The Color of Saturday

Not metaphorically. Yellow in the exact way a lemon is yellow. For as long as she can remember, words have had colors. Days of the week, names, numbers, the call to prayer, everything arrives with a shade attached. Saturday is yellow. Her mother's name is the green of mint leaves. The number seven is the blue of deep water. At fifteen she learned this was called synesthesia. At thirty she is still learning what it means to live in a world where language has a spectrum invisible to everyone else, where every conversation is a painting only she can see.