In Technicolor
My cup—
Runneth over, Psalm 23:5. But no, not in a bar.
—sweats fat droplets of condensation onto the bartop. I run a fingernail along a scar in the wood, adjusting the cardboard coaster. A bear peers up through the amber liquid.
I should Google bears.
I reach for my phone. Pop music blares from wall-mounted speakers with exposed wires. I sway, sway, sway—
Is that Stravinsky?
It’s not, but I can’t help but hear The Rite of Spring. The second part, The Sacrif—
“Hi.” A man slides onto the stool next to mine, shouting over Not-Stravinsky. I hate the itch of an unfinished thought.
The Sacrifice.
I move my lips to be sure.
My sister, Ada, hasn’t moved since the last time I looked; a dark booth, kissing someone. I wonder if their teeth touch or just their lips—
Sharks don’t have lips, but they do have 3,000 teeth across five rows and The Rite of Spring was the inspiration for the music in Jaws, the duhduh duhduh duhduh. I know the notes: E, F. A half step over and over until—
“Hello?” His hand waves in my face. “You’re pretty.”
I want to tell him about The Rite of Spring and Jaws and everything I know about sharks and…
“Did you know Fantasia was filmed in successive exposure three-strip technicolor?” The Rite of Spring comes fourth, after Mickey as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
“Uh, okay.” His lips pinch together. He taps my drink, the drink Ada made me buy—
“Be cool, Maddy.” She was mad before all the kissing. Mad at our parents for making her drag me along on New Years. Mad cause I told her Flowers and Trees won the first Academy Award for Best Cartoon Short Subject. Walt Disney, 1932. Did you know that Ada? Isn’t that inter—
or maybe she was mad because she wanted to be kissed, and I was slowing her down. I’ve never been kissed, I can’t see being angry abou—
“You good—?” The guy is still tapping my drink—he’s less a man and more a boy, an unstained college sweater. “Wanna get outta here?” His tongue seems too big for his mouth, his words are slushy like gray-snow under car tires—
Ada drives fast when she’s mad, makes the tires squeal, which wears them down faster. I told her that because Dad told me.
Ada is always mad. I think I make her wish she’d been born first. Been born only.
I nod to the boy, though I doubt he knows my address. I tell him, 16 Berry Crescent, which reminds me I never did look up bears and—
The boy tugs me past Ada’s booth and out into the snow. His hand is sweaty like—
My drink. My drink. “I didn’t finish my drink,” I didn’t start it either.
“It’s fine.” He brushes the snow out of his hair. Brown like the bear.
“Did you know the snow in Snow White is actually cornflakes on a black background, superimposed on the animation?” Real and fake at the same time. I smile.
“You’re lovely,” he says. His hands knot in my sweater. My jacket is with Ada.
I need my jacket—
But he drags me away from the door, into the alley, shoves me against the wall. The brick pinches my skin. Then, his lips are crushing mine and I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe—
—I try—sharks breath under—
—It’s not enough.
His hands barge up my thigh, under my skirt. He curses, says something about granny panties. He’s touching me and I don’t like it, not at all. I want it to stop, stop, stop.
But he’s shushing me, hand crawling over my mouth.
I think of technicolor and shark facts—not of his teeth on my lips, his sandpaper beard—
Sharks feel like sandpaper, maybe bears are coarse and wiry like Brillo. I need my phone, to check—
Sharp teeth, violins scream the Rite of—
I bite.
He yelps and releases me, calls me a bad word.
I stumble on the ice, landing painfully on my tailbone. There’s no “Frankly, my dear.” I’m not his dear and he never gave a damn and that’s why Rhett’s renunciation mattered. Because he cared once.
I don’t think this boy ever meant to take me home, even after the kissing.
It makes sense now, why Ada was so angry; why she’s crying when she finds me—forces me to look her in the eye—runs shaking fingers through my knotted hair.
“Parisians booed the Rite of Spring,” I tell her, wishing she’d get angry again. Hot tears riot down my cheeks. “The ballet was too—”
She pulls me into her chest.
It’s not even midnight, and I don’t think I want to be—
—ever again.
Elysia Rourke
Elysia Rourke lives in Almonte, Ontario with her husband, two sons, and dog. She has a weakness for London fogs, Christmas morning, and a salty ocean breeze. Publication of her debut novel with Penguin/Nancy Paulsen Books is planned for 2026.
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