Member-only story
Red Is a Flavor
And burn is a verb
Why do we as children (and adults) say that red Kool-Aid is a flavor? It tasted like punch and I never called it punch but that’s the taste I got when it was sweetened well enough to bring out the already SWEET flavor of the drink. I may have tasted the pineapple-ness and cherry-ness of it too, but it became RED to me.
Next to orange and opposite violet.
These were my thoughts as an oversized bully in pigtails and sharp nails seized the back of my neck. Her grip sent sharp pain down my little body. “Eat this! Eat it all!” she growled.
I didn’t move, but the red-orange sun was the same shape as the hard Now&Later candy she picks up.
With a scoop of cruddy dirt and dull grass from the side of the street…her fist bursts through my tightly closed lips. The sweetness of the red Now&Later was now gone and so was my patience.
Mom told me years later that I learned to fight the CAT way. A black cat came into our apartment one day and decided to bully me too, but mom thought the cat was cute.
I did not.
For I am told that with the closet door closed she could hear the screech of MEOWS and my grunts as me and kitty fought. I was a small kid, but the cat seemed bigger.
