From above, it looked like a skeleton was lying on top of an orange jigsaw puzzle. A very large jigsaw puzzle. A human-sized jigsaw puzzle. A puzzle no one would ever solve. A puzzle no one would ever attempt to solve. It was larger than human. The carcass. The cracked clay. White on orange. Hot and dry. Nosebleed. Cutout plastic bottles filled with water. Orange water. Not for drinking. Even though some did drink it. The water. Those who didn’t have a choice. Those who had to walk kilometers to find it. The water. Inside the earth. Deep inside the earth where it was still orange. The water. You were meant to wash dishes with it. The water. And clothes. You were meant to wash clothes with it. The water. And even though it wasn’t for cooking, we did. We did cook with it. The water. I mean they did. And eventually I did too because there was no choice. And even though I didn’t have to walk kilometers to find it, it was scarce. Once a week. Sometimes every ten days or so. It magically appeared when we opened the tap. Sometimes it came in trucks. Leaking trucks. When it arrived, it was a big rush to wash dishes and clothes and have showers and fill cutout plastic bottles and empty buckets. Fill it with water. Fill it with orange. You get used to it. You get used to the orangeness. The earth. The water. The orange. Orange is the color of sterility. Nothing grows on orange jigsaw puzzles. Nothing. Nothing survives on orange jigsaw puzzles. Nothing. Only vultures. Vultures only survive because they are not on it. The orange. They hover over it. They don’t touch it. Vultures don’t touch the orange. They touch the white. The white on orange. The vultures. They touch the white before it becomes white. They touch the white when it still has color. And they take all color away. Until there’s nothing left. Until there’s only white. White lying on orange. White on orange. And I wonder what came first the fruit or the color. It must’ve been the fruit. The color I mean, not the fruit. It must’ve been the color. Yes, the color must have come first because earth came first and then its fruits. But where are they? The fruits. Earth is bare now. Earth is bare. Earth is orange. I know. I know where they are. The fruits. You know where they are. The fruits. They are where everything ends up being. Where everything ends up dead. Where everything ends. In the ground. Deep in the ground. Deep inside the orange ground. Deep inside. The fruits. They are not succulent. No. Not anymore. They are dry. They are dead. The fruits. Earth sucked all life out of them. All water. The orange earth. It’s thirsty. Orange is thirsty. Orange. Orange is silent. Orange. Orange isn’t loud. Orange is silent. Orange swallows. Orange buries. Orange swallows and buries. The screams. Screams of pain. Screams of fear. Screams. Screams of anguish and grief. Screams. Orange swallows and buries them. Screams. Raindrop. Raindrop on my nose. Rain. Deep breath. Smell of water. Smell of water that hasn’t turned orange yet. Smell. Smell of water that hits the ground. The scorching ground. I want to fill myself. Fill myself with the smell. I want to fill myself with rain. I want to fill myself with water. Clean. Clean water. The raindrop hit the jigsaw puzzle and didn’t get absorbed. The transparent droplet sat there. On soil. On orange. Like dew on a leaf. Quiet. Silent. Silent like orange. Time. That’s what they needed. They needed time. Orange needed time to ponder. The raindrop needed time to hope. Time. Had it been blood, though, had the raindrop been a drop of blood, there would have been no waiting around, the earth would have drunk it straight away. The orange earth. Orange is thirsty. Orange. White on orange. White. It wasn’t a carcass. It wasn’t a carcass. It wasn’t one. There were many. Everywhere. So much white on orange. So much death on orange. So much death. It wasn’t just cattle. There were other animals too. Not chickens. No. Men kill chickens first. But dogs. Yes, dogs. Dogs, a family disowned. Dogs, a family couldn’t feed. Donkeys and horses too, and those who ride them. Big and small. Those who ride them. Big and small. There was so much death on orange. So much sad on orange. So much sadness. The raindrop. The raindrop wasn’t a raindrop. No. It wasn’t a raindrop. It was a tear. My tear. A tear the wind stole. A tear that didn’t want to be swallowed. A tear that didn’t want to be buried in the ground. A tear that didn’t want to be silent. A tear that didn’t want to turn orange. A tear that had faith. A tear. A tear and the soil. The orange soil. The orange. The orange that bleeds it all dry. The orange