The Chromatic Curse

I have to eat colors to stay alive.

Go ahead.

Laugh.

But it’s not as easy as it sounds. I had to figure out how to eat color. Just color. “Oh, eat an orange,” you’re probably thinking. Gee, thanks—

If only curses worked like that.

Sure, point and laugh again. I pissed off the wrong lady, and now I’m stuck navigating weird eating habits while trying not to get fired from my boring nine-to-five. Try explaining “color-eating breaks” to HR. The colors must be consumed every two hours and each one hits me with a different emotion.

Without eating colors, my vision desaturates, then my skin, then I’m an outline until—I assume—I am nothing. It doesn’t hurt; it’s just super inconvenient. I’ve wondered if the reverse curse logic was true: immortality by following its rules? I think so. But also… I don’t want this.

Blue tastes like freezer burn and heartache. But not all blues. Royal blues give me indigestion. Baby blues are too sweet and make me naive. Pairing blues with yellows, especially canary, helps. Post-its are good for this. My little stationery chips, I call them. I can suck the color out of them and discard them, and my boss thinks I’m brainstorming project ideas. My cubicle is basically a graveyard of colorless Post-its.

Let’s go back to when it began: Mac and Cheese Day at the corner bodega on 43rd and Main. Where the air always smelled like fryer oil and burnt coffee. My best friend Todd owns it. He says it gives it an authentic sense of place.

I didn’t even see her behind me when I ordered the last two portions of the noodle goodness from him. The yellow gooeyness seduced me from inside its steamy glass enclosure; I had no control. I would’ve bought a vat of it. The crispy oranges and yellows danced and swirled as Todd sealed the tops.

Apparently, I’d just stolen the lunch she’d been waiting all week for.

“I got here first.” I shrugged. Todd took it as his sign to disappear. Perhaps I would’ve given her one if she wasn’t coming at me so strongly. She looked like an angry Betty Boop—tight curls bouncing on her head and black makeup against stark porcelain skin.

We stared.

We blinked.

It was awkward.

Unsure of how to proceed—who argues over mac and cheese?—I did what any rational person would do: I opened a top, inhaled that sweet vapor, dove my tongue into a corner pocket of the cheesy goodness. Instant regret—it burned like hell, but I couldn’t flinch. I had to commit. Her mouth dropped open when I offered her some. For spite, I did the same to the other container.

“It’s mac and cheese, calm down. It’s yellow; only a color.” I smirked. Her desperation for mac and cheese was so great, I could’ve sworn both of her eyes turned black. Like little glassy orbs, an abyss of ancient secrets. It felt dangerous and alluring. I blinked and she was gone. My head rang with a splitting headache. Whispers swelled around me, then snapped silent.

I sat down with my noodles and suddenly couldn’t stomach them. Perhaps they changed recipes? Maybe it was guilt. Why did I act that way? It was stupid. But it had been a long, boring day—I deserved a treat. Pride and remorse battled in my stomach.

My appetite vanished, but when I was about to leave, Todd swept into the booth opposite me. “It looks like she burst into a group of crows,” he said, his eyes wide, showing me the security footage.

“A murder.” I corrected gently, eyeing his green polo. It looked oddly refreshing, crisp, clean.

“What?” He narrowed his eyes.

“A group of crows is a murder.” I offered with less gusto than before.

“I don’t give a shit. You know what, maybe that’s why you were cursed.” He clicked off his phone, crossed his arms, and slumped in the booth. What a baby. Todd’s annoying a lot of the time, but he’s my hard-headed best friend. I’d die for him. But first, if he’d just let me nibble on the green polo… I could practically smell the fields and feel nature’s breeze—all that green begging to be eaten.

His words clicked. “Cursed? What?” I asked, wiping the drool from my mouth.

He sighed and started the video from the beginning. “If you look, she touches you, mumbles something, then she explodes into a group—a murder of crows. You stood there for ten minutes like a buffoon.” He laughed. But I didn’t. His green polo—I had to have it. In a flurry of stress and fear, I grabbed his polo and yanked him toward me over the table.

He struggled, naturally, but stopped when he saw me nibbling his shirt that started to lose color where I snacked. In a mixture of awe and disgust, he peeled off his shirt as I snacked on it.

