I still walk into rooms lit only by silver and shadow, where the world was quiet enough to hear a screen door slap shut behind me and know it meant supper, not escape.
The coffee's gone cold in my hand. Morning light cuts across the kitchen table, the same table, different house, and I'm back there before I can stop it.
In that grainy light, everything held still. The porch swing creaking under a boy who hadn't learned the word 'later' yet. The dog's tail thumping slow against the boards. Grandma laughing from the kitchen window, drifting out into wind that smelled like sagebrush.
The night she caught me barefoot on the porch rail, walking it like a balance beam, and didn't tell me to get down. Just watched from the doorway, with her arms crossed, until I made it to the other end.
All in black and white. No distractions. No future bleeding in. Just Grandpa's hand on my shoulder, meaning forever, without saying the word. The windmill turning against a wide, unpestered sky.
But then. Light under a door I swore was shut. Rose along the porch rail. The dog's fur warming to copper. Grandma's apron, suddenly, the blue of Delft tiles, hanging from a hook. The jam jar on the counter, darker than I remembered. Blackberry. My hands stained with it. The screen door, not gray but green, paint peeling in the heat, the way it always did.
The swing is still swinging. The door is still slapping shut. But the cattle carry rust-red in their hides now. The hills beyond the fence posts turn amber. Grass pushing green through the dust of old summers.
It was always there. The color.
© 2026 Peter Noah Thomas
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