Colours Are Annoying and Artists Are Crazy

(October 10, 2005)

She dreamed of a park cast entirely in pink. A hazy pastel sky hung over a puce-heavy landscape dotted with serrated peppermint rocks, and flamingos and colour-corrected penguins perched in Pepto-Bismol trees, layering azaleas with carnation-toned droppings. It wasn't pretty, relaxing, or appropriately feminine; the smell reminded her of something that belonged in a disreputable hospital, like calamine lotion poured into a scalpelled-open body. She choked and gagged, her cheeks flushing magenta before paling to periwinkle, and covered her eyes with hands that stank of old salmon and sweetly-rotten tropical fruit.

She woke up feeling irrationally angry, and spent the day fighting angry daydreams of punching the Easter Bunny to death. She suspected he'd shatter like falsely saccharine old coral and release fumes like last year's forgotten strawberries, no matter how fluffy his coat might be.