“What?” Is all he could muster. The urge to eat the green was diabolical. And it was ecstasy—nature, spearmint, and knowledge.

Now you’re caught up to my stationery chip hack.

Now it makes sense why this past week I’d been dodging my boss. He already thinks I have anxiety, IBS, or both. Corporate America doesn’t have a checked box for “cursed”.

I’ve turned to Todd for help—beyond his polos. Green is so delicious, I tell ya. He’s been great, really. He’s a little dumb, but you’re glad to have him on your side. But Todd likes Google and he came up with more scary stories than cures. Regardless—I need to find her again. But how? Is she like Bloody Mary or Papa Legba and I call out to her?

“M and C Day is every Thursday, so… wait ’til tomorrow and just be done with it.” Todd suggested on his break. He was agitated, I was bumming too many Post-its from him, and I’ve eaten four of his green polos. He’s great, but people have limits.

So, I hunkered down and waited. And devoured indigos, violets, oranges, and an array of colors. There was morbid curiosity that itched. I needed to meet her tomorrow. There was perverse excitement about the curse I had.

“There’s your Mac and Cheese Witch. If she tries anything, I got your back one hundred percent.” Todd jerked his head toward the door the next day, an angry Betty Boop sauntered in. Bingo. How did she not pick up on her goth-witch aesthetic earlier? I should’ve known from girls in high school not to mess with her. Preoccupied by the mac and cheese. Those yellows, man.

“Yes!” I jumped into her path. She grimaced. “Hey, remember me?”

“I don’t remember men.” She brushed me off, placing her order with a nervous Todd.

“Um, he, uh, took the last.” He squeaked before retreating into the kitchen. Wuss. Her head cocked to the side, her fists balled, her back rippled with anger. She turned; eyes narrowed to impossible slits. “I do remember you.” She cracked her knuckles. And charged at me.

“Hey, no, wait, what did you do to me?” I blurted, holding my hands up in surrender.

She stopped inches away. I hadn’t eaten black yet, her choker looked decadent. Her eyes darted to the side. A smile spread across her face and a white gleam glistened off her eye. I wonder if that tasted like the other whites—peppermint and regret. I shook the thought away. How the hell would I eat a gleam?

“Tell me: which color tastes best?” She giggled.

“Please make it stop.” I begged.

She jutted her hip, “Let me get this straight: you take my mac and cheese again and want me to help you?”

She was right. I had no right to ask. I popped a Post-it without thinking. Her mouth dropped open betraying her confidence. “Oh, my God. You had no idea!”

Her cheeks flushed. “Curses mutate.” She muttered, almost embarrassed. “Magic is unpredictable if I’m… emotional.”

“Oh, no, no. Am I stuck like this?” Rhetorical. I knew the answer before she shook her head. I just wanted to nibble the black ringlets of her hair. Licorice mixed with ambition. I was so hungry. The hunger always hit hardest when I was stressed—even before the two-hour mark. I was going to start fading.

“A curse can’t be undone.” She bit her lip.

Her words hollowed my chest. I fell into a booth. That hollow sensation curdled behind my ribs. I pulled the silver napkin holder toward me. I didn’t care who saw at this point. They’d see me fade or they’d see me eat. The silver was gritty, tasted like sandpaper and olives and made me feel melancholy. If I couldn’t escape the curse, maybe I could at least negotiate with it.

Angry Betty Boop sat down across from me. She folded her hands, opening her mouth a few times before deciding silence suited the situation best.

After several long moments, I asked, “Is this…it?”

“I’m afraid so.” Her eyes cast down; her forehead scrunched with wrinkles. For a second, she looked more tired than terrifying—like someone who’d jumped the gun too many times.

I felt my body and mind edge into resolve. The silver melancholy was coursing through my veins. I fought against it, but there was a low tide of clarity, too. “Are you a witch?” She nodded. “Is there a way to…” I sat forward, “alter the curse?”

She raised an eyebrow. Cleared her throat and considered this for a long moment. “No one’s ever requested that.”

Silence. The bodega’s life moved on around us. It was nice to be ignored.

