Of Ifs and Perhapses
Different wavelengths brought them together. If they were colors, she would be blue and he would be pink, a faded, thoughtful pink that evaded the world’s daily blunders, a pink that would only alter her blue by a little if mixed in. She was cool and he was not hot but warm, at least that’s how they came across to the world. They resonated and got indeed very hot and very purple, the strong, steamy kind, fermented grapes, lavender incense. Then they saw the world in terms of purpleness. She was too blue until he called from work, he was too faded until she whispered in the dark and everything became purple again. Purple talk, purple touch. Purple pillows. Purple bills, purple laundry quarters, purple pizza. Purple parks, purple pets, places brimmed with purple. Purple envelope licking. Purple perplexities: I’m so scared time isn’t purple, she said through the phone while he purpley listened. When she came back with a fleck of yellow he knew something had happened. When she turned green he knew he had to leave, it was too strange for him to be acquainted with so much nonpurple. Time may not have been purple, he said, but certainly had been on our side. He left a muted maroon, speckled with certain understandings. Time passed by them, on some other side, not purple at all. When time ran out the back door of what chance they had left, different wavelengths brought them together and she smiled and said, I was right, time isn’t purple, and he said, I never said it was but here we are again. She had been polluted into that kind of brown from mixing here and there. He was dull and she was not filthy but murky, at least that’s how they came across to the world. Let’s talk of colors, time, and chances, of wavelengths, of tainting and blending. Of Ifs and Perhapses. Of he + she = him + her = ? That’s really all there is to it.
