ghetto in colour

I cruise along the dusty roads, staring at Sun who paints my ghetto a honey gold. Stifling a slow smile that threatens to bubble over into a lazy laugh, I throw back my arms and turn right to look at Stevie Moe. He lazily maneuvers the car with the surprised amusement of a manic pianist who’s just accidentally mastered Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Concerto. I chuckle. Stevie Moe chuckles too. The traffic lights seem to be laughing with us. The yellow, green and the red, they all blink dark room red. We slink forward anyway. Because Moe has mastered the 3rd Concerto. Stealthily we turn right and left, checking to see if anyone noticed. Then Mr Pauncho Cop rides up next to us and looks all gruff and angry. I think he noticed. Then I smile sweetly, Moe smiles sweetly too and Mr Pauncho Cop rides away. We watch as he quickly becomes a speck in the distance and realize we’re moving at turtle’s pace. Moe is kicked. He’s a quack quack duck to be sure but the idea of emulating turtle walk has got him whopping. A yellow lady with a big red button on her forehead peeks out of the auto and bares her red fangs at us. We instinctively show her our superpower rings and shout ‘Go Captain Planet!’ Err Moe, we’re short of three hands, ditch it wotsay? We timidly look up at Fangula. She looks mighty hurt. Oh Moe, she was only smiling at us. Unlike the sun that be throwing an indigo blush on rustic ghetto, making it look like the jackal that fell into a vat of indigo dye and was mistaken for king. Don’t blush too pretty you silly ghetto; in the morning when your true colours are revealed, and they are gaudy and vile, they’ll know you are no king.

Due advice doled out, we zoom ahead at snail speed, towards that frothing mass of salty Medusa. Frothing Medusa throws forth gossamer strands and voluptuous bunches of artfully angry mane onto the golden grains that contain her like a vast vessel. We haven’t reached yet, but we already hear Frothing Medusa hissing and roaring like first-thing-in-the-morning toothpaste gargle. At the vast vessel, we equip ourselves with icy orange sticks that drip rivulets of orange liquid down our arms, making Moe and I look like zebra-clown hybrids. Then we step onto the utterly hot Gold Grains, and he yields temptingly, tempestuously. He wants me, bad bad bad. I look up to sneer at Moe and am upset instead. Gold Grains wants him too. Shrugging, we sink wordlessly and lay back, winking and blinking at Sun, whose indigo blush has now been replaced by spinning chakras of crimson. A stray chakra leads our eyes to one corner where Jimi Hendrix is puffing away, doing yoga in technicolour and playing a psychedelic tune that rocks our world in silent sepsis. Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison are there too, sitting in a hazy maze of Pandu pinks, gaga greens and yabadabadoo yellows. They are performing the ritual of the Dead J brotherhood. Hood. Wood. Weed. Whatever.

We leave them to their devices, dusting Golden Grains off our backsides and limbs and setting off towards Frothy Medusa. She’s wearing tiny turquoise beads of salty spray, her body bathed in a swathe of sheer champagne, cappuccino and cilantro. She’s tough on the outside but she throws locks of white that greet our feet coolly. Soon we’re in knee deep, as filaments of our imagination merge with fibers of her raw power. Little turtles swim about us, turtle doves fly above head and a turkey sandwich cooks in our heads. Pauncho Cop looks like powder puff. Moe admits to Fangula in a stage whisper that we aren’t Captain Planet or Powerpuff. We head back out of Frothy Medusa and search for Gold Grains and find he’s aged a gunky grey. But we like them old men. They are like wine, divine, mmmmm. We lay back and look up to find that the magnanimous Sun has let his supporting cast take centrestage. Many of them are stars. Moe agrees. He especially likes that one he is pointing at, it seems to like him back too. I’m annoyed and throw Grey Grains into Moe’s eyes. He does the same to me. Soon we’re tugging and tousling, against a spurt of floating particles and spew of colours that Frothy Medusa and Sun are making together way at the back, where they are at peace with themselves and the world.

Their lovechild will wake up as a glorious baby-bottom-pink morning and gain legitimacy as the peace that runs through its filigree veins reflects, itsy speck by bitsy speck, by the Moes and Mes of the world.