the perfect palette
published: 2013-08-21They walk in the park, side by side. The air between them is tangibly tense. They must not touch, nor look at each other. Just walk. And talk, a little.
She wears men’s plaid trousers. They are grey. The belt that holds it up is high in her waist. Her shoes look like those of a tap-dancer’s. Her tank top is tie-died in army greens and browns. Her hair is brown. She wears it in a loose braid, as feminine as the dark purple straps of the bra she is wearing.
He wears a brown shirt, longs sleeves, long trousers. He holds a dark blue rain coat. It seems casual but his knuckles are white.
Despite the distance between them, they move forward in a bubble which keeps them together in their palette of greys and browns and oker and blackened purple.
A brown butterfly lands on his left shoulder just as he glances briefly at her. It flies away again, unnoticed. As if it came to give him a kiss.