A Voice the Color of Blood

My nerves are overwhelmed by the navy blue thunder of a long explosion. It is quite over the barracks as we listen to the outside arrows outside. I close my eyes and wait silently.

The coyote cries - the yellow sound is sunny - and eliminates tensions in the room. My fellow soldiers returned to their noisy conversations. I focus on Lorelei's voice - deep red against the orange cacophony. His words flooded my mind with the color of blood. Lorelei once asked me what her voice was like, and I described it as pomegranate red. Despite the awkward situations out here, he has never liked to see blood, and to say that his voice sounds like pomegranates seem like love.

It's new to me. Not synesthesia - I always have that - but hearing someone's voice in one of my colors. Lorelei's red used to sound like a violin: Autumn from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I can't remember when or how this shift happened. Was there a moment of change when his voice accompanied the music? I think it's like falling in love - I can't tell you exactly when it happened, but later we find out.

Lorelei tells me in bright red words that she wants to have our wedding as soon as we get home from our foreign colony work. We decided that we would both wear our traditional white uniforms. Looking for flower bouquets and bridal gowns. "It will sound right?"

I look for a combination - a warm white color, subtle and quiet, that will blend well with the low navy thunder. Her red voice will stand out in those colors. "It will be fine, but are you sure you don't want roses? We can get them just like your word."

"I want my voice to be the only red one you saw that day," he said.

I don’t tell him that I hear his voice in pieces everywhere, uttering words that are sometimes absurd. Even in the middle of the battlefield, there is a red club in the cigarette boxes and the glowing eyes of our outside attackers whenever someone gives. Back home, the color will be ubiquitous — even if we warn people in advance, the wedding guest will apply lipstick in that shade unintentionally, or carry a colorful purse. I enjoy having her memories everywhere I go, but if it pleases her to think of color as hers, who am I to argue? "Whenever you talk, my whole world is red."

Another explosion shakes the barracks. This one is so close and so noisy that navy blue is shaken by purple. Bugle notes with a yellow lemon called on the arms appear even before the explosive colors disappear. We agree and walk out of the cell into the darkness of the night - piano notes in b minor, inscribed with whispers of the two airy-white moons. The lights of the temporary tower behind us illuminate the cycle so that we can see whatever is coming to us.

Hundreds of immigrants ran across the light belt, and I was frustrated with clicking on their green carapace. My world is a mess of color and sound. There is a neon yellow glow of gunfire on all sides and a cry from shades ranging from hot pink to green. Lorelei falls to the ground.

Everything stops, and the color chaos disappears into the darkness of a b-flat piano at night. The war is over. We have won.

Lorelei is not moving. He does not speak. His uniform is covered with blood.

I hear his voice.