We've asked well known authors to secretly write visionary fiction works about some of the great pieces on Fortrove.com. This weekly series will be known as "Impressions".
Our first story will be based off of this fantastic Cartier diamond, sapphire, and ruby ring seen above. The author is very well known, but we have agreed to keep him unnamed.
It's a real treat to read works like this. Now, I present to you:
The Color of Love
Saturdays have always been my favorite day of the week. Even as a young girl, getting up in the pre-dawn quiet of Saturday while the rest of the family slept, then going downstairs and quietly slipping outside…even then I liked Saturdays best. Especially on spring mornings when crowds of daffodils stood touching shoulders at attention, like an ensemble of trumpeters waiting to signal the break of day. Sitting still on the front steps I'd often see a rabbit—I silently called him Peter—nibbling grass out near the flower bed, the one mom had filled with the purple saffron crocuses that had stamens of golden yellow, and which she hoped would someday season our saffron chicken and other fine meals.
Somehow, Saturdays were almost magical. They showed me more than what my eyes alone revealed as I sat, stock-still on the steps, waiting for first light to become sunrise. To reach out and become one with that magic, I'd close my eyes and feel an occasional lick of breeze waft over my skin. I'd hear the early birds trilling to one another in welcome of the new day. Sometimes an ant would walk across my arm or my leg before dismounting and going about its business. Then, eventually, the skin on my face would begin to warm as the sun made its full appearance above the hills. Not daring to open my eyes, I would wait until sunshine cast pink through my eyelids, confirming that the sun had fully risen. Only then did I dive into the wonder each Saturday morning brought.
Now, twenty-five years later, I sit on the same steps, eyes closed, waiting for the pink to announce full daylight. Mom and Dad are still asleep upstairs as they always were during my childhood early Saturdays. I'll cook them breakfast once they awaken, then we'll go into town and visit with their friends. They'll want to show off their visiting daughter, tell everyone what I do in the city, how important my job is, how I've been volunteering at a soup kitchen, how I'm engaged to a wonderful man. I'm sure they'll tell all the things that make them proud because sharing with others multiplies their pride. Too, it shows me they love me, probably in ways I won't understand until I have children of my own.
I grew up feeling loved. Love seemed to be all around me. Once Dad asked me a question about love. “What is the color of love?” he asked. I didn't have to think about it; the answer spilled across my lips as if it had been waiting to be spoken. “Rainbow,” I said. “Love is the color of the rainbow.”
With that recollection my eyes flash open and, once again today, a brilliant panorama, the entire countryside, floods into and overwhelms me. Like a fine jewel, it's sky shines blue while diamond-bright clouds, purple crocuses, golden daffodils, grass and trees create a palette only a rainbow can match. They're the colors of love.
