Prompt #9

Prompt: I'm over my toes in reality.

Word Count: 270

Serious but still funny, had to have the color orange, and one character, talking to him/herself. I'm not sure whether I like this one or not.

I’m over my toes in reality.

That doesn’t really make sense. Let me try and clarify.

My toes are in reality, and I am over my toes. But then, all people are over their toes, so that doesn’t help much.

Let me try again.

See, there’s a pool. It’s shallow, and it’s got a sort of transparent orange tint, I think maybe it’s reflecting the sunset, maybe. There are fishes in the pool, swimming upside down around my feet. I think their Koi, that’s what they look like, but the colors are off, blue and yellow, I think, but it’s hard to tell.

And there are little purple flowers. I can’t see them, but I know they’re there, blocked from my view by their bright red lily pads, and their black tendrilly roots. Roots that rise and tangle in my hair, around my wrists and float in front of my face.

I know what’s on the other side of the pool, where my toes are. My toes are in reality, but I’m not really sure where I am.

Sometimes, I wonder if reality is a nice place.

*-*-*-*-*

There is a woman, in cell number I-25. She’s small, with a shock of orange hair and a smattering of freckles, like someone spilled paint over her nose and cheeks. Her name is Marta Tangerine.

She’s young, barely nineteen, but she sits in her cell, in the same corner she’s inhabited for years.

She repeats the same thing to herself, over and over again, like she has for years, it goes like this:

“I’m over my toes in reality . . .”