The Sky was Yellow
Article by Hanna Freitas, art by Isabella Hageman
Content Warning: Allusions to sexual assault
Crash into the roof tiles, burgundy shards flitting across your vision, red birds against a yellow sky. Pan to the left and there, many more red roofs are glued together. To the right, your fellow sleuth, with whom you have much history, in a beige trench-coat and much older than you, scrambling down from the ridge, pointing to the courtyard below, finger calling out, “They’re getting away!” Eyes saying, “Hurt?”
You look at your bare feet, which have crashed into the shingles without injury.
There are three white suits, two men and a woman, running across the courtyard. You recall that they had just climbed down from the rooftops, you recall that they carry with them stolen goods, though you cannot recall what exactly they were, except that they were all cumbersome, wrapped in white linen sheets and tied with cartoonish ropes.
You are brave. A leap! And you fly down from the edge of the roof to the floor of stone, and hit the ground running. Your bare feet have feeling but don’t hurt. Running fast, catching up to the woman, a pounce. You are weightless as you both tumble to the ground. She drops what you perceive to be a framed painting, though you cannot see it. It's a cat fight, you fight! You are strong, but not quite strong enough, and soon all of them have come over to you, lifting you up. You are captured. The more you struggle, the stronger they grip you. As they scale the red, steel gate, you scale it with them and for a moment, your vision seems suspended at the very top, and you see her, the captive, slung over one of three shoulders, simple T-shirt and jeans, lithe and seventeen. This is yourself. And the oak trees that fringe the street seem taller and grander than they really are.
Though you are being taken, you can see the man you left behind on the other side of the gate. In the steel of his eyes, mouth ajar, you can tell he is thinking, “Dear God, where are they taking her?”
Back to your own eyes, and they strap you to the top of their car, white as their suits. Strapped with ropes, like luggage. And they get into the van and begin to float down the street. And yet somehow, the ropes do not hold you - you drift out of them. You stand on the car. You raise your head, as you see the street you’ve always known awash in yellow light. But as the van thunders down this street, the world around you becomes unfamiliar, unrecognizable. The buildings become paint blots, and the green leaves of the trees leak into the yellow sky.
The world freezes. Still. You stand. There.
It’s quiet. Hush goes the music. You’ve escaped your captors. You scaled the red gate and returned back to the courtyard. You see your sleuth in the beige trench coat hunched over, studying a map and muttering. You smile and walk up beside him, and say in a transatlantic radio host accent: “I betcha she ain’t gonna make it.”
His head bobs: “That’s what I’m betting too, that’s what I’m worried ‘bout, see, I--” When he finally looks up at you, he realizes. And how beautiful the smile that unfurls on his face. “You’re here!” And then the embrace.
Time slows. The clock continues to roll. How warm. How intimate. Safe. Real.
It feels so real… how do you feel his trench coat so tangibly when you…
You press against him, so hard, knowing what you know.
The afternoon has turned to evening, the yellow sky to pink. You stand alone in the courtyard, watching your partner whip grey blankets into the air and float them down onto the ground. You’re both against a wall.
Two or three women are next to you, and they ask you a question. You cannot grasp what the question is, yet assuredly, you have the answer. A calm smile.
“Brave, yes, for seventeen… accomplished, deft, chivalrous, honorable. Everything I’ve ever wanted to be, in a simple world, with an enchanting story… yes, that’s who I am. But… do you believe in other lives? In another life...” you see your own face, and your smile ages into a frown. “… I am not brave. I am afraid. Afraid and alone and eighteen. That is why I am here now.” You nod. “That is why.”
Pink has turned to navy, and the stars do not twinkle, replicating real life more than a Hollywood film. The courtyard is vast and empty. You have blankets against a tall concrete wall. You are sitting, and your partner sits besides you. He chuckles as he takes hold of your bare foot and raises it to his face to get a better look, admiring the cracked soot in your sole. He brags to an invisible audience,
“How daring she is!” He looks at you. You study his face. Light shouldn’t be coming from the right side where the wall stands, yet that side of his face shines.
