this one took a bit of doing

In the furnace of summer, the sky is sometimes pale yellow. No clouds, no breath of air, 110 degrees, and the shade is literally life-saving. As night comes on, the blue returns. Even at ten o'clock at night, you can still see the western horizon, the black of the mountains outlined against the deep, deep indigo of the sky.

In spring and fall, baby blue and clouds, with the hints of that empty color that comes with the heat.

In winter, it is grey. Weeks and weeks of grey. Except when the sun comes out and the wind turns killing and shoves the clouds out of the valley. When skin aches with the cold and every unshielded breath is an invitation to another round of painful spasms, the sky is perfection. The clearest, purest blue, the shade that people point to and say, "That. That is sky blue."

Damn, Connie. Nicely done. It has a very taut feel to it, a respect for the length. Nice.

Thanks! I can't really count words closely, as I'm sneaking this stuff out at work.

I'm dreading the oncoming heat and the alien color of the sky in summer.

I think it's over a hundred words - give me a second and I'll do a Word count - but it really has the feel of a drabble, a tautness to it. It works.

edit: 148 words. Thing is, it doesn't read particularly long.

Yep, I'm longwinded. I always tend to the long forms rather than the short forms.

Editing that down to 100 words probably wouldn't damage it, though - I think it's fine as it is, but there are places where short and sharp would probably make it even more effective.

Off to eat burritos and feed our feral cats. I'm personally amazed at how many blue-memories I have. Also amazed at my own tendency to write porn these days...

Yep, I'm longwinded. I always tend to the long forms rather than the short forms.

Heh. Drabbles are the only thing I've ever wanted more space for. I spent my entire academic career writing things that were a third of the required length and then feeling like I was padding them out.

Drabbles, though, I'm forever wanting another fifty words.

When skin aches with the cold and every unshielded breath is an invitation to another round of painful spasms, the sky is perfection

Ah, Connie, that's it exactly. And the shadows on the snow are lavender-blue.

Deb, Joni Mitchell started running through my head the minute Steph posted this one. I love "a relationship not worth the vinyl of someone else's album."

I love "a relationship not worth the vinyl of someone else's album."

I keep forgetting how personal some of these drabbles are. Thing is, his band had an album come out at right around the same time (the man in the drabble, that is), but all I can remember is Blue, when I think about that particular kick in the gut.

He's also the gent in the feather drabble. Way more than I could handle, back in the day. But an education...

To Joyce:

She remembers being accused of showing doctored photographs and she laughs. There isn't anything you can do to a picture to make it close. No colour shifts, no dodging nor burning can tell you how warm it is, or how cool, or how clear and sparkling and everchanging.

There's no breeze in a photograph, no bracing smell, no calming noises. Fish can't nibble your back then scatter in shards of light. The sand can't spill through your toes.

He tilts the catamaran, and she laughs, dipping her head back into the crystal spray.

Blue is merely where the Caribbean starts.