The Lemon's Aide

Living a life in constant yellow can be a wearying existence. When you’re yellow, people expect you to carry on as though every moment of your life is bathed in sunshine from dawn ‘til dusk, but the truth is that even Yellows have blue days. Just ask Lemon.

Lemon was a tough guy to peel. Although bright and smooth in appearance, he often struggled with keeping up with the expectation of being the life of everybody’s party. He compared himself too frequently to Banana and Passionfruit – one admired for his form and one for flavour – but even with this self-troubling habit most others in the fruit basket couldn’t see past his goofiness to the sour pit he was feeding. Lemon was sad – but when you’re so yellow, there’s no opportunity to show off some of the other colours that are experienced just below the surface. The pinks of love, the reds of anger, the blues of melancholy and the oranges of adventurousness never saw the sun on Lemon’s peel... but before too long there was another colour that began to seep out from his core.

“Lemon,” Papaya commented one afternoon, “You’re looking a little lime... are you okay?” Lemon did what he could to let the comment roll off his back: “I’m fine, I just need a little more Vitamin D, that’s all.”

But sunshine wasn’t enough to stop Lemon’s greenness from spreading. In a few days, everyone had noticed – and they began to talk. “I know he’s been hanging out with the Veggies recently,” Tomato said to Peach as they watched Lemon roll slowly from one side of the basket to the other. “Maybe the Broccoli has been rubbing off on him a little too much?”

Lemon’s friends tried to cheer him up and get his yellow back, but they couldn’t figure out the root problem. Lemon was looking more and more lime everyday and everyone was worried. “Is he... rotting?” a little grape asked. The response was uncertain. “He’s sick, honey... tired maybe, maybe more.”

It had been nearly three weeks from the time that Lemon’s hue began to darken to the day Radish got thrown in with the fruits. “Are you a squash?” Radish asked, quite innocent of the gradual pigmented depression Lemon had found himself in. She based her observation solely on that which could be observed: the once yellow Lemon was now a very dark blueish-greyish-green colour, quite like that of Butternut. “I’m a lemon,” said Lemon.

Radish furrowed her eyebrows. “What has happened to your sunshine?” Lemon sighed heavily, brimming with tears. The dimples that had once served to highlight his cheer now seemed to emphasize the depth of his creases and the weight in his eyes. “I’ve lost it,” Lemon confessed. “It’s been gone for a terrible long time.”

Radish smiled gently. “I will help you find it again.”

Radish listened while Lemon told her about his deep blue. He spoke of the wear his friends had on him at times, of no fault of their own, but which nevertheless caused Lemon to tire. He confided in Radish and for a long time while she said nothing with neither tear nor smile; she simply listened. Little by little, Lemon’s grey lightened. The blue faded and the green disappeared. Little by little, Lemon was yellowing. When he had explained everything that he had been keeping to himself and all pressure had been released, he laughed. Radish smiled back. She seemed... different, somehow.

Before Lemon had a chance to inquire, Radish nodded quietly and tipped her head just a little to one side. “Did you know,” she began, as though it were a question, “that colours are contagious? They have an amazing quality about them that is transferable – blues and yellows and even pinks – they can be passed on or pulled in my others. You’ve gotten much yellow back, and I’m got some of that now too! But I also took on a bit of your blue and a little green, to help you get rid of it. So that’s why I look a little odd – I’m brighter, but also darker than when I arrived here. More the colouring of an unusually ripe apple, than a radish, you might say.”

“But I don’t want you to be blue or green,” Lemon said. Radish smiled. “It’s okay Lem... it’s what friends do. We share the good and the bad, the blue and the yellow. We trade off and balance out and compliment. It’s our design.”

Lemon gave Radish a hug, which may seems strange to you until you remember that a radish is rarely a radish in such tales and such tales are rarely told with the simple intention of entertainment; rather that they often come prepared with an applicable punch: When life gives you Lemons, be the Lemon’s aide.