Hey guys! Sorry I'm a day late, updates slipped my mind yesterday because of how busy I was. Enjoy! (Also, I apologize for all the issues with chapter order mix-ups and such, sadly I'm not really sure how to fix it! Let's hope this one appears normally!)
Ava asked me if we could return to her home. She was beginning to understand that she would have to leave eventually, and although she didn't know when, she wanted to see her family one last time in case she had to leave quite soon. I agreed, seeing as how I was headed back in the direction anyways. Our dear Mr. Fitch had committed suicide; I was going to collect his forlorn soul.
While we walked along the various roads, Ava whined for something to entertain her. At that point she had told little Marmalade nearly every secret, joke, and story that she knew; she was running out of things to do.
"Can we play a game?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Pretty please?"
"No."
"Pretty please with sparkles and rainbows?"
I sighed. "The physical appearance of the 'please' makes no difference to me, but if you will not stop whining I suppose we can play some sort of game."
She giggled with delight. "Great! I think we should play I Spy, that's a fun game! Plus it involves colours, I love colours!"
My lip twitched slightly. Colours... my old friends. I hadn't paid much attention to the colours of the world since I left her. Everything seemed so bland, so pale, white washed, almost. As if someone had pulled a film over my eyes. I rarely found the energy or the motivation to pick out the colours that I used to love. But to keep the girl quiet, I supposed it was the best thing to do.
"Alright, I Spy. You go first."
"Okay! I spy with my little eye... something that is... green."
Green? Oh dear, that wasn't very descriptive. I simply couldn't have the child saying such common things like green, oh no, that was a blatant disrespect to the colours. I would have to teach her otherwise.
"Green is indeed a colour, Ava, but when you name colours you have to go deeper than just green. There are so many green things; you could be talking about a pine tree or a lime. How would I know? You have to describe the green, talk about what it reminds you of, the way the light bounces off, shadows and tints, the way it sparkles in the sun. That sort of thing. Do you understand?"
By the end of my little speech, we had both stopped walking. I took a seat on the ground in the middle of a small field. She sat down opposite me, with the cat on her lap.
"Maybe... but won't that give away what you're supposed to guess?"
I shrugged. "Maybe. But for now, let's look beyond the game. The better you can describe a colour, the more of its beauty you learn to recognize. I learned how to do it a long time ago; it's what kept me happy for many years."
Ava nodded, tugging on her red pigtail. "Okay. I'll try." She reached into the grass a picked up a small plant, with tiny white flowers and large green leaves. "These leaves are green..."
"Right. Now try to describe how the green makes you feel, like what it reminds you of."
"The green looks kind of like..." She sat there for a few moments, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. "Peppermint!" she finally exclaimed. "It reminds me of peppermint cookies, like mommy makes at Christmas time. And it looks like a green pine tree, all covered in shiny lights and candy canes. It looks like a lizard too. My brother has a toy lizard. This reminds me of my brother."
