Yellow Mimosa

Any way you looked at it, pink was a terrible color.

This fact was brought to startling clarity for Rosie Burnette as she rubbed her uneven fingers back and forth over the pink slip she held, scratching its surface with a sound like sandpaper. Her bandanna itched against her matted hair uncomfortably. Irritated, she tore it off her head, letting loose, wiry strands of copper-brown to settle by her beading neck.

Fired.

The paper blushed apologetically, unable to deliver any better news. Biting her lip, Rosie stuffed it into her overall pocket with its envelope and hurried on. To her the streets were seeping and sick, still plagued by the sticky remnants of warfare. The people cheered on, however, unwilling to let the somber conditions dampen their spirits. So it was left to Rosie to be enveloped in the depression of wartime poverty, heart draining as celebration was flung her way. Every house was lit, glowing with pride and candles, their occupants out on the streets with bottles of champagne pouring fountains of froth. She jostled her way through the crowds, as thick as the war-sickness itself, as they roared together.

------

Rosie slammed the door shut and stormed into her darkened house. She rubbed her cracked fingertips over her face wearily.

Fired.

After all she had done, she was fired. She blew out a tired breath and looked at her hands once more; they were yellowed with chemicals and labor: skin dry, palms itchy, knuckles rough. Her hands, which had fed the machine, which had fed the revolution, so they'd said.

So they'd said.

And all those hours, feeling like something, anything, for once, were all for naught when the men came home. She was just as useless as before, a cheap tool discarded. She gave a weak laugh: in all her years, she'd never thought she would be sorry to see the war go. But go it would, and along with it, her livelihood. This realization struck her dumb once more, and the corners of her mouth withdrew into a thin line. She dragged her hands over her eyes and then let them rest at her sides, surveying the room. On the table across from her was a note, yellowing much like herself. Her daughter must have left it out. She reached out to take it, reading the heavily-printed black ink again:

The Secretary of War asks that I assure you of his deep sympathy in the loss of your husband Staff Sergeant Harry G. Burnette. Report received states he died as a result of--

She stopped reading and tossed it aside.

Trash.

WESTERN UNION, the bold print heading of the letter countered. She held her face in her hands and shuddered.

After a while, she hesitantly picked up the letter again, resolving to put it away.

Have to keep this from Lydie, she thought with a sigh; if allowed, the girl would do nothing but stare at it for hours. Not that she wouldn't be doing the same exact thing if there wasn't so much work to be done. At the thought of work her body slumped again. Rosie itched her scalp with her left hand, using the right to dig into her pocket for the slip. She put it on the table and fished out the envelope it came in. Slowly, she pulled out a couple bills. Her final wages. She sighed and set them down on the table, turning over the envelope. The address had smeared in her pocket. She cursed softly, hoping the ink hadn't gotten onto her hands (and then on her face, where she had rubbed them), then laughed at her timid swear; in the factory she'd cussed at anything from a wire to a stray hair, but in her own home it just felt...wrong, somehow, like she wasn't at liberty to speak so freely. Rosie had been the model housewife before the war, in fact, the one that made apple pies in long, floral skirts and aprons. But once again, death had changed them all, countering killing with more killing and filling their factories with women like her. But now Rosie was just one of a long line of rejections, tossed aside unwillingly. She could be a housewife again, they said. But she didn't want to be one anymore. She wanted to feel useful, powerful, even.