Who Knew?
Elizabeth Bruce
Neon Pumpkin? Marmalade? Tiger stripe? What strange shade was it?
Who knew that they would sprinkle your kitchen with flaming orange granules like Jell-O packets torn apart? Who knew that they would coat the turquoise cord, ripped from your iron as a weapon of hideous destruction, with day-glow tangerine silt like sand from an alien planet?
Not me, then, when I didn’t watch TV. Not me even now, a thousand cop shows hence, did I know that fingerprint powder was the color of sun-dried apricots scattered behind crime scene tape, bright yellow DO NOT CROSS.
Who knew?
Photo: Nicolas Ortega Ward
Elizabeth Bruce’s debut novel, And Silent Left the Place, won Washington Writers’ Publishing House’s Prize and ForeWord Magazine and Texas Institute of Letters’ distinctions. Her Universally Adored and Other One Dollar Stories is forthcoming from Vine Leaves Press. She’s published in USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Malawi, Yemen, The Philippines; studied with Richard Bausch, Lee K. Abbott, Janet Peery, John McNally, and Liam Callanan; and received DC Arts and McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation Fellowships.