“Only now can we catch our breath,” he says, “And tomorrow, we’re off again. Forever a chase, aye?”
You feel yourself smiling.
And in the middle of your smile you feel what you’ve always known. Like you’ve momentarily forgotten but have now just recollected. That you and your partner are lovers.
Quieter now, he comes towards you, and you do not flinch. “Let us finally rest together.” And he wraps his arms around you. You pause and think about what you know that he doesn’t. But his perfect hands do not seize; they cradle. It is in the weakness of your soul, not your body, that you give in.
Your lover’s weight is not burdensome. You kiss him, wrap around him. The air is cold, but not hostile. His clothes are soft as they rustle. He fondles you, yes, you, brave one. Young, seventeen, but his equal.
No noise. No smell. No wet skin. He does not enter you. In fact, in this simple world, there is no such thing.
The navy has turned to black. You don’t see the moon, but a bright teal taints your lover’s hair. Familiar crispy air, and the night noises are uncanny replicas of nights spent in…
As you have done many times tonight, you study his face in a desperate search to find something fixed, like a groove forever etched across his forehead. But all of his features elude your focus and dart away. It’s a chase - it is an optical illusion.
On one hand, you’re not that surprised, but on the other, your voice has passed from the 20th century into the 21st. You hold his hand. “I need to tell you something.”
His manner delights you, and that is what makes you sad. “Tell me then, this ‘something’. What is it?”
“This is a dream.”
“A dream, ah yes, what a dream, brave one. Wonderful, isn’t it?... Your sad blue eyes tell me otherwise. I suppose then… not the meaning of ‘dream’ I first understood. A dream then.”
“I know it must be hard to, well…”
“Don’t fret, I believe you. Who is the one dreaming, you or I?”
“I am.”
“I’ll be damned. I don’t know if this is a ‘sorry’ or ‘congratulations!’ sort of occasion. When did you find out all this?”
“Perhaps subconsciously, I knew all along. Funny things would happen. Leaping off tall buildings. Running so fast and hard with bare feet. But when I escaped from those bandits and came to you, you were so happy to see I was alright. And you hugged me. Then and there, it somehow came to me that this wasn’t real.”
Your fellow sleuth does not reply at first. He looks around him.
You see the two of you now, as a crane pulls your vision up above into the sky, and all around you. He is gazing around, “All this is fiction?”
“Yes. This courtyard, this neighborhood with red roofs… is a much grander version of my real home.”
“Then, this tapestry of yours. It is the finest masterpiece I’ve ever had the honor of seeing.”
“I am sorry.”
“Never be sorry.” Then, “And who is that soul that lies behind those two blue eyes? What is she like?” A chuckle. “Is she even a she?”
You catch some of his mirth for a moment then swallow, “I wouldn’t know how to describe it without knowing who it is you see.”
Warmth. “I see a young woman of much grace and courage, who can do anything she sets her mind to. Who has for all these years, I can hardly believe it sometimes, chosen to accompany an old bumbling fool, a muck of a detective. Together, going on so many adventures… and misadventures for that matter.”
“Wow. It sounds incredible.”
“I understand now. That moment when I embraced you, and… the sky was yellow… the real you awakened inside this dream, and you do not remember the life we have shared.”
“You’re right. I scarcely remember why we were in pursuit.”
“Or who I am?”
“... I’m so sorry.”
“Never be sorry. Tell me. Who am I? What do you see?”
“I see my partner. My partner in crime. Witty, sometimes clumsy, but good. A good man. A man much older than me, perhaps twice my age, whom I respect, trust and… love deeply. Who when he embraced me, did it with such kindness. I felt a warmth and safety I’ve never felt before in all my life. And I savored every last drop of you, knowing I’d never see that look in your eyes. When you look at me, you see your equal.”
“To receive such remarks… thank you, brave one. Thank you for this. I suppose, if this is all a dream,” and he holds your hand. You feel knuckles, veins, seams, tremors. “If it’s all a dream, then… I do not exist. And all that I see around me will fade away. Unless I exist within someone you know?”
