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The kitchen was filled with sedative midday heat as the yellow one and the bird-like one sat at the table. They were working on a puzzle. Its box pictured a bundle of intertwined hands.
Duck’s fuzzy fingers took one puzzle piece after the other, forcing the innies and outies together in a row.
“Look. you connect the parts into the longest chain you can.” He said pleasantly.
Yellow had his small pile to take from. Some of the pieces had a flat edge. “What are the straight parts for?” He wondered.
“Hmm… to make sure your chain is straight. See, look at how nice and even mine is.”
Indeed it was. Yellow nodded, happy that he had explained it so clearly for him. That one had not snapped at him very much at all in the past few days. He seemed a little soft, just like his head. So soft and round, that head.
“Thank you. I, uh…”
“Hm?”
“I like you when you’re like that.”
Duck raised a brow. “Like what?”
Huh?
“Did you… know what you said?” It was not long ago. It was dark. It was quiet, except for a few hushed words. And it was still, save for Duck’s motion to rest his head on Yellow’s chest-the middle that he dreams is haunted.
Warm, but not the same warmth that was in the kitchen right now.
Duck looked him straight in the eye. “I’m the same as I always am.”
“Oh. Okay.” Yellow didn’t want to upset him right now. Or ever. Sometimes, it was like he couldn’t avoid it. At least if he did, the bird one would say it, and he would know. The red one, though, just sat and stayed still and denied everything.
Oh yeah. “Where’s he? He needs to see our puzzles. Mine’s nearly three pieces long.”
“Hmm, yes. He really should be here.” Duck narrowed his eyes in thought before hollering, “HEY!”
The shout made Yellow flinch. “Huh-whuh?”
“I’m talking in a bigger voice, so wherever he is, he can hear me.”
“Ohhhh, okay. HEY!” He imitated. “YOU!”
“RED ONE!”
“HEY!”
“HEY!”
“HEY!”
They paused their crowing to listen for a response. Nothing. Duck grumbled and turned to Yellow. “Hey-go see if you can find him, will you?”
Yellow nodded. Red didn’t usually appreciate games, usually preferring to sit in his chair, or maybe bicker with the duck one, but it was still nice to have him there. He was tall. Yellow imagined that he was soft.
He made sure to quietly push his chair back in when he left. He was inclined first to look for him just out of the house. Stepping through the door, Yellow blinked at the bright sunlight. It was a lovely day outside. The sky was a simple electric blue, with just a few low hanging clouds. They seemed close enough to poke..
After a minute Yellow spotted a red lump a ways away and to the left of their front door. Red was sitting still on the grass, facing away from their house and towards the blue sky.
Yellow was reluctant to disturb him. When Red thought nobody was looking at him, he was simpler. It was easier to tell what he was thinking. From here, he seemed openly frustrated.
But he couldn’t just stand there- he was here to do… something or other. Don’t know what. “What’s are you doing?”
Red started slightly at the interruption. His yarn-y head whipped around. “Uh, no.” He said. “I mean, I think I’m looking at the clouds.”
The air today was warm, as it often was, but from the ground, Yellow could tell that the sky was cold. It had a strange quality to it. The tinny call of a bird sounded in the distance.
“Yeh. It’s sunny out today.” He said.
Red sighed. “Isn’t it always?”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? The light means something good? I heard that somewhere.”
Red shifted so that his legs were tucked closer to his body. “Is it?”
“Ohhhh..” He got it now. “You’re being weird.” That one had days like this sometimes, where he was unhappy, and even Duck couldn’t tell him why. He hoped it wasn’t his fault.
“Wha? No, I’m not. I’m being normal.”
“Nuh-uh. What’s going on with you?” Yellow asked.
“Nothing.” He insisted.
“It doesn’t seem like not anything.”
“Yeah? Well, you seem like not anything, except for a little person who’s small. And multicolored.” Red paused just long enough for Yellow to think he’d finished talking, before continuing, “So even if it was something, which it isn’t, you wouldn’t understand.”
He hated this kind of thing. It was like he couldn’t help even if he wanted to. And he did want to- he felt a bit responsible for them. He just didn’t know how to make them happy. Especially since neither of them would tell him.
But his head had been a lot foggier than it was now, so he pressed on. “I can try.”
“No… I don’t think you can.”
“I can try.”
Red sighed, again. “You already said that.”
Yellow came closer to where the other was sitting, arranged himself the same way he was, and sighed, just like he had, to let him know he had been paying attention to him. Always sighing, that one.
Glancing over to him, he was disappointed to see no readable expression on his face. Like he wasn’t even made of real skin.
Duck had commented, once, on Yellow’s own stare. He said it was “blank”, quite like Red’s.
But he had still held his shoulders. Even if he was slow, and couldn’t be understood, and didn’t know how to help, he had still tried to be close. Why had he done that? The question felt like a rusty shovel to Yellow, digging a hole in his belly.
“Both of you have something going on with you now.”
Red straightened a bit. Surprised? “Him too? I didn’t know he could have… that.”
“Yeh.”
“What did he do?”
Yellow felt lucky that he could remember that episode well. Furrowing his brow, he tried very hard to assemble those flashes into words. “He said… uh… that he worries, and that he couldn’t be without me. Or I couldn't be without him? One of those, or both.”
“Oh.” Red went back to his usual slouch. “Maybe you’re thinking of something else.”
