Aunt Sally Defies Color Solution #58

Kellen, on Neighborhood Chromaguard Watch for Orange, or O Section, had long known his Aunt Sally was unruly, so he wasn't unduly surprised when he spotted her wearing a bright blue baseball cap. She sat in the shade of a leafy tree and on her lap sat a tattered black book. Sally ate a sandwich although public eating was frowned upon and wearing blue in O was something one simply could not do.

"Morning, Aunt Sally," he said.

"Morning to you, dear Nephew."

"Do I have to fine you? Or will you take off the cap?"

"What kind of fine could it be? I have nothing left but this cap, my notebook, and this hideous orange dress. Oh, and half a sandwich."

"What are you on about? You get your allotment, don't you? Same as everyone. I'll fine that."

"Ah, you could, if I had it, but you can't, because I don't. I've left the envelope on my porch for my poor former neighbors who'll live on, they avow, in this dustbowl of creative thought known as O. I don't want any more of that crap from your color crazed plutocrats. I'll mooch off my old friends and the occasional kindness of strangers, pardon me, Tennessee."

"What do you mean, former neighbors? What have you done, you crazy old bat, you bane of my life, you dysfunctioning Aunt?"

"I've moved out of my loathsome orange cube. I'm in permanent transit now. I'm going visiting. G section is next. Most of my old crowd are Greens these days I discovered and I won't tell you how I uncovered their color. But now I know so that's where I'll go. They were your sweet dead mother's pals too, you know. Don't you remember Keisha and Irv? Or their daughter Conchita? I've already been to Blue. I found happy folks who gave me this cap."

"No way. You can't do what you've done or what you're going to do."

"Way. I've done it and I'm doing it."

"I don't want to take you in, you dim woman. Won't you at least surrender that damn hat?"

"Cap. It's not a hat, it's a cap. Take me in? I think not, you brat. You'll have to use your weapon, which you won't do, because you're my nephew, or drag me somehow, but I'd make a scene. I'd scream, and O section rules forbid any fuss. You might get fined yourself."

"You are a pain in the ass, Aunt Sally!"

"You may well yell Kellen, but I will no longer agree to comply   with this silly regime of color control. It doesn't work and never will. We, most if not all, remain human. We've personalities, souls, memories, goals, loves, appetites, tendencies, and qualities. Lumping us into Chromazones, based on random lotteries, is a pathetic attempt to control us all and will unravel. I'm sure it will but I've no patience to wait. Besides, orange has never been my color. So, unless you are going to manhandle me, Kellen, I'm going to finish this bananafish sandwich given to me, willingly, by one of the few friends I still have in this monochrome place and move on to see how things are going in Green. I've heard they hold poetry readings which is quite hard to believe but I hope is true. Did you know they show movies in Blue?"

"How are you getting out of O? Transport doesn't go between zones."

"Oh, Kellen. Really. I'm going to walk, my dumb dear. Green is only three orange blocks away from here. Have you young people forgotten all the things we can do?  Well. So be it. Fine. I'll live to Re-mind, starting small with a cap and I'll see after that. I'll wear the colors I choose, yellow, purple and blue, and walk where I want. It's easy, believe me. Now get out of my way. Write a report to the O Section boss. Orange doesn't suit you either, you know. Must be a family thing-our sallow skin. Pity you think you're stuck with it. I love you. Good luck."