The Cobalt Tongue

Sarah’s dress was a cruel kind of blue, a shade somewhere between a summer sky and a forgotten bruise. Elias tried to focus on her words, something about her aunt’s cat, but the taste of it filled his mouth, sharp and insistent. Not a flavor like lemon or salt, no, but a cold, metallic tang, like old pennies left too long in a damp palm. Beneath that, a vast, echoing emptiness, a hollow ache that settled deep in his molars. He wanted to spit, but polite society didn’t allow for such things, not in a brightly lit cafe with too many people and their own silent worlds. He swallowed hard, feeling the phantom chill go down his throat.

Her eyes, a lighter, clearer blue, were a high-pitched hum against the deeper thrum of her dress. Each blink a tiny, effervescent pop on his tongue, a brief moment of almost pleasant, almost bearable chill before the deep ache returned. He found himself staring past her, at the window, where the endless, oppressive blue of the midday sky pressed in. That was the grand conductor, the master chef of his misery, an unending stream of thin, airy coldness, clean yet somehow profoundly sad.

“You okay, Elias?” Sarah asked, a wrinkle forming between her perfect eyebrows. He realized he’d stopped listening entirely. He nodded, probably too vigorously. “Yeah, fine. Just… thinking.”

He’d been thinking like this his whole life, wrestling with a secret language his body spoke but his mouth couldn’t. When he was a boy, his mother had baked him a birthday cake, frosted it bright, saccharine blue. He’d screamed, really screamed, when she tried to feed him a piece, the cloying sweetness mixed with that unbearable cold, that hollow, metallic echo. She’d thought he was being dramatic, just a fussy kid. He’d never tried blue frosting again. Or blueberries. Or even blue M&Ms. Too much.

People talked about blue like it was a concept, a color, something you saw. For Elias, it was visceral. A constant assault. The jeans of the barista leaning against the counter, the faint blue tint of the glass he was drinking from, the forgotten blue pen cap on the table next to them. Each one a tiny jab, a reminder of the world’s relentless, untranslatable beauty and pain. How could you explain to someone that their favorite color made your teeth ache? That the serene expanse of the ocean was a mouthful of grief and copper?

He tried once, with an ex-girlfriend, drunk and reckless. “Sometimes,” he slurred, pointing vaguely at the dark blue wall of the bar, “that… that tastes like… cold, you know? Like, really cold. Empty.” She’d laughed, kissed his cheek. “You’re so weird, babe. I love it.” She’d loved the eccentricity, not the truth of it. She couldn’t see the agony, couldn’t taste the vast, desolate stretches of it.

Sarah was still talking, something about work. He forced himself to nod, to smile. He imagined her world, a world where blue was just blue. A visual, a hue. No phantom metal on the tongue, no hollow pit in the gut. He envied her, a raw, aching envy that made his own perception feel like a curse. It built walls, thick and high, between him and everyone else, leaving him perpetually on the outside, a foreigner in his own skin.

Later that day, after Sarah had left with a polite wave and a promise to call he knew she wouldn’t keep, Elias drove until the city thinned and the road opened up to the coast. The sun was dipping, painting the sky in fiery oranges and purples, but he didn’t care about those. He cared about the ocean, the one great, terrible source of blue that drew him in spite of everything. He pulled the car over, got out, and walked to the shore.

The tide was coming in, a low rumble and hiss. The ocean, at dusk, was a deep, bruising indigo, almost black in places, but undeniably blue. The waves crashed, one after another, each white curl a brief, sharp, icy hit, followed by the profound, crushing weight of the dark water. The taste was overwhelming, a tidal wave of metallic coldness, of an emptiness so vast it felt like his own chest was hollowed out. It was magnificent and terrifying. He stood there, letting the salt spray cool his face, tasting the world’s loneliest color, until the ache was almost unbearable. He closed his eyes, and the blue, no less potent for being unseen, was still there, a chilling, silent scream inside him.