Becoming Dangerous Yellow
By Gwydion M. Williams
Back in the 1960s, I was the Mellow Yellow. I defined the mellowness of the long-distance yellow. I could also get mad about Saffron, though Saffron was less than mad about me. (But it never got as bad as with the Bright Elusive Butterfly, who’s now written an autobiography with many complaints about sexual harassment.)
Times change. Now the market was shrinking, and I figured I should shift. Make life easier for those who could never change. Revive my own career.
Shift – but to where? A lot of openings for Yellow, but most of them bad, cowardice and vomit and the start of autumn.
What else? Some nice yellow-plus-black numbers: once mostly wasps but now it’s everywhere. I’ve no problem associating with blacks, a lively crowd. But I found I was years too late, no vacancies.
Then a human child had a bright idea and was slapped down by an officious adult, but the idea lingered. By psychic filtration it somehow came to me. Dangerous Yellow: that was new and had potential. Potential. But how does an Incarnate Idea shift from Mellow to Dangerous?
The answer had to be a ramble across the spectrum. My heritage is a tinge Orange on my mother’s side: but Orange is mostly cautious outside of Northern Ireland, not my sort of place. Beyond that, ‘better dead than red’ was what she taught and I’ll respect. No going that way.
On my father’s side, he insisted we were pure spectral Yellow, not a hybrid of red and green like the television Yellows. But we do have friends in Green, even if they’re not relatives. And he did marry borderline Orange. Regardless, Greens are into ecology and welcomed a Mellow. I could have a spot there, but a small one, no thanks.
Blue was much less welcoming, but I remembered that blue was the colour of someone’s true-love’s eyes. I could also sing ‘I’d rather be blue with you’. I was treated as harmless and entertaining.
What next? Violet ignored me, fine. So I reached my goal, Ultra-Violet, decidedly ultra-violent. Stressful, but where better to learn to be Dangerous Yellow?
Only I found it too tough. I survived only because I was viewed as a joke, not worth erasing. I soon realised I could never match them. OK, I thought, good ideas often fail. Mellow I am: go home and eek it out.
But I’d not realised how much I’d changed. Coming home, I ran into a Blue Meanie and reacted without thinking. I made him reflect and go off in a different direction. So even before I got home and founded my new domain, I was already clearly Dangerous Yellow.
Long Revolution 