Jason's Permanent Grass

 Jason’s Permanent Grass

Jason liked all the colors in his crayon box. He had a brother who was already reading and spelling his own name. He had two parents who hid on purpose the permanent magic markers. Jason did not understand this. He wished his brother would help him out, but his brother was too busy reading. 

There was a grey pencil on Jason’s coloring table in his faded blue jeans and white t-shirt. When Jason thought of his boring grey pencil, he thought of a cloudy rainy day, a day where he could not go out and play; a day where the greens of the grass could shine reminding him of the stains on his jeans. 

Jason’s crayon box did not just have green. It had what he believed was every color. It had so many colors with a dull point at the end that this viewer could not name them all. It had midnight blue, gold, golden yellow, forest green, red orange to name a few. 

Jason often couldn’t figure out why he had a room in his house with just one color. His kitchen was all yellow, why not some shades of green. His kitchen reminded him of the sun, but the sun helps to grow grass. 

The kitchen needs grass he thought to himself early on Saturday morning. That is right he was in bed thinking about drawing grass with a permanent marker in his kitchen that had no grass. It made sense to Jason what a surprise. 

Jason thought really hard about where Mom put his permanent markers or his parent’s permanent markers. 

Let me see, he thought to himself, I was coloring with them on the dinner table when mom got mad at me and snatched them away. 

Jason would tell anybody with his own words that the dinner table was brown, and it needed color. 

Jason remembered hearing the hall closet opening. Luckily, his daddy had not put a lock on it like his mom had told him to do repeatedly. 

Jason figured he would need the dinner table chairs to get up there, and he was wide awake anyway, so he got out of bed. He yawned once, stretched with his bright red bunny feet pajamas, and then went to the dinner table to drag the chair to the hallway closet. 

Jason noticed the permanent markers lying slightly off the top shelf. He put the dinner chair in the right spot and climbed up. On top of the chair, he was still too small to grab the markers, so he used his tippy- toes and grabbed them with his fingertips. 

 Two of the first words Jason ever said were, “Permanent Marker.” He loved to color even before he could not pick them up all the way. 

He ran with his 2-year-old feet with his permanent markers to the kitchen. There were not as many colors in this box as his crayons. Jason slid out the green, took the top off, and then wondered if this was a good idea. 

Jason saw the yellow and sprang into action scribbling the walls with grass. 

Jason’s actions in the morning woke up his brother Philip. It was hard being an older brother and Philip wondered what his kid brother had gotten into. Philip put on his house slippers and slid into the kitchen. 

An outside observer would not understand Jason’s genius with the yellow wallpaper symbolizing the sun and grass all around the kitchen. 

Jason will be in trouble, Philip thought. He smiled devilishly and ran to his parents’ room where they were snoring fast asleep. 

Philip shook them up gently. 

“Mom, dad you’re not going to like this.” 

Need I remind you that it was Saturday and the Jepson family especially the parents like to sleep in on Saturday’s. They followed their oldest to the kitchen in fast steps. 

Jason’s mom gasped at him horror and his dad’s eyes were glazed over. They could tell by the marker still in Jason’s hand that this was permanent marker. There will not be a lazy Saturday today they both thought too themselves. 

The rest of the Saturday was spent by Jason’s parents cleaning the grass on the sunshine yellow wallpaper of the kitchen. 

Months later they moved from that house, but Jason’s grass still stood on the walls of the kitchen, faded from the washing.