She saw a dream…
She was in an orange car…with her dad and mom. A strange music was all around them. You could say it was purple…
With tales in red and yellow swimming inside her, tears of joy ran down her cheeks. When she wiped them, they had become orange
“Where are we going?” she asked her mom. “On the Orange trip you wanted”
The path they followed connected the Orange State of the Moon with the Purple Night. It was made out of silk, knit by a bird that long before had ran away from the seamstress of the palace…
What a confusing dream! She could not understand it. Usually, she was the one grownups could not understand. Everyone thought her love for orange was bizarre. Obsession, they called it.
As a baba, her mom said, she got hold of an orange rattle and would not let go. She only wore orange clothing. She ate only orange food.
She almost drove her parents crazy They simply could not understand her. But what else could she do?
Tiptoeing in the dark and quiet house, she went in the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and looked at the shelves before pulling out a carrot. Then she filled a glass of orange juice and stepped out onto the balcony.
An orange half-moon leaned into the sky’s background… Tomorrow they were going on a trip.
The suitcases waited with patience in the hallway for dawn. Hers was orange-what else?
For the first time in her life she would fly on a plane. for the first time she would be leaving. the country. They were flying. to Spain—her dad showed her on the map and told her stories about poets, painters and bullfighters. They would rent a car (she picked it out herself on the Internet and it was a fantastic and shiny orange Volkswagen) and they would go to magical cities, her mom said. of course, they would also be going to Portugal-or “Portokalia*” as she insisted on calling it.
* “Portokali” in Greek is orange. We have the same word for orange color. So the name of the country “Portokalia” is something like Orangeland. Also it reminds of Portugal (in Greek “Portogalia”)
She believed this Lorca –mom’s favorite poet- with the most beautiful gaze she had ever seen, was definitely “Portokalian”. for who else could write such a beautiful son. about an orange tree?
“Underneath the orange tree she washes the cottons
Green are her eyes and her voice purple”
Why did her 'other’s eyes cloud over when she heard the son., and why did her dad always squeeze her hand?
Marianna drank her last drop, looked at the moon one more time and went to sleep..