You Put On a Scarf

"You put on a scarf," Christina would say to me imperiously. "The weather will beat you." She had cold, dark eyes--not brown, but a color that seemed to be vacancy of color at all. In 4th grade science classrooms across the country on any given day there are probably at least twenty children telling with great authority to twenty other children that white is the combination of all colors and that black is the absolute absence of color. In another year or two, those children are also explaining to the little 4th-graders that the presence of color means the presence of light; and on the other hand, that the absence of color means that light is nowhere to be found.

Christina had very dark eyes.