, driving around, EVERYTHING in the whole world was red and yellow. Everything, I saw red and yellow everywhere. So that was fun; I kept thinking, and then the girl can go to McDonalds! And get in the exit only lane! And yield! And also stop! At stop signs! And stop lights! And brake lights! And then she can get pizza! It was interesting to get back to writing it, because I felt like there wasn't enough of these two colors. I thought, while she is stuck in a parking garage, there is a world of yellow to interact with. I felt bad about every sentence I wrote for this that didn't include a primary color, which explains the extended sentences. It was also interesting to symbolize my frustrations, and to think about them in the abstract.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one overall; in some ways I am thinking that not much happened, in some ways I am thinking that was the whole point.

Colors

Write an exercise in which you repeatedly use two different primary colors. Describe these colors without naming them too often—and try to find effective synonyms for the colors without being too obvious about this disguise. Repetition of anything alien to the human elements of a story is bound to influence the way the story sinks into the reader's mind. How would red and yellow, appearing over and over again in drapes, carpets, clothes, handmade ashtrays, or toilet bowls, affect you as a reader? If you know anything about the meaning or symbolism of colors, choose your pair of hues well to play off emotions against each other. Apply this exercise to a situation with which you are already very frustrated.

(from prompt #20 in The 3 AM Epiphany)

Read my response:

"icetea fantasy" by shikeroku





She took the yellow envelope off her windshield and tossed it in her glove compartment without opening it. Two more manila envelopes already sat in there. She mentally added and subtracted money from her life and then, biting her lip and tasting flakes of chapping Devilicious lipstick, she took out her cell phone and went to the bouncing, sunny calculator icon. The keys lit up a dim gold in the cab of her car and she jumped a bit at the light reflected in the rearview mirror. She added and subtracted and started delving into fantasy holding down the glowing yellow zero. After a minute, with the phone still flipped open, she put her head down on her steering wheel and stared at the black skids on her red heels. She tried to muster up energy but didn’t move her forehead, even putting her keys in the ignition and letting the radio play while she stared down at her scuffed up ruby slippers; there’s no place like home, even when home is the last place you want to be, she thought. Until she realized that she had tears in her eyes listening to “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” then she sat up, wiped her eyes, pushed herself out of her stupid mood, and started her car.

Suddenly motivated to get going, she put the car into reverse and backed out without looking behind her, where a little VW Beetle, bright as an egg yolk, was double-parked with blinking piss-colored warning lights. She slammed on her brakes and the brake light glared angry red at the Beetle less than an inch away. She did not miss the irony of her predicament as she eased her car back into the spot and reached for her fire engine lighter and a cigarette. She got out of her car, slammed the door behind her, and leaned against the fender watching the warning lights blink on and off. The dim fire at the end of her cigarette inched closer to the filter; she flicked it, stamped it out, lit another.

Three Devilicious tinged butts lay around her feet when she reached for her phone to call a tow truck. Instead she half wrote a text message twice, then got back in her car and turned on the dome light, illuminating the interior with enough of an amber glow to reapply her Devilicious lipstick and to notice her bloodshot eyes peering back from the vanity mirror. She took out the three manila envelopes and thought about putting them on the blinking Beetle and maybe getting a beer. Adding it up in her head, she accepted that she could not afford a beer, but rationalized this thought against the fact that she was stuck and might as well knock herself out while down, so she got out of the car again, clutching her saffron purse. Hell, why not just get a Bloody Mary, she thought. She could just taste it, thick spicy tomato juice, when the blonde came running towards her, keys in hand, calling out apologies. She waved it off and got back in her car for what felt like the hundredth time, started her engine, and realized, thanks to a pulsing red icon, that she was out of gas.