“No. You do not. When I look at you, I see no one I know. You’re a kinder version of Julian Craster from The Red Shoes, in the clothes of Humphrey Bogart and with the temperament of Jon Hamm. I don’t particularly find those people interesting in any respect, so in that regard, you do not resemble them at all.”
“Hmph, how funny. I’ll take that as a compliment. So. A complete stranger, then, am I. Makes one think, you know. When you awake, will I go to sleep? Or will I continue on here, a floating figment, waiting for your return?”
“When I wake,” you think aloud. And remember. Joy is replaced with foreboding. Fear. Bitterness. He notices.
“What is it?”
“When I wake, I’m afraid I will hate you.”
Blackness. The world silences, in color and in sound. For a moment, a glimpse of the curtain drapes around you, and disappears. You’re scared to wake up, don’t want to wake up, don’t want to. Afraid of what you’ll feel in the morning. Keep dreaming.
Now his voice is different. His voice sounds like yours, and pours out from his eyes and not his mouth.
Hate me? he says.
“Like all the rest.”
The rest?
“And yet it was different.”
Different?
“You never took off your clothes. I never felt your tongue. You never came in. It wasn’t even there. It was different. Why did I give in? I will hate you even more. But I wanted it! How could I? Oh, again. Again and again, why do you torment me, you desperate men, I am only a girl. How many times this hurried, hot, sticky, skin, legs left cold, wet, stinking, loud… so loud I hate it. Hate it. Hate it. That ugly ugly ugly thing! I haaaate… haaaate…” as a banshee… “... that ugly thing…”
His voice melds into yours, “... I hate it all! My eyes are not blue, my eyes are not blue, my eyes…”
The world hushes again. All of what you see, smell, taste, and hear, now saturated into beautiful things.
And you hear his voice again.
“What color are they then?”
“Somehow I don’t remember.”
“They are beautiful.”
“... this is another one of those dreams,” you say, “Ever since that night.”
He looks around. Momentarily, as he speaks, the sky returns to its yellow hue. And he asks, simply.
“Were you chased?”
“Yes.”
“How did it happen?”
“He pulled up in his car.”
You can no longer distinguish your voice from his, whether he asks or you answer. White car. He got out and hands. Hands off! I ran with my bag. School bag. And then? Ran. Ran off and jumped. In the air. Air. For a moment… air. From the top of the stairs to the bottom. Snap. My ankle.
Night returns.
“Then, I am the rapist?”
He says it, and you both look up. Somewhere to the west, music plays. Mother’s morning piano. But you hear a whole orchestra of clouds thunder their symphony. And you bury your face into his jacket.
“You can’t be… can’t be. I will surely hate you. I will surely hate you. You have been so kind to me. So kind. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Never be sorry.”
“It is dark.”
“Yes.”
“We are flying.”
“You fly very gracefully.”
“This is my street… I don’t understand. I hear each individual leaf shiver and rustle, and know each one like a shepherd knows her sheep’s bleats. Up here, the air hits my face and streams off as the wind does the nose of an airplane. The dark is a dark I’ve known many nights ago. It is real. It must be real.”
“It is.”
“The sun.”
“Yes.”
“Streaming through my window. I will wake up soon.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want this dream to end.”
“Why not?”
“I feel so free now. So free.”
“You are free.”
“I am not. And I will hate you. I don’t wish to…”
“This is the first.”
“The first time it was… good.”
“I am you.”
I am you.
If you love me, you know what it means. Never be sorry. This dream sings hope. You’re on a path. Remember the yellow sky. You are brave. Brave one. I am you. If you love me, you know what it means. Never be sorry. This dream sings hope. You’re on a path. Remember the yellow sky. You are brave. Brave one. I am you. If you love me, you know what it means. Never be sorry. This dream sings hope. You’re on a path. Remember the yellow sky. You are brave. Brave one. I am you. If you love--