A Justified Fowl Hue
A short fiction inspired by my good friend, baby green eyes.
We could learn a lot from crayons;
Some are sharp,
Some are pretty,
Some are dull,
Some have weird names.
All are different colors,
But they all have to learn to live
In the same box.
-Woody
Artemis's life as a four-year old boy wasn't very exciting. Preschool was a bore- not to mention all of his peers. They were smart enough to go to the loo all by themselves, yet stupid enough to shove crayons up their noses, which is what he could see his cousin doing in the corner of the room. His cousin (unfortunately) went to the same daycare. Artemis had to feel sorry for the crayon. But he couldn't blame his cousin, who was just over the average three-year old IQ.
He wished he was out of the horrid place. He wished a lot of things. He wished that his father wasn't going on so many trips. Artemis the First was always making haste, but he never forgot to hug his wife and kiss his son on the forehead. But that wasn't enough. Artemis wished that he could talk. I know this seems very serious, but he had accepted himself as not so normal.
Artemis was born earlier than he should have been. He was born as a little preemie, and for the first week of his life, he was strapped to machines that helped him breathe and keep warm, with nurses stroking his belly. The little four-year old had little troubles with walking, but in those four short years he had been mute. At first, it was because his vocal cords weren't growing properly. Now he was much better, but talking made him feel strange. His throat felt funny when he tried, and sometimes, it sounded like a dying cat. Or at least that's what he heard his mother say. He found no offence by the comment he had overheard.
Because he was mute, that gave him a different outlook on things, and the world. Trying to communicate with others was hard, but he had gotten used to it. Like pointing to the juice box on the high counter, or glaring, pouting, and crossing his arms when his mother was trying to spoon feed him. The choo-choo train technique did not work on Artemis Fowl Jr. Neither did the 'amazing' flying plane.
So now he sat on the stiff orange rug that smelled exactly how it looked; like oranges. The teacher was an old hag who didn't even know that children were running around the room screaming. And there he sat, staring inside his little crayon box. Though it wasn't very little. It was nearly as big as his hands, which was very small. His mother loved his little hands and tiny feet. She thought they were his best quality besides his dazzling sapphire eyes and silky black hair. She loved everything about her son's appearance. He was a very cute little boy.
You see, before his father was kidnapped, Artemis liked to learn things because he felt like people underestimated him. It made his feel good about himself. But he had never thought about this before. He thought what his life would be… as a crayon. No, that was an insane thought. Was all this time away from his father driving him insane? Completely absurd… he thought.
Then he thought about the colours that all swirled together somehow in a vortex, invisible to every eye but his. Colours swirling, swirling, swirling, oh no. He shook his head to rid his mind of these thoughts. He was going insane. Then he looked back into the box. He wondered what colour he would be. He didn't look away this time. It was amazing what spending five hours a day, five days a week in a child's hell hole could do to your brain.
Red could not be his colour. Neither anger nor passion passed through his veins… after all, he was only a boy. Energy, pain, blood and evil. This was not him. He was Christian; red was the colour of Christ and how he died. Action, fire; spiritual awakening. Orange was intertwined with red. The colour of endurance, strength and worthy ambition. Vitality, heath and happiness. Artemis wasn't the most cheerful person in the world, he could admit that. Purple was also tied with red. Purple was a colour of his religion also. The colour of fasting, faith, patience and trust. Purple and orange would do.
Yellow helped make orange. Yellow was happy; buoyant. The colour of light (brightness) and purity. Yellow was full of youth, happiness, the harvest, hospitality, love and benevolence. Yellow was the colour that shined off of gold in light. Artemis regarded that. What about green? Green was the colour that showed freedom. As a Christian, it represented bountifulness, hope and the victory of life over death. Of course, it was green, so it explained fertility, freshness, health and hopefulness. Yellow and blue made green, so what was blue? Light (in weight) with life-giving air and blue was also a talisman of good health. Blue didn't suit him well.
White was out of the question. It served as the colour of innocence. Artemis and his family were far from innocent. Then there was black. Absolute, constancy, eternity, black may represent death, fear and ignorance. Black... Artemis wasn't a bad person, he wasn't dead either. And he certainly hadn't killed anyone. He always listened to others' ideas and opinions, so he wasn't ignorant. Black was also out of the question.
Every colour represented God, in a way. God's rainbow, God's world, God's crayon box? But still the question took over his brain; seizing him completely. There must have been a colour that suited him. He looked down. Brown wasn't his colour. Brown was the colour of dirt. Pink wasn't his colour. Pink was gross. He thought back to the main colours. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue or purple?
Artemis's eyes wondered the little classroom. And then he thought, who cares what colour I am? That still doesn't change the fact that I'm stuck in this God forsaken place…
Hehehehe! Did you like that? I hope so! This is another fiction I wrote during my full-length fiction, Nevermore. Thank you to Ida for giving me that wonderful idea! I lurve you all! Please R&R everybody!
Your Evil Authoress,
Shannon