Red Town

Originally published in print by The Gateway Review

I dreamed of a crimson river. In my mind, I willingly drowned in its sanguine flow. I meditated on deep vermilion, lingering on ripe apples and plump cherries. Oh, how I longed to pluck them, to hold them up to the sun, to study their skin, their flesh, to savor their scarlet, blush, and rose. I closed my eyes, conjuring visions of boiled lobsters on a bed of rhubarb. I turned my head to the sky and hoped for rain, miraculous and strange, blood-red droplets of Merlot. I dwelled on these things: searing hues in the belly of a smith’s fiery forge; warm tones of coral; amber shades of sunset on a field of poppies. I ached for something to break up the monotony of blue sky, blue ocean, for brilliant flakes of chiseled ruby, unlikely hailstones, refracting rainbows from a vital ember. I imagined them all and I exhaled a lifetime of unmet desire.

Red. I wanted it for myself. Red. I needed it for my soul.

I lived in Blue Town. I was born in Blue Town, where everything is blue. The walls and towers and monuments. The blue-gray slate on the roofs of our dwellings, our buildings for work and worship. The blue-black cobbles that weave the cobalt shops with their navy or teal tapestries.

In Blue Town, even our clothing is blue. Denim suits and sapphire brooches, we know how to express, and when we express we do so using shades of blue. Cornflower canvas shoes, periwinkle ribbons, pendants of crisp aquamarine or bold lapis lazuli, we of Blue Town are encouraged to convey who we are. But when we convey who we are we do so in hues of blue.

I remember last summer—young Maryjane O-Reilly—when she dressed in yellow, bold as brass, and bright as the shining sun. It was gorgeous to behold, that mustard-colored gown. It was striking and almost holy in the way that it shone. She held a dandelion—where she got it I could never begin to guess—and she smiled, cheerful as a daisy, as we parted for her passing, like Moses and the Red Sea, only we, we were all dressed in blue.

They killed her for that. Poor Maryjane O’Reilly. They stripped her of her golden gown, all that precious yellow, and they whipped her as if she had conspired with the devil. They flogged her until her screams echoed only in memory, until her blood painted the blue streets red. I winced at each shriek, every gasp as they tallied Maryjane’s flesh. But I marveled at all the red that spilled out from her back, pooling at her ankles.

It was magnetism, that puddle. A deep lake, and I had a terrible itch to swim. I couldn’t look away and I didn’t want to. It was then, I knew, that I must experience other colors. Blue was not enough. I wanted more.

I needed red.

Red Town was miles away. Miles and miles. How many? I couldn’t know. I couldn’t begin to say. How far off? It was anyone’s guess. And spanning those miles and miles—however many, it’s a mystery to us all—was a raging sea of boiling water. A bubbling soup of sulfuric sludge. An untraversable expanse of unquestionable demise. Between Blue Town and Red Town was certain death. That, we all knew.

Yet I would willingly span those waves that carried in their current instant death should I touch them. I would watch from above the churning surf, that wake which would end my life should it reach me. I’d travel the untraversable. I’d cross the big, bad drink. I’d do it. I would. I’d do it because I was feeling blue. I’d do it because I longed to see red.

* * *

Paul Jackson, a close friend, had been sweet with Maryjane O’Reilly. He took her death as hard as any, and he never did forgive Blue Town. His rage was red. He wasn’t about to forget what they had done to his sweetheart.

He’d pocket yellow scraps of smuggled fabric, flower petals and knickknacks from far and wide. They’d bulge, unseen, beneath navy or royal blue trousers. He’d clench his golden contraband and glare out at the blue, blue world he loathed.

I knew he would come with me. I knew that Paul Jackson would accompany me to Red Town. And when I asked him to come, and he said yes, he had the solution. He knew how we would get there. How we’d traverse the untraversable. How we’d sail those hot, roiling waters of sulfuric hellfire. How we would leave cold blue behind us and arrive to bask in warm, radiant red.

Getting access to the gasbags, those hot air balloons that Blue Town used to scout the toxic coasts for incoming vessels, for signs of invasion, for anything at all, for anything unblue—it was easy. All we had to do was assign ourselves to the task. No one likes hard duty with ample risk, and sailing the acrid winds of Blue Town’s ocean coasts was hard work, and it came with plenty of risk.

We got the job. We got our balloon.

We didn’t waste any time. We dubbed our gasbag The O’Reilly, then we took to the foul-smelling wind. There was nothing Blue Town could do as we reached our lawful boundary and simply stayed our course. There was nothing Blue Town could do as we continued southward, as we watched the shades of blue blend with the sea and sky as the miles and minutes grew between us.

We fed the gasbag flame and rose higher, further away. We laughed and cheered. We looked back and spat northwards, cursing all that was blue. I told Paul of my passion for Red. Paul told me of his love of yellow. We rejoiced and were elated. We were not in the slightest feeling blue.

Until our dirigible began to slump. Until our balloon began to sag. We pumped the bellows to feed the flame and still The O’Reilly sank. Steadily, she brought us closer to the agitated water, the angry, sulfuric splash. We began to balk. We began to panic. Then we started to rise. We started to soar.

Paul was naked, I suddenly noticed. He had taken his clothes, his indigo sweater, his peacock pants, his navy cap and cyan clogs, his azure stockings and sky-blue undergarments, tossing them into the witch’s brew that boiled below. Paul lightened the load. So, I followed suit. I jettisoned my blue-hued garments. I tossed them away, each thread and every fabric. I joyfully discarded my layers, every article a color that I never wished to see again.

We were cold but we were alive. We were high, high up in the air. We would make it, Paul and I. We would live to see the red of Red Town. We would see it, I was sure, and we would see it soon.

But when we looked we saw something else, an object approaching from the south. Another gasbag. Another balloon. It was just like ours, nearly identical, except it was red, whereas ours was blue. And whereas we were travelling south, the red balloon was travelling north.

Two men were inside. They were naked just as Paul and I were. They shivered just as we did, cold and exposed in the high elevation.

“Hello!” They shouted when close enough to be heard.

“Hello!” Paul and I shouted back.

“You’re going the wrong way!” The naked strangers warned us. “You’re going south! To Red Town!”

Paul and I looked at each other, confused. “No!” I shouted back. “You’re going the wrong way!” I insisted. “You’re going north!” Paul warned them. “To Blue Town!” We shouted together.

“Exactly!” The two naked men in the red balloon screamed at the top of their lungs as our distance now grew quite substantial between us. “We’ve left Red Town behind!” We could barely hear them now. “We’re off to Blue Town! We long for something more!”

I looked at Paul. Paul looked at me. We realized, together and at once, those men were sick of red. They dreamed of hues of blue. Shades of another color. It was perplexing, but true. And in the end, it made a whole lot of sense.

Why I risked my life on this venture, why Paul and I had broken laws, shattered conventions, why we had thrown away the lives we had always known for something else, something different—as it turns out it wasn’t about red. It wasn’t even about blue.

For the people of Blue Town, we craved to see red. The people of Red Town, they yearned to witness blue. One’s oppression was for the other their desire. It wasn’t about red and it wasn’t about blue. Ironically, it was about green—in the sense, anyhow, that grass is greener on the other side.