Chrome | Jensen Whelan

CHROME

By Jensen Whelan

Their lives were filled with a strange light, a light similar to corner store signs that forever glow in the late-night hours.

What drew him to her, and likewise, was that the two of them could share this light. The idea was to find another with a light so complementary that when two came together the air around them would become a new color. Someone looking at the two would be unable to tell where one ended and the other began.

So they searched far and distant places, crossed oceans in large ships, continents by train. She saw him once as she squeezed through the cracks between a series of poorly matched lovers; their colors hurt her eyes. She broke free and waited, watching him as his light flickered through the crowd. He thought he saw her, too, but stumbled in pursuit of her light and found what he saw to be nothing more than his reflection in the chrome fender of a car waiting at a gas station.

Their lives were filled with a strange light, a light similar to corner store signs that forever glow in the late-night hours.

What drew him to her, and likewise, was that the two of them could share this light. The idea was to find another with a light so complementary that when two came together the air around them would become a new color. Someone looking at the two would be unable to tell where one ended and the other began.

So they searched far and distant places, crossed oceans in large ships, continents by train. She saw him once as she squeezed through the cracks between a series of poorly matched lovers; their colors hurt her eyes. She broke free and waited, watching him as his light flickered through the crowd. He thought he saw her, too, but stumbled in pursuit of her light and found what he saw to be nothing more than his reflection in the chrome fender of a car waiting at a gas station.