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| Pepper No. 30 by Edward Weston |
When he woke up after the accident, he thought it was his grogginess from the meds that was distorting everything until someone came in with a tray and the colors of the food upon it (ash, charcoal, cinder, dust, soot, and slag) brought on a sudden surge of nausea, and, as he was helped out of the bed and led to the bathroom, he found himself navigating his way through his first colorless day, (the glaring white of porcelain fixtures and doctors’ coats dizzied him, the walls in the harshly lit corridor felt like they were closing in on him, and the faces of staff and patients flickered like shadows of the newly dead), an arduous, wearying journey that ended only when he closed his eyes and sank gratefully back into bed, which at least felt familiar, but then as he slept vermillion, emerald, and cerulean—the prismatic remnants of his old life—overran his dreams, and the next morning he was swamped with grief over what he lost, and that was what all his days and nights became, on and on, week after week—dreams colored with the radiant hues of world that once was followed by dawn’s barren, desolate shades of gray and his body wasting away from the nausea he continued to feel at the sight of what had been comforting and delicious dishes—until finally his dreams caught up with his waking life and he had his first monochromatic dream (the complete, subtle scale of gray from dove to ebony recolored his childhood bedroom, with its spaceship wallpaper, stuffed animals piled in the little “red” wagon, the night sky comforter, and even the luminous skin of his mother standing in the doorway, telling him it was time to wake up) and the next morning he found himself craving food—the elegant, smooth curve of the banana, the sensuous, mounded contour of a home-baked bread loaf, the poignant heart shape of the strawberry.
by Nina Zolotow
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