Another little flash fiction piece… The prompt at the writing group was “In August.”
In August, you changed your colors. It seemed like an insignificant change. But we should have known better. All your life, at least as long as you’ve worked here, it’s been turquoise, teal or cyan. Colors that did not even have names for most of humanity’s existence. You were a modern person, through and through. The rest of us could not even distinguish between turquoise, teal and cyan, but you would stomp your foot if we used the wrong adjective.
Anyway, after twenty-nine years of shades of blue-green, you showed up one morning in yellow. We were so shocked, we held ourselves silent. The next day, it was orange. Then tan. This patternless pattern went on for a month. Where you got the money for all the new clothes, even the nosiest gossips couldn’t fathom.
Then, yesterday, you walked in with a firetruck red dress. Alarms went off in all of our minds.
Always silent about your inner world, the color changes should have told us something, but we could only ask ourselves how, instead of why.
Now, you are gone. We miss you. We realize we never knew you as anything but an enigma.
Eventually, we’ll have to find something new to talk about at the water cooler.
I wasn’t at Wordgatherers for this prompt, but I really like this piece! I like the way color was the clue to the oncoming change! I’ve been known to let color speak for me as well! Good job, you could go forwards or backwards with this story. Thank you for sharing!
Dear Shona,
I liked the story. I kept changing my mind, as I read, about who or what the object was.
Rita