that skins alive. The orange. The sky was also orange. The only good thing in such color. The sky. Unlike the earth and like every good thing, the sky wasn’t always orange. Just sometimes. Some days. At certain hours. Early hours. Late hours. Hours few people saw the goodness. Hours few people looked up. The sky. I can touch the orange ground. I can feel the orange water on my scalp. I can’t reach for the sky. Or rather I can reach for the sky, but I can never touch it. So I bring it inside me. I bring it inside me like a baby. The sky. I wondered if I swallowed and vomited the sky whether it would come out orange. The sky. If I could actually eat and spew the sky, what color would it be? The sky. I walk the earth and I bring it home with me. The orange attaches to my bare legs and leaves a velvety layer. The orange. It feels good to touch. My orange legs would look beautiful if they weren’t ugly. When I get home, I use orange water to wash away the orange from my legs. If I could only remove the orange and leave the velvet. But they are one. The orange and the velvet. Don’t let the velvet fool you. Good never comes without bad. The water. It is only orange because the earth stained it. The earth violated it. The earth made it inside it. Inside the water. You see, orange invades it all, corrodes it all. Orange. I want to be able to see my hands through water. Colorless water. My hands. My hands as they are, not my dirty hands. Just my hands. I say it was a carcass, but for a while I didn’t know. I didn’t know what it was. The white. I didn’t know what the white was. What was that white on my orange puzzle? And then I saw the eyes. Or rather, I saw the holes. The holes where the eyes were meant to be. The holes where the eyes were when there was life. The holes. Then I knew. Then I knew what it was. Then I knew what it meant. White on orange. I knew what it meant. The vultures. Did they take the eyes too? Did they take the eyes so they could see? That’s what people say. The vultures take the eyes so they can see. So they can see where they land. So they can see where they land and never touch orange. Orange. Do you know what else is orange? The sun. The sun is orange. But I used to draw it yellow. The sun is not yellow. It is orange. Orange like the center of the earth. Orange like the surface of the parts of earth where life doesn’t last. Where life doesn’t give. Where there is no life. Orange. The sun is orange like the water I know. Like the water earth penetrated. All I have ever known is orange. If they opened me up, they would find orange inside. An orange jigsaw puzzle, not the fruit. A puzzle no one would ever solve. A puzzle no one would ever attempt to solve. Not fruits. I can’t bear fruits. Even though when I was a child, I was scared of falling pregnant. Scared I would be a pregnant virgin. Like Mary. Mary, the mother of Jesus. I mean, I wouldn’t be carrying another Jesus inside me, just an ordinary child. A child. I would be a pregnant virgin, and no one would believe me. My mother, my aunt, my dead father. Strangers. I would catch my lips moving, talking to myself, concocting answers to unasked questions. The shame. That’s what I was scared of. The shame. The eyes looking at me from above. The shame. The heads shaking in my direction. The shame. The whispers. Look at that child carrying another child inside her. A child. And I would say, but I was blessed like the Virgin Mary, and people would punish me for saying such blasphemy. And I would hope to lose the baby, but I would already be stained forever. Stained like the water. The orange water. Stained. And when I did give birth, I would worry about keeping the child alive. The child. How would I keep my child alive on this earth? This orange earth. I didn’t know then that nothing grows on this earth. Nothing grows on orange. Nothing grows in me. Nothing grows. Nothing. To think that orange is not even a color in its own right. Red and green. Yes, red and green. Light. But there is no green on this earth. All the green was swallowed. Swallowed and buried. Swallowed and mixed up with the blood to make it orange. But there was a lot more blood than green, and that’s the reason the earth is orange and not yellow like the suns I used to draw. I wondered whether the earth was yellow before it drank the rest of the blood. But if it was yellow, it must have been green once too. I closed my eyes and imagined the jigsaw puzzle covered in grass and trees and succulents. Shade. There would be shade on this earth covered in green. Shade. I would be able to walk the earth, and my legs wouldn’t turn orange and velvety. My