Friday Is Red
Nora Ray
I found a peculiar note on my teacher desk. Fat, blue letters, every one of them robust and rotund like a toad, indented a piece of onionskin paper; assaulted it, even.
BETRAYAR.
My professional deformation forced me to notice the misspelling first. The second A frightened me even more than the accusation. The word itself didn’t insult me, though it puzzled me to the point of torpor. No one had ever betrayed me in thirty years of my life. Even my two old pugs stayed with me, snoring at the foot of my bed every single night. They were loyal to me because I was loyal to them—and to my students, too.
Who was the author of the note, then? Why was I a betrayer?
When torpor unchained me, I sat down at the desk to go through the students’ handwritten essays; to analyze their letters, to identify the libeler, and to scold them. They described their favorite cookie flavors in these essays. My students were old enough to express their opinions on paper but too young to write reviews of Crime and Punishment. Vanilla Cookie Girl wrote in cursive with a forward slant, and I thought it showed her inclination toward poetry. Chocolate Chip Cookie Girl, to whom I predicted fascination with soap operas, drew letters instead of writing them. They were fluffy and so small I had to squint. Orange Cookie Boy’s writing was calligraphic, as sophisticated as his taste in desserts.
The name-caller loved cloud cookies. She was a surreal type of child. She loved you. The next moment she hated you. Then she loved you then she hated you then she called you a betrayer; worse, a betrayar.
The golden hour descended on the bustling street outside the window, soothing it just like the answer to the question “who?” soothed me. It was the turn of “why?”
BETRAYAR.
My professional deformation forced me to notice the misspelling first. The second A frightened me even more than the accusation. The word itself didn’t insult me, though it puzzled me to the point of torpor. No one had ever betrayed me in thirty years of my life. Even my two old pugs stayed with me, snoring at the foot of my bed every single night. They were loyal to me because I was loyal to them—and to my students, too.
Who was the author of the note, then? Why was I a betrayer?
When torpor unchained me, I sat down at the desk to go through the students’ handwritten essays; to analyze their letters, to identify the libeler, and to scold them. They described their favorite cookie flavors in these essays. My students were old enough to express their opinions on paper but too young to write reviews of Crime and Punishment. Vanilla Cookie Girl wrote in cursive with a forward slant, and I thought it showed her inclination toward poetry. Chocolate Chip Cookie Girl, to whom I predicted fascination with soap operas, drew letters instead of writing them. They were fluffy and so small I had to squint. Orange Cookie Boy’s writing was calligraphic, as sophisticated as his taste in desserts.
The name-caller loved cloud cookies. She was a surreal type of child. She loved you. The next moment she hated you. Then she loved you then she hated you then she called you a betrayer; worse, a betrayar.
The golden hour descended on the bustling street outside the window, soothing it just like the answer to the question “who?” soothed me. It was the turn of “why?”
* * *
My clicking heels quieted down the classroom. Kids stopped giggling and whispering and gasping and occasionally screaming. They sat still at their desks, elbows sharp and eyes shrewd. These eyes watched me narrowing mine at the bright sunlight shining through the window. The light made me sneeze.
“It’s Monday,” Cloud Cookie said, ignoring manners. Where was “bless you?” Where was “hello?”
She did resemble a cloud with her light frizzy hair streaming down her loose pink shirt. Her pencils and pens, scattered on the desk, were the color of rain clouds.
“Not again!” Chocolate Chip Cookie yelled, looking at Cloud Cookie. I would rather have called her Exclamation Point, because she only spoke in screams. “We’re tired of your colors!”
“It won’t take a lot of time,” I shrugged.
“It’s Monday. Mondays are purple,” Cloud Cookie crossed her arms.
Her emphasis on the color hit me. The broad blue letters had the same pain; the insult was intended not to hurt, but to demand attention, apologies. I imagined Cloud Cookie at home in a chair with a plushie, frowning and huffing, inventing strategies to make me regret the words I’d blurted out on Friday. I’d told her Fridays were yellow, a juicy color of joy. I saw it as the color of the upcoming weekend, two days of peace and solitude, two days of baking and basking in the sun. Cloud Cookie thought otherwise, saying Friday was red. I thought she perceived yellow differently: as a sour, bitter color of all-encompassing loneliness. I was wrong. Colors defining weeks and days and numbers didn’t describe them at all; they just popped up in the minds of those who had real synesthesia.
“Monday is purple,” I nodded. Cloud Cookie gave me a haughty look deliberately hiding vulnerability. I wasn’t a betrayer. I—a confused teacher of a surreal kid—simply didn’t have synesthesia. “And Friday is red.”
“And Friday is red.”
“It’s Monday,” Cloud Cookie said, ignoring manners. Where was “bless you?” Where was “hello?”
She did resemble a cloud with her light frizzy hair streaming down her loose pink shirt. Her pencils and pens, scattered on the desk, were the color of rain clouds.
“Not again!” Chocolate Chip Cookie yelled, looking at Cloud Cookie. I would rather have called her Exclamation Point, because she only spoke in screams. “We’re tired of your colors!”
“It won’t take a lot of time,” I shrugged.
“It’s Monday. Mondays are purple,” Cloud Cookie crossed her arms.
Her emphasis on the color hit me. The broad blue letters had the same pain; the insult was intended not to hurt, but to demand attention, apologies. I imagined Cloud Cookie at home in a chair with a plushie, frowning and huffing, inventing strategies to make me regret the words I’d blurted out on Friday. I’d told her Fridays were yellow, a juicy color of joy. I saw it as the color of the upcoming weekend, two days of peace and solitude, two days of baking and basking in the sun. Cloud Cookie thought otherwise, saying Friday was red. I thought she perceived yellow differently: as a sour, bitter color of all-encompassing loneliness. I was wrong. Colors defining weeks and days and numbers didn’t describe them at all; they just popped up in the minds of those who had real synesthesia.
“Monday is purple,” I nodded. Cloud Cookie gave me a haughty look deliberately hiding vulnerability. I wasn’t a betrayer. I—a confused teacher of a surreal kid—simply didn’t have synesthesia. “And Friday is red.”
“And Friday is red.”
Nora Ray’s fiction appeared in MoonPark Review, Surely, Ergot, Guilty, Propagule, and elsewhere. Her poems are forthcoming in Frigg and Apocalypse Confidential. She’s a poetry and fiction reader at Cosmic Daffodil. You can find her on X/Twitter: @noraraywrites