artificial colouring

when they taught us about light and color in elementary school I wondered very seriously what color everything was underneath the bits you can see. if you could peel away the surface and peel the light with it--and peel the dependency on light away from your eyes at the same time--then what would there be?

I suppose it would all be grayscale. like an old film. or like in the book The Giver.

there is a two-pound package of jelly beans. thirty-four flavors. peach and popcorn and cinnamon and vanilla. I hate the root beer flavored ones. but they look almost just like the black licorice ones, and I love the black licorice ones. when you're sitting in the dark watching star trek with your brothers, it's hard to tell.

who decides which color to make the tangerine-flavored beans? do they do tests to determine what shade of red says to people 'raspberry' and which says 'fruit punch'? how do they make the peach ones so beautifully mottled?

peeling away the surface of jelly beans just leaves the sticky little insides. and peeling away your tastebuds doesn't sound like a good idea. maybe surfaces are more interesting than underneathness, and that's why the profound is so hard to find.

then again, it wouldn't be profound if it were all laid out for you, would it?