It’s the bright red-orange that catches your eye in the midst of a million different colors. Your eyes skip past it, but then you turn back. What was it…? There it is. On the ground. The brilliant little speck against the backdrop of the deep darkness of rich soil and half-disintegrated woodchips. You kneel. To a passerby you probably look stupid or crazy or whatever, crouching in the mud and looking in awe at something so immaterial that you probably will forget it when you look away. Indeed, in a grand city, there are colors more exorbitant than this one. None more real though. The funny thing is, it won’t last forever, but its legacy lives as long as stars. There’s something so absurdly fantastical about the way it glistens. It glows brighter than a streetlamp at midnight, illuminating its home whilst directing your attention to itself. That’s not what everyone sees, of course. One’s eyes see differently than others’. Some eyes don’t see at all. Others do, but the brain doesn't register it. Some have neither eyes nor brains. Maybe you see through feelings. That happens too. This warm fire, it highlights the coldness of the air. It commands the sky beneath the trees to sting your skin, to bite it numb until you don’t know the difference between glacial and scorching, and you can no longer tell where you are in relation to the world. It’s beautiful. It’s eerily serene. It’s fascinating, even though it’s so mundane. It’s completely and utterly strange, seeming dumbly and incomprehensibly extraterrestrial. But who are we to judge? Maybe we’re the aliens. The bright vermillion pulls you in. You feel like you’re drowning in it, yet you’ve never felt more alive. The feeling is terrifying. You grasp at it, striving to hold on to this sensation. It’s electrifying.
This is a Daily for SWC! The writing is based on this image. Feel free to interpret it any way you want (and comment what you see, I'd love to read about your perspective!). Hope you like it <3
