Four colours

Take the one that comes first.

The seven questions need JavaScript. Without it, here are the four colours and their passages.

• Cold blue

  A colour for the things left unsaid.

  “I’m fine, Mom,” I would say, my voice a small, tight knot of blue, a color of defensiveness and retreat.

• Burnt orange

  A little warmth you did not give away.

  It was a song of deep, warm orange. Not a flat, crayon orange, but a living, breathing color, the color of a sunset, of a bonfire, of a ripe persimmon. It was a color that had a taste, a taste of honey and cinnamon. It was a color that had a texture, the texture of warm, soft flannel. It was a color that had a feeling, the feeling of being held, of being safe, of being loved.

• Grey with a seam of yellow

  Some colour was always yours to keep.

  I couldn’t. So I kept my secret world to myself. It was my treasure, my sanctuary, my one true home. It was a world where I was not strange, not different, not alone. It was a world where I was simply, and completely, myself.

• White

  You do not have to name it yet.

  I was eight years old when I first realized the world had a secret language, a language that only I could hear. It wasn’t a language of words, but of colors and sounds, of textures and temperatures, a symphony of sensations that played out just beneath the surface of things. For me, the world didn’t just exist; it vibrated. It sang.