... and together, they look at the sunset, and smile, because the sun will return again, and it will not be night for long.
The boy does not respond at first. You are worried he wasn't listening at all. Then he stops and looks at you. What's a sunset?
You blink. You never considered it. I don't know. But I've read about them.
Me too, he says, and starts walking again. I don't understand what it is.
In the books there's something called the sun, you say. It sails across the sky, from one end to the other, and gives people light and warmth.
What's warmth?
I don't know. I think it's supposed to be good. When the sun gets close to the ground it casts all kinds of colors across the sky, every day it looks different. And then the sky gets darker and darker until the ground swallows the sun completely.
The boy's eyes grow wide. The ground swallows the sun?
Yes, you say. But the sun rises up out of the ground again, and again, every day!
He smiles wistfully. I wish we had a sun. I want to see one someday.
Me too. You look ahead at the flat, monotonous sky. You imagine it riddled with colors. It's hard. It doesn't make sense. Colors aren't something you can see.
You turn to the boy. You know what colors are.
He looks up. You don't?
I don't know the names.
He gestures out in front of him. Everything here is yellow and gray. The grass is yellow. The sky is gray. The tracks are gray. Yellow is dreary, stale, and limp. It's old and stale and rotting away and dead but not gone. It's my least favorite.
Like the school bus you lived on, you say.
His eyes light up. Yes! And then there's gray. Everything's gray. Gray is here. Gray is accepted but it isn't happy. Gray sits around, waiting for something, but it never comes, so it sits and sits and sits and gets old and turns yellow. Gray- gray just is. Gray is my second-least favorite.
What's your favorite? You ask.
His smile turns soft and proud. Orange, he says. I haven't seen orange since... I don't know. It's been a long time.
What is orange? You ask.
Orange is... the boy struggled to find the words. Orange is overflowing, a jubilant, victorious fist thrust against the world of gray. Orange is exhilarated always, it moves and flows and flips and rolls and laughs along the way. Orange is beautiful.
You listen to him talk and you feel something. Something you haven't felt for a long time. You realize you are smiling. Smiling for the first time since... you don't remember. Kansas City is orange, you say.
Yes. The boy looks ahead hopefully. I'll see orange again when we get to Kansas City.