“Why?” I asked simply.

She understood the depth of the inquiry. She sat back, looking into the distance. “My mother made it every week when I was little. This bodega is the closest to it. Every Thursday, I come here, it’s nostalgia more than anything because she…” Her eyes clouded over.

Without thinking, perhaps from the influence of the silver’s clarity, I placed my hand over her writhing ones. We locked eyes. I nodded and offered a quick consoling smile before moving on. “Can’t lift the curse, fine, but needing to eat every two hours is awful. Please help me.” A little moan escaped her throat. My shoulders slumped. “You didn’t know that either?”

She felt bad—even I could sense that, arrogant jerk or not. She mulled over my earlier request before saying, “You don’t quite deserve it, mind you, but you remind me of someone I chose not to save. I won’t make that mistake again.”

She snapped her fingers. And a little black book materialized with a pip! A part of my mind wondered if Todd was watching this. A “pocket grimoire” of all her spells, she called it. Before, I’d’ve written it off as bonkers. Now, I’d eat guano on a burning mountain if it meant to lift this curse.

As she flipped through pages, I eyed her jangling opal bracelets. Crystals. Huh. I hadn’t eaten crystals yet. Would they be delicious? Glacial crispness emanated from them. She must have sensed this, her hand recoiled, covering her bracelets. “I won’t be here when you come to.” She said, settling on a page in her grimoire.

“Gonna burst into crows again?” I laughed. Her face remained stoic. My smile faded. “Oh, shit. Where do you go?”

“It’s part of my curse—I never know, it’s always new.” She frowned, and for a second her shadow seemed to feather at the edges. A pregnant pause. I hadn’t expected that, but I instantly and desperately wanted to understand her. “We don’t get to choose how we suffer.” She added so quietly I almost missed it. Then, she straightened her posture.

“Wait! What if… I want to find you again?” I blurted. Perhaps I did want this curse?

She tilted her head, “I can only leave clues.” She smiled wanly and added, “I will do what I can, but this will sting.”

I nodded and listened to her chant in Latin, then what felt like thousands of feathers brushed my body as she exploded into her murder of crows. They pressed on me like a tornado. My vision went white and it felt like I was stung by a hundred wasps.

“Dude, are you alright?” Todd asked, sitting down where she was. I had to admit—I was a bit sad to see him instead of her. The air felt charged with her absence. The sting subsided into longing—where was she this time? “Hello? How’d it go? Cursed still?”

“I think she extended my need to feed,” I said. We locked eyes and laughed, repeating the “need to feed” line to each other in various voices. We needed to laugh. I’d put him through the wringer this last week. Most people would have had me committed to the looney bin. What’s a little polo eating between life-long friends?

“That’s good, though. So… stop eating my stuff” He demanded.

“Nah. This red polo smells like cinnamon and stardust.” I reached out.

“Stardust? Loser.” He swatted my hand away. “Did she get her mac and cheese?” My face fell. “After all that—she’s zero for two on the mac and cheese?” He belly laughed, but then second-guessed, looking over his shoulder to see if she was watching, waiting to curse him next.

“I have a feeling I’ll find her again.” I picked up a black feather from my lap. Her sleek clue.

“Ok, well, you have fun, I gotta get back. Good to see you’re not cursed… as much? And for real—lay off my polos.” Todd waddled away, mocking my “need to feed” line.

I twirled the feather, it was heavy. I inhaled its scent—a dusty speakeasy.

Something in it pointed, like a compass I could feel but not see. A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth as I watched the clock go past my two-hour mark.

Then it went past six, then eight and ten. Every twelve hours, I have to eat colors. If I play my cards right with this curse, I’ll live for as long as whoever she was.

The blackness of the feather tasted of vast, ancient knowledge and cloves. In my mind, a vision flashed of a lake, trees, and a cave tucked far away in a mountain. My gut told me I’d find her there. Waiting. Excitement bloomed in my chest. It filled me with a sense of destination. I wasn’t sure I wanted it but couldn’t resist.

Well, I still didn’t want this, mind you. But maybe wanting wasn’t the point anymore.

Maybe surviving meant finding meaning in this mess of colors.