Yellow Days

The road was dark and winded...

Ah, fuckit. Writer's block is a bitch. If I had been using a typewriter, I would be ripping out the paper, crumpling it up and chucking it onto the floor with all the other balls of paper. I'd probably be going through a whole forest of trees and killing a few dozen orang asli along the way.

I thought I was inspired like a madman on speed, and all I could come up with is "the road was dark and winded". That sounds like an opening for a B-movie, or rather, a B-story. Shit, maybe it doesn't even deserve a B. More like D minus, where it lurks in the realm of animal porn and fake snuff flicks.

I've been a writer for the past 12 years, and I'm proud - or ashamed - to say that I've made enough off of my imagination to last me a couple of lifetimes. I'm a rich man, and at this point in my life, I've come to realize that I've milked the last(almost?) drop of imaginative blood - so to speak - from my mind. I can quit, retire and live out my days drinking lukewarm tea and eating soggy goreng pisang. But I won't. Not just yet. Not when I might have one last story.

So I sit at my keyboard every night, tap-tap-tapping away, only to press backspace until the page is nothing but a blank sheet of digital paper again.

Tonight it's unusually dark outside, and when I look out the window to check, I see that all the street lamps are out. Hmph, big mystery there. I guess you could say I was expecting something a little more - here's the I-word again - imaginative.

But I love nights like this. And I loved this afternoon, where everything was cast in a yellow, almost orange light. I haven't seen a yellow day since I was a kid.

Yellow days are here again,
Chain your women and beat your men.
Eat your children and remember when
Yellow days are here again.

Wait. Where the fuck did that little rappin' rhyme come from? I'm feeling a little groggy. Must be the writer's block turning into a writer's migraine, ha ha. Or, maybe I've been staring at the monitor for way too long in a dark room, and the contrast is hurting my eyes.

I turn on the lights, and the light is yellow. Nothing unusual about that, except that I have those 4-foot flourescents that cast a white light. I'm a little creeped out, but not to the point of actual fright. Maybe the light is on its way to Incandescent Heaven, and yellow is its dying color.

Hah, dying color. I like that. That means Yellow Day is here.

What? Yellow Day? Mellow Shmay? Fellow Gay?

They call me mellow yellow.

I...I'm starting to lose it. I'm too tired. I switch off the monitor and walk to the fridge to get a drink of water. There's a bottle of water which I bring up to my mouth. As the water comes into contact with my throat, I gag and spit it out. I look at the water. It's yellow.

Bellow May?

That's right, boys and girls, children of all ages. Yours truly here just took a giant shot of cold, refridgerated piss. Mmm, just like Mother used to make.

The light in the fridge is yellow. But it's always been yellow. Yellow lights. My fridge is yellow too. It was blue this morning.

Maybe I'm starting to panic a little. What's going on? I don't really know. I turn on the tap to wash the pee-taste out of my mouth. I'm no longer surprised to find out that the water from the pipe is yellow too. I bend my head down to take a smell. It smells normal, like water should. I take a glass and fill it half-full. Always the optimist, that's me. I take a tentative sip, and it tastes like water should: tasteless. But good. I fill the glass all the way and drink. Fuck, that's good water. Who cares if it's yellow?

But then I feel a warm, tingling, wet sensation near my groin. I look down to find that I've just peed in my pants, my white linen house-pants. Of course, it's now stained yellow.

Shmellow Clay?

I'm losing my mind, I guess. It's a nervous breakdown, I know it is. I run around the house, turning on all the lights. Of course, they're all yellow by now. I can't even remember what color the lights were before. Yellow is my special color.

It's just another yellow day.

I run out to my balcony, and look up at the moon. The moon is yellow. Is it a yellow night too? Well, I guess it is! What a yellow riot!

I look down 15 floors towards the swimming pool. The water in the pool is, predictably, yellow.

Brellow Fay?

I climb the balcony railing and push myself off. Everything seems slow-motion now, and very, very, very yellow. I'm going to land in the swimming pool, where the impact of the water is going to be as hard as yellow concrete.

But my head hits the pool edge, and my head cracks open like a watermelon. There are yellow watermelons too, you know? They seem to taste sweeter than the stupid red ones.

As I float in the pool, a large chunk of my head floating nearby, I see my yellow blood streaming out of my head, making dark, yellow, swirling clouds in the pool.

As my whole world turns to yellow, I smile and close my eyes.

It's been a yellow day.

My last one.