Just a Couple of Days (33 page)

“We're not miserable.” Dandy, perhaps five at the time, happily popped a piece of pancake into her mouth.

“Not at all,” Sophia assured her.

“I think it's the first meaning,” I replied. “Miserable people want to make others miserable for the company.”

“But says who? The structure of the words can be taken either way. The second way is much more positive. Miserable people just want to have some company to cheer them up. There's nothing wrong with that.”

“I like company,” Dandy added.

“Well, that's not what I meant when I said it,” I replied, defending my earlier witticism like a grammarian who insists that
ain't
ain't a word. If it works, use it, and let us evolve already. Habit, habit, habit.

Sophia paused, the look of nonsense twinkling in her eye like an octopus dancing with a pair of polyester slacks in front of a fun house mirror. “Do you mean to say that you say what you mean?”

Blip directly rejoined. “Did you dream today what tomorrow you'll seem?”

Sophia was unflappable. “Can a rhetorician retort?”

“Is a magician a wart?” Dandy snickered hysterically.

The matter settled, we fell silent once again and returned to our fruit.

 

118
Much to the delight of Blip and Sophia, Dandy was in the habit of playing with her food. She amused herself that afternoon by carving a smiley face out of her second pancake. Before the grin was complete, she set her fork down and made as if to speak, but paused, as if hesitant to blow the bugle that would bring the walls of Jericho tumbling down. At last, she
delivered her doomsday query and demanded to know why aren't apples called reds, since oranges are called oranges, and also why aren't lemons called yellows.

Despite her misgivings, the walls of civilization were quite sound, and society chuckled through its adults. Ah, children! If they only knew how trite this question and others of its ilk really are. When it inevitably dawns on a child, they ask it as if they'd just caught grown-ups in a lie. In fact, the less socialized have just discovered one of their first of far too many inconsistencies and contradictions in our culture. This is not the explanation given, of course. If it were,
Why aren't apples called reds?
would not have become the self-important bachelorette borne of centuries of involuntary virginity. Instead, we sigh and pat their heads, smoothing any rebellious wisps of hair back into place. How could they know, after all, that this is a question that, in one form or another, has struck everyone weaned on the wonderful but decidedly unparallel English language?

Still, the presence of this question serves as a troublesome reminder that there remains a loose end out there, tickling our curiosity like unwelcome gropes from an ex-lover. This matter of the color of oranges, the riddle of the citrus, continues to elude us despite our technological fantasticry. The question is common, but the answer is as rare as an orange apple. Is it really possible that a question every child with any sparkle has considered has never been answered? Could it be that through centuries of linguistic evolution no one has answered it adequately, or if they have they've kept it to themselves? And if so, why?

Why aren't apples called reds?
She had certainly made her rounds across the generations, yet invariably her presence was insulted with various answers of the ignoramus persuasion
presuming to present themselves as potential suitors. Finding its other half is all any question wants out of its utterance and contemplation, searching for union like everything else. Sadly, most of her contemporaries had long since graduated into the realm of fact and trivia, dancing around their other half and hooking up with other couples, a swinging nexus of questions and answers realizing ever further connections in the gigantic jigsaw of cogitation. Newer questions, such as
Why are our children using drugs?
, provided her no companionship, for they were much too academic and urbane for her country-girl sensibilities. So,
Why aren't apples called reds?
pined for her answer in shining armor, occasionally gossiping with the enigmas and quacking with the quandaries, and forever heckled by the raving paradoxes, that breed of boastful loners who have gone quite mad thinking that they're better than the masses of romantics. “You're a stupid question, and you deserve a stupid answer!” The paradoxes taunted our heroine heartlessly.

To be perfectly honest,
Why aren't apples called reds?
was quite attracted to another question, the ponderous hallelujah known as
Why are we here?
They never had a future, of course. That would be homoquestionality. (All literal parallels to human sexuality must necessarily cease at this point, if only for the sake of rhythm, which is, after all, what sex and love are all about anyway, no matter your politico-sexual persuasion. The important distinction is not so much male and female as it is compatible opposites, that is, questions and answers.)
Why aren't apples called reds?
sighed and meekly bore her share of the consequences of the Adam and Eve fiasco, dreaming unmentionable dreams.

“Why aren't apples called reds?” Dandy's singsong voice interrupted the homoquestional fantasizing of
Why aren't apples called reds?
Though she would have liked to ignore it and begin her masturbatory daydream anew, she had no more control over when she was spoken than we do over when we are born. But as soon as she saw the humans gathered around the latest incarnation of her vocalization, she quickly straightened herself and thrust her chest forward, hoping to attract her long-lost answer, daring to believe that these strange people might be the ones to introduce her to her soul mate. These people were different, full of nonsense and kindness. Instead of hurling some cop-out about not all apples being red back at their daughter (and she was so weary of finding excuses not to go out with that buffoon), they paused, pondering her as if she really deserved contemplation.

“It's about time you asked that,” Sophia smiled at Dandy, reassuring her that the walls of society were quite sound.
Why aren't apples called reds?
held her breath and checked her reflection, and for a moment thought she saw her other half gazing back through the looking glass, serpentine eyes gleaming like the Hope Diamond. It appeared he was a Victorian prude turned dreadlocked Rastafarian, wild but uneasy, a know-it-all, for after all, he was the answer to
Why aren't apples called reds?
If nothing else, he was what everyone was curious about. At least he had that, and he clung to it, protecting his virginity (he did everything but) even though he was spoken often, though never in the right manner. He guarded his secret, and he wasn't about to give it up just because every five-year-old thinks they've thought of something that's never occurred to anyone
else and every forty-year-old is too lazy to give them a straight answer. But come the right people, asking the right question, at just the right time, and reunion will occur, an orgasmic act of originality borne on the stale winds of interrogative banality. Such is Creation, sticky, slick, slimy, and wonderful, birthing contentment, answering all questions, for a little while.

