I have tried very hard but still can’t imagine a colorless universe since colors are so pervasive and persuasive. Colors have been around us, overwhelmingly, savagely and persistently.
We anticipate a vista of living in a global village where people of different colors, black, white and yellow, mix freely. What divine force fashioned the color scheme of races remains a mystery. Obviously, the global picture the Hand colored in does not go color-fast even though weather-beaten. Color-blindness occurs to only a handful. The color line dies hard.
A balanced diet consists of red or white meat with plenty of greens. When we eat, we can always gracefully choose between red meat or white meat. When we drink, a black coffee or a white one. When we cook, add black pepper or white pepper to spice the fare.
There goes on a battle between color pictures and black and white ones. Most of the times color pictures are in. Yet, black and white pictures are eternally classic favorites for the nostalgic and sentimental.
Books, magazines and films come in full color and hopefully the “blue” ones remain inaccessible to teenagers. Here is an episode about the evil “blue” films.
There used to be a “nomadic” family with three sons living nearby the housing estate where I used to live. The father was a lank and lazy man, making a living by collecting garbage in the neighborhood and selling it to the recycling station. His wife sold pirated VCDs/DVDs at a stand at the back gate and she was pregnant again. One day the youngest son around 8 years old sneaked away one DVD and was caught watching a blue film on a DVD with another two boys about his age. When the mom of one of the two boys went to fetch her son, she caught sight and colored up on the scene. It was a bolt from the blue. She was as black as thunder. She told the boy off to his mother, and her face was red as a beetroot again when she had to tell her husband the whole incident all over again. It was raising a red rag to a bull and her husband spanked the boy black and blue and warned him to stay far away from that black sheep.
The garbage collector and his wife swallowed the story easily. Concerning exposure to blue films, the mother was no doubt a veteran, no green hand. She neither went pink nor viewed the incident as black. There was also no need to whitewash what she was selling. She must have got the pirated DVDs from a certain black market. It was understandable that her job required some previewing and selecting.
Each color has multiple layers of shades. Violet is bluish purple. Rosy is reddish pink. Scarlet is bright red and crimson dark purplish-red. Turn the color wheel and you get easily lost in the labrynth of colors.
The sun has golden fingers and the moon silver. Flames lick with small red tongues. Every cloud has a silver lining. The colors in nature has never ceased to amaze the human eye.
Aging peppers a man’s beard with smoky grey and a woman’s hair turns silvery white. Rosy lips, milky skin, and a cascade of black hair are sweet memories frozen in pictures of youth. The world is no longer seen in black and white. Grey sets in with flying colors.
When the Reaper rolls out the red carpet, no one gets the green light.
When some truths do not appear to bear saying and some lies are necessary, a white lie walks in conveniently.
The colors are lovely, of course, but nothing says perfection like white.
So far the only colorless thing that I can think of is a shadow. It is so near at hand and yet so far away that one can never reach.
“So shall you think of all this fleeting world.
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
a flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
a flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.”
May true colors be with you!