legs. They would be beautiful in the color of my own skin. The water. The water wouldn’t be orange. The water would be transparent and abundant. There would be no walking kilometers to find it. There would be no leaking trucks. I would be able to shower every day and wash dishes and clothes. There would be no need to fill every empty bucket. There would be no need for cutout plastic bottles. My nose wouldn’t bleed. And my insides. My insides wouldn’t be orange. My insides would be red and fertile. And my fear. My fear would be real. My fear of being a pregnant virgin. My fear of shame. My fear would be real. My fear. The sun would be yellow. The only thing left orange would be the sky. The only good orange thing. The sky. It might even be permanently orange. The sky. Maybe. I don’t know. I need to think about that. The top of my head was burning up. I opened my eyes, and the green went away. Orange was back. White on orange. Flies. The lack of flies. That was what surprised me when I realized what the white on orange was. There were no flies. The vultures. They picked all that the flies might be interested in. And it didn’t smell. There was no putrid smell. They carried that away with them too. Why don’t people like vultures? They take away all discomfort. They take away all disgust. And they leave the clean white on orange. And even if we can’t see the flies, and even if we can’t see the decaying flesh, and even if we can’t smell the air that surrounded life when it gave in to death; when we look at the white, the smooth white on orange, we know, we know the flies, the putrid flesh, the smell were once there, and because we know we cannot appreciate, because we know we cannot see the beauty. The beauty of death. Across the plain, the orange plain, there was a man. A man that was once made out of clay. Well back when the earth was green, the clay that made man was already orange. God turned the orange earth into man. The orange earth that doesn’t give. The orange earth that bleeds it all dry. The orange. Man. Not woman. Man. God didn’t make woman out of orange. No. God made woman out of a piece of man. A piece of his carcass. White on orange. Orange. Language. The language came after. The language that gave the fruit and the color the same name came after. The language. The word. It rolls out of the mouth. Language. The tip of the tongue touches the back of the upper teeth when you pronounce it. Language. Language ends just like orange, but it begins differently. Language. The teeth almost meet at the end. Language. Orange. Orange doesn’t roll out of the mouth like language does. Orange gets stuck. Orange needs to be spat out. Orange. The woman. The man. He was working. The man across the plain. A single man working the earth with a hoe. What was he doing? Hoeing the earth like that. With such force. Hoping to wound it. The blade merely tickled the clay. Barely entered the soil. He didn’t know. The man. He didn’t know. Nothing can wound this earth. Not him. Not me. Not you. Nothing. The man hoed the earth. His sweat dripped on the ground. Would the earth drink it? Would the earth drink his sweat? The sweat of his brow? Until it was time he returned to the ground. The orange ground from which he was made. I watched him. I watched his hoe. And then I knew. I knew the reason he was trying to wound the earth. The man. He was giving back. The man. The wounded trying to wound. As if by wounding the earth, his pain would go away. As if by wounding the earth, he would find a place to put his grief. The orange earth. The only holes you can make on this earth are graves. Graves. That was what he dug with such force. The man. He dug graves. Big and small. Graves. Not for animals but for those who ride them. Big and small. And for those who haven’t learned to ride them yet. The orange earth. The only place you can bury. A child. My child. The child who was never conceived. The child who will never be born. The child who, if born, I would do anything to keep alive. The child. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what I did. That child would see the inside of this earth. And I just wish, I just wish I could bury her. I just wish I could bury her in me. I just wish she could crawl back into where she came from. That way I would take away the life I gave. Me. Not this orange earth. Me. He dug and he dug. The man. I wondered whether the hole he was digging was big or small. I wondered whether the hole he was digging was big enough for me. Big enough for me, big enough for her.
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Rumpus original art by Ian MacAllen