But wait. Maybe he should think about this. Perhaps she wears too much makeup. Perhaps
Why aren't apples called reds?
is misrepresenting her own true question. Perhaps she does not know her true nature, her true question. Perhaps she feels a homoquestional attraction to the ponderous
Why are we here?
because it is the real question, the only question, the Source of all questions. Perhaps
Why aren't apples called reds?
only exists because of what we are afraid to ask ourselves. Perhaps we shall soon see.

 

119
“Why aren't apples called reds?” Dandy repeated, patiently awaiting the mastications and ruminations of her parents. I couldn't help but chew on this dilemma as well as I munched my apple wedges and sipped my cider.

“What are you really asking?” Sophia calmly asked her daughter.
Why aren't apples called reds?
hesitated, wanting to flee, afraid of what lay ahead. Destiny, however, had its own ideas, and she was but one of them. The time for resolve had come. Dandy's mind was already racing with possibilities, peering into secrets
Why aren't apples called reds?
wasn't even aware she held. For a moment,
Why aren't apples called reds?
took exception to this penetration. This was not at all how she had fancied it would be, but moments that matter seldom are.
Regardless, exception turns to acceptance in the hands of innocence, and
Why aren't apples called reds?
felt herself deepening, her perspective widening, her true question tossing off illusion and confusion like an anonymous lover the morning after a masquerade ball.
Why aren't apples called reds?
blushed.

“Good question,” Blip complimented Sophia. After countless centuries, it appeared that all that was needed was a little encouragement, nudging
Why aren't apples called reds?
in the right direction, and allowing ourselves to be nudged in turn. Such simpletons we seem.

Dandy irrigated a canal through her applesauce. She fortified it with apple wedges before opening the levee and dripping her apple juice down the slopes of her smiley face pancakes. The sweet liquid must have turned the wheels of her mind, cranking out a smile as if she were creating the land flowing with milk and honey right there on her plate. With a lick of her finger she pronounced the true question of
Why aren't apples called reds?

“Why don't we call things what they are?”

 

120
“Why indeed,” Sophia mused. “Why do we call
red
red?”

“What else would we call it?” Dandy was again concerned about the structural integrity of the walls, which shuddered from the force of the calmness beyond. Declawed and housebroken cats are we, terrified of the enormous space beyond the doors, aware of it, even curious, but wary nonetheless.

“How about
rojo
?” I answered, always pleased with myself when I could contribute. “That's how they say red in Spanish.”
Why aren't apples called reds?
was swollen, tumescent, but each
step closer to union seemed shorter than the last, slowing, slowing down, yet still advancing toward the inevitable incredible.

In truth, everything was moving much faster, vibrating to another level, leaving time behind like a never-before-noticed blindfold, astonished at how nice things could have been but now are and always were. We know this much: The faster we go, the slower time becomes, courtesy of one called Einstein (though it's said his ex-wife had a hand in it as well). Reality is relative. It sounds very interesting, it even makes sense somehow, but we never really accept such a perception of everyday experience, unwilling, perhaps, to venture where really necessary.
Why aren't apples called reds?
, if she could say anything other than “Why aren't apples called reds?” might have advised us to just go with what feels right and let things happen for themselves. Enjoy the tranquillity, relax, leave everything behind, and drift into the fourth dimension. But she could care less about us timid apes. The deepest parts of us are already there anyway. Who are they? Who am I? I am I, and that goes for you, too.

“Rojo?”
Dandy asked, perplexed.
Rojo
. Latin lover or not,
Why aren't apples called reds?
did not think she could endure much more of this teasing foreplay.

“Sure,” said Blip. “And it's called a hundred other things in a hundred other places.”

Dandy looked to her mother for confirmation. “It's true,” Sophia nodded. “If you want to come up with something else to call apples or oranges or reds or whatever, let us know. Or, if you can think of a better way to organize things,” she pointed haphazardly around her, “that would be wonderful.”

“This,” Blip gestured every which way, “is just the best we've come up with so far. Grown-ups are just children, too,
remember, though most of us try to convince ourselves otherwise. The major difference between children and adults is that adults have forgotten that they're just pretending.” He paused to sip some warm applejack from his handleless teacup. “There's an old Zen proverb that tells us not to mistake a tree for a tree. ‘Tree' is just what we call it, but words don't begin to capture what the tree actually is. Forgetting that is like forgetting that the map is not the road.”

“Does that answer your question?” Sophia asked. Dandy nodded happily. Her belly was full, her questions were answered.

“So why aren't apples called reds?” Blip quizzed her.

Dandy, grinning like an apple wedge, replied honestly and not at all sarcastically. “Because you say so.”

 

121
Why aren't apples called reds?
and her answer were cavorting in the next room, paradoxes peeking in, making fun of the way they looked, blind to themselves. She could not believe what had happened. It seemed far too simple, yet undeniably right.
Because we say so
. Tough, sexy, a gentle truth hidden beneath an arrogant exterior. Her answer wasn't what she thought it would be, but then she wasn't who she thought she was. Embarrassingly simple, yet she had no cause to be flustered. I quote Blip: “Do you want your questions answered or your answers questioned?”

Amor
becomes agape, ad infinitum. The embrace of Love knows nothing of individuality. Love is the commonality, the community.
Why aren't apples called reds?
and her answer were never separate from each other in the first place. Come to think of it, their union was not separate from any other. A ménage à
trois had formed here, a trinity of divinity, between a question, her answer, and the ambidextrous
Why are we here?
, who was, it turned out, present at every act of creation, linking the body and the mind with the soul. The homoquestional urges of
Why aren't apples called reds?
were not so deviant after all.