The old man chip chip chipped away at the star, orange peel shavings pooling 'round his feet like molasses. He looked at me and sighed out ******, drifting towards me through a wall of undecided fruit trees. "Sometimes," his hair murmured at me, "you learn that gray's the only color." He paused. And paused further. And the not-pause became silence.

I picked at the Stairway to Heaven with my eyes till it turned black and blue. "What about your fireworks then?"

He cut himself on the chipping knife and the not-pause was more. "Other times," he disjointed, hand dripping copper taste in with the orange slices, "We paint over the gray and forget."

I lit the fuse and blew up the sky, streaking it with sparks of gold. The clouds smell like molasses and rain and all I can see is gray.