Blue: Flash fiction

A flash fiction piece inspired by Bob Dylan’s song “Forever Young”, written during a workshop years ago. Read out at the Cheltenham Literature Festival during the lit crawl in 2018.

It’s the colour of blankets wrapped around delicate skin. The softness of her eyes. It’s the colour of her first word, and her favourite plastic car, rolling towards her as she gurgles with joy

It’s when her bright wellies splash in puddles that reflect cloudless skies. When it paints her new bicycle, and the mermaids inside her storybook.

It dyes the threads of her pressed uniform. It blooms into sherbet on her tongue, becomes bruises on her knees. It darkens Monday mornings and the tips of her hair.

When she leaves school, it’s the colour stuck in her throat, that runs down her face. The gaps between day and night, her bright phone screen, the circles under her eyes.

And her favourite car, screeching towards her. Colours dotted behind her eyelids. The colour of her heartbeat, her fingers, her breath. It’s the colour she’s cloaked in when she slips away.