Expo

Why does he do it? How could he possibly care that much? About something that small?

This is what she thinks, looking up for the first time at the impossibly ordered row of multicolored soldiers, caps tight against their bodies, aligned with an equal two-fingers-width between. They run the rainbow in exact order, ROYGBIV written underneath the correct private in each corresponding color, though she’d call the VIOLET actually PURPLE if she thought he’d even hear the distinction. She wonders why the BLACK pen resides next to the RED without a label of its own.

His block script is martial, menacing in its unnecessary capitalization. “I LOVE YOU SWEETIE!” it screams like an email with a tin ear, an instant message too heavy on the instance.

If they still had feet, would they march this way? If he’s this concerned with his pens, what does he do with his clothes? The answers are too much to take in, early in the we as they are. Instead, she reaches up and switches green for blue. The experiment might be telling, or, it might already be told.