True to the depths of his story's "metallic sheen" and memorable "jewel tones," Jacob Anthony Moniz's "Eastern Blue" has been paired with an outfit of fluid silk chiffon and silver beadwork clusters from Donatella Versace's Fall/Winter 2024 collection. "This collection has a rebel attitude and a kind heart," writes Donatella. "The clothes take the codes of contemporary formal tailoring and disrupt them with cut, drape, and embellishment. The collection focuses on pure lines, innovative fabrics, considered wildness." Likewise, the narrative structure of "Eastern Blue" depends, "crayon by crayon," on color as a psychological language. Moniz's story presents a catalogue of academic knowledge juxtaposed with painful reminders of displacement and loneliness. The sight of a river. The velvet of dusk. The challenge of reading "meaning into life." "Easter Blue" is a self-willed story of "considered wildness."
— Paul Cunningham, Editor
Eastern Blue
The East River catches the light of the setting sun, stretching between the boroughs like a silver streak, shimmering with a bright, metallic sheen. Where the water runs deeper, it takes on a darker hue. Like, polished steel. In others, in the shallow places where it laps against the rocky shore, the water glows with a softer, pewter-like patina.
I took a course at NYU titled Color. Silver and its reflective nature have been interpreted across cultures as a mirror to the soul, allowing us to see ourselves as others do. It’s believed that silver encourages the mind to communicate more effectively. It allows us to articulate ourselves. To speak with confidence. Most jewel tones work well to complement silver. Sea green. Emerald green. Medium blue. Turquoise, too. Pewter, meanwhile, retains the gray characteristics of neutrality. Seriousness. Its darker hue conveys a heaviness. It’s a neutral color, so it pairs well with every color in the spectrum, but when using pewter in art or design, you should balance its depth with something lighter.
Cream.
Pale pink.
Perhaps a light gray.
The sight of the river calms me. At my back are the pricey new developments that run along the Brooklyn waterfront. Exorbitantly priced apartments. Trendy new boutiques. An office building built within the husk of the recently-derelict, once operational Domino Sugar refinery. There are dozens of people scattered about nearby, strolling along or lounging. Looking out across the water to Manhattan. Chatting. Identifying various skyscrapers from afar. I don’t mind them. I appreciate the company. The sound of their chatter mingles with the churning of the water and the distant rattle of the subway trains traveling across the Williamsburg Bridge. I look out across the water, absentmindedly listening to the ra-ta-ta-ta of the passing subway trains. I think about the color silver. The light fades and, with it, the glittering silver playing across the water. The darker pewter takes its place.
Weighty.
Practical.
And still.
A pewter-like patina. Patina, a noun. A word I learned in one of my electives. The Birth of Greek Art: From the Bronze Age to the Geometric Period. Patina, a noun. A gloss or sheen upon the surface of a thing, resulting from age or polishing. A green or brown film on the surface of bronze or a similar metal, produced by the oxidation process across a lengthy period of time. It’s becoming difficult to see as the sun sinks further towards the horizon, but there it is, the patina. The bronze. Bronze is an earthy tone. Basically, brown. Green can bring out the subtle shine of bronze. Mossy, forest shades of green pair well with it. The kinds of green that take their cue from nature. “Civilization begins in the Bronze Age.” So said my professor, once upon a time. My professor from The Birth of Greek Art. A lovely man whose name I can’t recall. We met for three hours a week across a total of fourteen weeks. Forty-two hours spent in the company of this lovely, good-natured professor. His name escapes me completely.
Pre-pandemic.
Bronze.
The color of soft sins.
Redemption.
Dusk settles over the city. The river adopts a velvety, indigo hue as it reflects the colors of the twilight sky above. What does the sky say? Indigo represents intuition and insight. It promotes deep concentration during moments of introspection and meditation, helping you reach a deeper level of consciousness. Deeper, deeper. There’s no color where the water’s deeper. No light. Just black. Only darkness. Best to focus on the surface. Swirling blues still dance across the surface. Blue can have both positive and negative associations. Blue can evoke feelings of calm, relaxation, and trust, while also representing fragility, depression, and coldness. I’m feeling blue, people say. He’s got the blues.
Blue.
Depends on the hue, I guess.
On the quality of light.
As a child, the world bloomed with color when Appa was around. One of my earliest memories is of a summer afternoon. Warm, sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor of our living room. Crayons scattered all around, like a rainbow spilled down from the sky. Appa, with his watchful eyes and crooked smile, patiently teaching me the Korean words for colors.
“Do you know what this color is?” Appa asked, holding up a bright red crayon.
“Red!” I exclaimed, proudly.
He nodded. His crooked smile widened. “Yes, red! You’re so smart. In Korean though, we say 빨간색, ppalgan saek. Can you say that?”
I mimicked his pronunciation, stumbling over the unfamiliar sounds. He laughed, deep and comforting. Never mocking. Not then. Not yet. I remember him as having a booming kind of laughter, but only when I heard it as a child. His thunderous resound faded over time.
“Good try. 빨간색, ppalgan saek,” he repeated.
We continued on that way, crayon by crayon. Yellow was 노란색, noran saek. Blue was 파란색, paran saek. Green was 초록색, chorok saek. Each word, a tiny gift. I wouldn’t understand until later the weight such gifts could carry—the expectations of the giver, the resentment incurred through indebtedness, rising interest over time.
Appa’s eyes sparkled with pride whenever I managed to pronounce a word correctly. “잘 했어, jal haess-eo. Good job,” he would say, ruffling my hair.
One evening, as the sun approached the horizon, painting the sky in shades of pink and orange, Appa and I sat and looked outside the window facing the Chicago River. “You see the sky?” he asked. “That’s 분홍색, bunhong saek, and 주황색, juhwang saek.” The colors of the sunset seemed more vivid with Appa by my side. I don’t know that I would have noticed them at all without him there to point them out.
The world feels less colorful without Appa. The colors are there, still. I can identify them and recall their meaning from school, but the wonder, the sense that they have something left to teach me—I don’t have the words to describe what the world has become without my father.
He’s no longer here to teach me.
The sun sets and, suddenly, I don’t like it here. I don’t like all these people around me. Strangers. Interlopers. People new to Williamsburg, running around New York like it’s an amusement park. I don’t like them. I don’t like them, but I’m self-aware enough to recognize my own hypocrisy, the unfair assumptions I’m making, the fact that, probably, quite obviously, I am exactly like them. Just another fucking transplant to New York, relying upon classist institutions and the supposed generosity of well-known, wealthy organizations to fund my privileged profession. My career. My “art.”
The sun sets and the light of the Manhattan skyline dots the darkened surface of the East River. Red, yellow, green, and blue. So much blue. I don’t have time to think about it. 파란색, paran saek. I don’t have the capacity to sit and stare at the water, attempting and ultimately failing to read meaning into life.
A friend has invited me to dinner and I’m late.
Jacob Anthony Moniz is a writer from California. His work has appeared in Catamaran Literary Reader, Chicago Quarterly Review, Southeast Review, The Ocotillo Review, and The EastOver Anthology of Rural Stories by Writers of Color, among other publications. His work has been supported by a 2024 Fiction Fellowship from the Roots. Wounds. Words. Writers’ Retreat for Storytellers of Color, as well as a Fulbright Student Research Award to Universidade dos Açores in Portugal. His debut novel, The Pacific End, is available now. Learn more at jacobanthonymoniz.com.
