Yellow is the color of happiness. We can all use a good dose of cheer right about now, and these stories, poems, essays, and reviews will bring a little "happy" to your day.
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By Amanda Hare
The weight of the bleak, grey sky pinned me in the muddy puddle. I blinked raindrops and hot tears out of my eyes, indifferent to the moisture seeping through my trousers and under my coat.
I'd seen the puddle, but my high-heels still slipped on the mud, and raindrops are no help to stop yourself from a fall. This was just the latest disaster of many to plague me, beginning long before my move to this city five months ago.
If I lay here long enough, maybe the puddle would rise and choke off the haggard breath that felt like all I had left.
I could only wish.
A dark-haired man with friendly eyes leaned over me, blocking out the rain. He extended a hand that I stared at dumbly. Wiggling his fingers expectantly and said, "Come on lotus flower, up and at 'em. It doesn't rain every day." He wiggled his fingers again.
Since he like looked the persistent type who wouldn't let me drown on the sidewalk, I put my mud-covered hand in his. He didn't even flinch. With a heave, he had me standing upright on my own two, very dirty, feet and snagged my leather satchel from where it had fallen.
"You got to get yourself a good pair of boots. It rains a lot here. Let's go. Joe's waiting." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, turned and started to walk, then stopped and looked back at me. "Come on, we got to get to work."
I had no idea how he knew I was on my way to work. He stared at me until I moved forward and only began walking again when I fell in step beside him.
"Who's Joe?" Other than the barest acquaintance with co-workers, I didn't know a single person here.
"Driver of the bus you've been taking to work for the last four months." The man motioned ahead where the 6:30 am bus was idling by the curb. "Kerry saw you fall and said she'd keep him there for us."
"Who's Kerry?" I felt stupid asking, but I'd left my brain back in the mud.
The doors whooshed open, and my savior waved me on ahead of him. The bus driver, a jovial mid-50s man with salt and pepper hair, held out the day's newspaper to me as I ascended the steps. "So you don't have to stand all the way."
I took it, because, he was right. Rather than sit down and muddy the seat, I would have stood in the narrow aisle the whole forty minutes.
I took the paper with a "thanks" and turned to the watching eyes of the other passengers. The varying degrees of concern on their faces had to be for my savior, whose bus pass beeped when he swiped it. I felt a twinge of jealousy that he had people who cared about him.
If the bus crashed and I died, no one would come to my funeral. I had no one. No fiancee and no friends because of him. No parents. Not even a cat.
A woman who looked like my grandmother nudged the burly man beside her to move seats and waved me forward. "Oh, Bob, get her over here by the heater. The poor thing's teeth are starting to chatter." My savior touched my shoulder gently to get me moving. She was right, though, my soaked clothes were making me shiver.