He frowned. “I’m didn’t making it up!” He said, indignant.
“I didn’t say you did. It just doesn’t sound like him. That’s all.”
Yellow focused on one of the fuzzy flowers embedded in the ground in front of him. “Yeah. But I think it’s true. He says true things.”
Red huffed out a small, flat laugh. “He definitely does not.”
He reached out at the flower. When he touched it, it was the same as the grass, the same as his own arms and legs. “Well, this was. I just know he wouldn’t say it, if it were a lie. We should all say more true things.”
After a bit of fidgeting, Red spoke up. “Right. It…” He took a deep breath. “I just… I want to get out of the house sometimes. Often, even.”
“But we did get out of the house sometimes. Like right now. Right?” Yellow looked around to make sure he was still outside. He was.
“Well, yeah, but not like that. What I’m thinking about… uh, you probably won’t know, but it’s different somehow. I don’t know the word for it. It’s like, I go through every day. And I react to what I’m taught. I’m doing all these things, but I’m only looking at myself doing them. And nothing else.” he said.
He sat still, processing his words. After a beat of silence, Red hastily added, “Which I guess is normal. But it still feels like there’s another thing that should be here.”
Yellow, despite himself, understood. He knew the feeling of the missing thing. For him, there was always this lump of thought in the back of his head. Something he used to know, but didn’t anymore. Just a little lump. A curled up brain fungus. And he needed to scratch it out, but he didn’t even know where it was.
“Huh… maybe…” he tugged at the flower in his grasp. “You would only be looking at it, and nothing else, if a thing went wrong?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeh. I know what that’s like. I think we’re always in the house. Even if we’re outside.”
“ God . You’re right.” Red did not brighten very much at all.
What was missing, exactly? For his friend’s sake, Yellow considered this very carefully. Of course he’d done things. He’d seen them. And he thought he knew why he did them. And was that a butterfly? No- keep going, even if it hurts. What’s wrong with you?
He understood how to act. He knew the way things were written, like everyone else. But where did it come from?
What did it mean when all the three of them did was look at themselves doing things?
Without much consideration, but not by instinct, he pulled harder on the flower, and with a muffled pop, the whole thing came out of its spot, recoiling him backwards.
He gaped at the thing in his hand.
Red looked at it too. “Uhh… are you meant to do that?”
Yellow stared at the flower in his grip. The act of holding it- it felt bright, and new, and fresh. Not like the way things were written. Not like the day’s heat at all. “No. I don’t think so.”
He gave the flower to Red, who gingerly took it in his own mitt. “Oh! Thank you.”
Yellow stood up and began to tug on one of the other, identical flowers that surrounded them. Voice breaking up as he strained to pull it out, he said, “I think this is-is the right thing to do. Because -uh- we’re not meant to do it.”
Red’s tired eyes widened. He seemed to know what he meant.
This one was quite a bit more difficult to take. It pulled back, even, like a tug-of-war with an animal. The ground ripped the thing out of his grasp and he yelped.
“Oh, here, let me.” the other interjected. Grabbing a firm hold of the plant, he was able to yank it out, but not without putting himself off-balance and nearly falling over.
Yellow could almost feel the very much eyeless ground shooting an annoyed side-eye at the two of them.
--
They went around their house in a circle, ripping all the flowers out of their sockets. Yellow would always try to do it first. But he was quite small, and not very strong, so some were passed on to Red. As they gathered, they came upon their very own bouquet. And all these flowers were fuzzy, and stiff, and dry, but they were nice anyway.
“That was a good thing to do.” Red said when they could not find any more things to take out of the ground. “You… you’re good.”
Yellow chuckled and bounced on his feet. “Thank you. I think you’re good, too.” he reached out and grasped the other’s long leg, leaning against it slightly. His fingers were tacky against the skin(?) but its texture was soft, just like he thought.
“Yeah? Hm. Maybe we should bring the other guy here.” He patted Yellow’s head softly. “Where is he, anyway? I didn’t think he liked being without us two.”
Yellow gasped. “Oh, yeah!” He was here to do something!
“HEY!” Came Duck’s shrill voice. They both turned to see him halfway hanging out of their front window, fluffy brow scrunched in annoyance. “What do you think you’re doing?” He addressed Yellow. “And you! You haven’t been here to see how beautiful and straight my puzzle is.” he told Red.
He felt his face warm in embarrassment. “M’sorry. I forgot. To bring him in.”
Duck looked at him for a moment before saying, “Oh. Well, don’t act weird about it. You always forget things. It’s just how you are.”
“Yeah, don’t be like that.” Patting Yellow’s head again, he turned to Duck. “Sorry I left. I know you don’t… uh-” He looked around quickly, before holding up the flowers they had gathered to the bird. “Here. Uh, for you.”
“Oh! It’s outside things, but instead it’s inside, where I am. Marvelous.” He said sincerely.
“Yeah… exactly.” Red tapped his mitts against his legs and looked at his feet while Duck set the bundle inside and opened the door for the two of them.
“You really do need to see these puzzles.” He said.
Yellow nodded. “Yeh!”
“That one’s is nearly three pieces long!”
“Nearly three? Isn’t that just two?”
“Of course not. It’s nearly three.”
As he stepped through the doorway, the ground under Yellow’s feet shuddered. Like it was upset with him.
But he shooed that thought away with a broom. Never mind that. He had made his friends happy, and so he was happy with himself.