Paula Guran - The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu

What of ecstatic experience? What of true seeing , but also in the act of seeing, being seen ? What is needed from a new theory of color is a way to go between the shades we accept as representing the full spectrum. There are cracks through which we must pass to appreciate the fullness of the universe.

But yellow is problematic. What yellow? Not the color of daffodils, sunlight, or the delicacy of a canary’s wing. No. The yellow of bruises, aged bone, butter on the cusp of spoiling. There’s a taste to it. Slick with rot just starting to creep in. Yellow is joy, hope, life, but its underbelly is cowardice, madness, pestilence. They are not mutually exclusive; they are but two sides of the same skin. Pierce one, and you pierce the other as well.

There are shades between shades, hues that exist on the periphery of common understanding. Purple bleeds if you slice it deeply enough. I have seen such a color, printed on my eyelids. It is an infection, this color, a fever. Hungry. It means to devour me whole.

I want

Yellow remains problematic.

Why yellow? Because she mus t be dressed so. She is saddled with a husband she cannot possibly love. Too old. The yellow in the pouches under his eyes is common age, weariness. Is the shade I offer any better? Aging slowly toward death would be far kinder. More natural, certainly. But we are not natural creatures, Charlotte and I.

I’ve seen bones in the desert, scoured by sand. A shadow walks from the horizon, tattered by the wind. His darkness is the space between stars. It is not black. It is a color for which I have not yet discovered a name.

The wheel, were we to rearrange it, swap red for orange, yellow for the lighter shade of blue, would at first seem an affront to the artistic eye. But it brings us closer to what is needed for a true understanding of color. One must break to build. See how the meaning of color is changed as it is brought into contact with its opposite and its mate?

It is not simply a color, it is a door. She is a door. I know she has dreamed as I have. She has seen the lost city, where we are all hungry. She has seen our king in terrible rags, fluttering like flame in the wind. I tried to speak of it to her, but Charlotte looked so frightened when I touched her shoulder. (Yet I fear she understands far better than I. She will run ahead and I will be left behind.) I only meant to rearrange her into a better angle of light. It left an imprint on her skin, an oval the size and shape of my thumb. I have dreamed the dress in tatters, like the wrappings of the dead.

Casey — I’m sticking with what works. You can be mad at me later. So, movie night take two? I’m sorry I fell asleep last time. I haven’t been sleeping well. I wish I could say I was out getting laid, or even being responsible and studying like you. But it’s just bad dreams. My dad prescribed me some pills, but they didn’t help. Seriously, this shit is supposed to knock you out, put you under so deep you don’t dream. But fucking every time I go to sleep I see this fucking city. It’s creepy. I don’t believe in that reincarnation shit my parents do, but I’m always the same woman and she’s me in this city that burns and drowns and is washed in blood. I don’t like her. Us. The city. Fuck.

See? I’m so tired I’m not making sense. But I’ve got my coffee and I’m good to go, so tonight it’s your turn to cook. We still have wine from when my parents visited. You can even pick the movies this time. Kisses, Rani

P.S. The sketch you left in the hall? I don’t know if you meant me to see it, maybe it just fell out of your bag, but it’s really good. Is it supposed to be me?

I met Mr. Roderick today, the artist my husband has commissioned to paint my portrait. First impressions do count for something so I will say this: I do not care for him. The whole time I sat for Mr. Roderick, he never touched charcoal or paper. He simply stared at me in the hideous dress he . . . Well, I cannot imagine where he found it, whether he had it made, or whether he purchased it somewhere. Whatever the case, how is it that the dress fits me so well? Mr. Roderick would not answer my questions. He only insisted I wear it, and that I have always worn it. I could not make sense of him.

He was so insistent, growing flushed and agitated, I finally agreed, though I did not enjoy wearing the dress. There is a weight to it. The feel of it is wrong. It is . . . unearthly. I cannot give it a better word than that. It is compelling and repulsive at once, and yet, for all the madness of Mr. Roderick’s words, it is familiar. I do not pretend to understand how such a thing could be possible, but I do believe the dress is mine, and that Mr. Roderick has it in his possession because I must wear it. I have always worn it.

Yet, I feel horrid with it on my person. The silk whispers whenever I move. At times it is like the wind, or sand moving over stone. Other times, I feel there are actual voices inside the dress.

Even if this were not so, Mr. Roderick’s gaze alone would be bad enough. I felt like a cut of meat, sitting so still while Mr. Roderick examined me, and he the butcher. I finally asked him if something were wrong, and he snapped at me, commanded (his word, not mine) me not to speak.

I would be tempted to cancel the entire undertaking, but Mr. Aimsbury is set on this idea and it would displease him greatly if I were to protest. As for myself, I have no desire for formal portraiture. Such paintings survive long after one has passed, and all future generations will know of you is the expression you happened to be wearing that day, the way you tilted your head or lifted your hand. Everything you were is gone.

I expressed my aggravation concerning the portrait to Mr. Aimsbury. He convinced me to reconsider.

It has been weeks of sitting, and I know nothing more of Mr. Roderick than I did the first day. It’s as though he’s a different person each time we meet. One day he is moody and sullen, the next all charm. Two days ago he kissed my hand and spent the whole sitting contriving excuses to touch me, arranging my chin this way, my hair that. Yesterday he seized my shoulders as if to shake me, then immediately stepped back as though I’d struck him.

Yet my own sensibilities concerning Mr. Roderick are conflicted. I say I do not know him, but there are times I feel I know Blaine very well. But it’s not a comforting sort of knowing. Or being known.

Today I asked him about it. “Of course we’ve met,” he said. “The color can only be painted on you. Don’t you remember? In the desert? In the city?”

It seemed he would say more, but he stopped as though he’d forgotten how to speak entirely. There was an intensity about him, as though he were in a fever.

He leaned toward me. I thought he meant to kiss me, but he only put his hands on either side of my face and said, “There are colors that hunger, Charlotte. There is a word for them the same shade as hearts heavy with sin.”

I hadn’t the faintest idea what he meant. Except, I almost did.

Today, Mr. Roderick spoke barely a word. We sat in silence and I felt I was being crushed to death under the weight of all that horrid silk. It does not breathe. I feel as if I will suffocate. And why yellow? At times, I feel as though the color itself is draining the life from me. Is that possible, for a color to be alive? No, alive is not the correct word. There is nothing of life about it. I am not even certain it is yellow. I cannot explain it, but there are moments when the dress gives the distinct impression of being some other color, merely masquerading as yellow. Whatever color it may be in actuality, I do not believe there is a name for it.