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Michael Underscore Beloved lived in a lovely yellow room.
Once, a long time ago, he had lived in another place. Somewhere very dark, and very hot. There were hardly any colors around. Purple rock, black stone, the bright orange of fire and lava, the pink of his skin and, as some faint memory suggested, the skin of others. Others that looked like him. Others he didn’t remember very much, but he remembered the colors.
Then the two had found him one day. One boy with bright green on his shirt. Brown in his hair, falling over a pair of curious eyes. One boy that stood nearly as tall as the big dark men Michael would see pass by sometimes. With skin half as black as theirs and half as ivory white as a ghost, and green and red eyes that met his own, very hesitantly. They had more colors than the whole world around him, and they picked him up and carried him away. The two boys painted with colors he had never seen carried him on, through a portal that glittered like purple jewels, to a place brighter than even the two of them. A place with grass as green as the shorter one’s shirt and a sky so blue you could barely stand to look at it for too long. Flowers with every color he had never even imagined. They carried him from grass to pale white snow that fell on his tongue, a house that was warm and all different shades of brown. Not blisteringly hot like the purple, rocky world from before. But warm like the taller boy’s shoulder when he dug his face into it. Warm like safety.
Now Michael lived in the yellow room, with the yellow bed and the yellow carpet, and the multicolored books on his shelves, and the crayon drawings on his walls. Of him, his white chicken, and his dads that brought him home. His dads he called Boo, and Bee, who spoke in tongues he had learned to understand a little over time, and who smiled at every drawing. Hung it up on the walls as carefully as the family portraits that hung beside them. His dads who read him stories, and danced with him in the yellow room, and lifted him up on their shoulders, picked him up giggling in their arms. His dads who were quiet, sometimes. Who wouldn’t come up some days, though he heard them whispering below the floor. Crying, once or twice. His dads who would come up afterwards on those nights, while he feigned sleep, to kiss him goodnight and tuck him into bed and linger for just a second.
Once, he had opened his eyes, a night after listening to the crying. When he had a nightmare, Bee would tell him a story, and Boo would hold him in his lap, and they would laugh, and smile at one another, and at him. But only Boo was here this time to the side of his bed, and Michael wasn’t the one crying. And the tears had left colors down his cheeks. They looked painful, but colors were lovely things, and he didn’t understand.
He didn’t understand a lot of things.
But he didn’t ask. And Boo didn’t answer, and eventually, long after a tuck into bed and quiet footsteps that had gone downstairs, Bee had come up too. And he had kissed Michael’s head and told him everything was alright, and he believed him.
Once, he had woken up in the night feeling thirsty, and Boo stood by his bed again. But his eyes were purple like the glimmering portal they had brought him through. Except they scared him a little bit, this time, when they looked at him like he wasn’t there at all, and Boo didn’t give him a hug, or a kiss, or even say a word. Eventually, Bee had come up as well. And he had called out to Boo, but the name shook in his voice. Not like when Bee laughed at one of the bad jokes he made, or teased him. Eventually though, after a long time, the purple flickered back to red and green, and Boo had looked at Michael before falling to the ground, covering his face and shaking. And Bee had brought him downstairs.
He had come back up after a bit, to kiss Michael’s head and tell him everything was alright, and he believed him. And he didn’t mention the red and green stripes on Bee’s shirt, or his hands.
Once, Michael had woken up again in the lovely yellow room. But this time it was to the sound of yelling, down below him. Bee, calling out Boo’s name, over and over. Saying “please” every so often. But the words were loud, and shaky, and made Michael’s chest pound a little too hard. And the please wasn’t polite and nice like the way Boo had taught him to say it, when he asked to go outside and play in the snow, or for an extra slice of cake after dinner. It broke when Bee said it, and it sounded bad and frightening in his voice. But then there had been an extra loud sound, something that sounded terrible, like the slashing of a sword and an ugly, gargled cry. And it had stopped, just as suddenly as it began.
Long ago, when Michael had first seen the yellow room, he thought it was absolutely beautiful. It reminded him of joy, and the yellow flowers he had seen on his way there, and the bees his dads had pointed out as they carried him, and everything lovely.
So this time, Michael grabbed his yellow blanket, the one with the embroidered bees and alliums all across it, opened the trapdoor, and crawled downstairs. This time, he clutched the blanket around him, and watched as Boo knelt on the ground. There was a bright, shining purple sword beside him, and the warm brown wood beneath his feet. And around him, a dark, horrible red. A red that got everywhere, the warm wooden floor, the beautiful purple sword, Boo’s ivory and black hands. A red that painted its way all across Bee’s chest, as he lay in front of Boo on the ground, clearly asleep. But he didn’t know why Boo was crying, as his eyes flickered between their pretty red/green to the frightening purple color. And he didn’t know why the red was so dark, and so ugly, and staining everything around it, when colors were supposed to be lovely things.
Michael Underscore Beloved wrapped himself in the lovely yellow blanket, as the red dripped its way across the floor towards his feet, and Boo’s eyes turned purple and stayed that way, and no one was there to tell him everything was alright, and he didn’t quite understand.