A young man wonders about colors, specifically two, although perhaps three.  He’s been named after one of them, although little of anything concerning the color seems to apply to him.  He wonders what his parents had been thinking when they chose that name for him, and he reflects that he’s never actually been christened, so perhaps the name has not yet been as impactful as his parents had hoped.

He might have elected to study art, but he studied language instead, as had his mother.  His father, a florist, wondered why.  Sometimes he did too.  His mother was pleased though, and his two sisters didn’t seem to have ever considered why he studied what he did, or why his name often seemed so blue.  At first blush theirs seemed a bit more traditional, but that wasn’t quite true.  Hmmm.

Cerulean leans more towards blue than does the more balanced cyan.  And cerulean, although a light variant of blue, is darker than cyan.  Of course, that means that cyan leans more towards green than does cerulean, which just shares green’s echoes and smiles, and perhaps its similes, and that cyan is darker, but not much.

The young man thinks they’re friends, and that perhaps, at one time or another, they’ve been lovers, or perhaps just kissing cousins.  In imperial Byzantium they might have had an awkward relationship, with cerulean angry at cyan’s flirtation with green, but he wonders how they got along in subsequent Muslim caliphates, perhaps in Istanbul?

He wonders how cyan and cerulean feel about azure.  Or how cerulean feels about vermilion, either cyan’s complement or antithesis, depending on perspectives.  Or how vermilion feels about cyan, a complex relationship.  And whether their feelings are reciprocal or complimentary or constant or true, or just passing fancies.

He wonders if his parents had been high when they’d selected his name.  It could have been true, they were free spirits of sorts, floating along life’s byways and sometimes stumbling along a highway or two.  It didn’t matter though.  He loved his name, and he wondered whether he’d ever find its mate, and what she would be like, and whether she’d love her name too.

Cerulean and cyan, and vermilion as well.  Perhaps, in addition to colors, they were places and times in which to lose oneself, or perhaps to find oneself, were one lost.  Like somehow lost quantum paired electrons, or just sundered hearts, or misplaced halves of the same fruit, or rainbows that had lost their colors and now dressed only in shades of grey.

He might have elected to study art, but he studied language instead, as had his mother.  His father, a florist, wondered why.  Sometimes he did too.  His mother was pleased though, and his two sisters didn’t seem to have ever considered why he studied what he did, or why his name often seemed so blue.  At first blush theirs seemed a bit more traditional, but that wasn’t quite true.  Hmmm.

A young man wonders about colors, specifically two, although perhaps three.  He’s been named after one of them, although little of anything concerning the color seems to apply to him.  He wonders what his parents had been thinking when they chose that name for him, and he reflects that he’s never actually been christened, so perhaps the name has not yet been as impactful as his parents had hoped.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.