The Wrong Shade of Blue

I wrote this for english class last year.

I like it.

I had to illustrate a witch-hunt of some sort. I sort of missed the mark, but I had fun.

Once upon a time, there was an exclusive club of seven Carolina fans. They all lived together in a house that was painted Carolina Blue, and every second of their day was Carolina-themed. They took showers with Carolina-Blue colored water, ate specially ordered Carolina-Blue M&M’s, and every night they watched a Carolina game from their video archives. On nights of live Carolina games, they worked themselves into a Carolina frenzy, and then gathered on the Carolina-Blue couch to watch the game on their home theatre plasma television. After the game they would stay awake into the night, analyzing each second of the game, and would flail themselves as punishment in the event that Carolina lost.

Their leader’s name was Calvin. Calvin was the most fanatical of all seven fans. The only thing that matched Calvin’s love of Carolina was his hatred of Duke. All the other fans wanted to be just like Calvin, because Calvin represented the epitome of Carolina devotion.

On Calvin’s birthday, an enormous package came in the mail. All the fans clustered around Calvin as he ripped the box open eagerly. When it was opened, the fans were shocked, and some of them actually screamed in horror. Inside the box was a collection of Duke paraphernalia. T-shirts, plastic cups, hats, posters, even little figurines of the Duke Blue Devil. Calvin was appalled. He was so offended that he flung the box and its contents into the Carolina-Blue incinerator, and then plunged his hands in boiling water to sterilize them. Unfortunatly, horrible, blistery burns raised up on his hands, and he was rushed to the hospital.

While in the hospital, he turned away three doctors who had attended Duke, insisting that his doctors and nurses be from Carolina. As he recuperated, he tried to imagine how such a horrifying event could have happened. Who would have the nerve to not only look at such a perverse selection of Duke paraphernalia online, but to actually pay good money to have it shipped into his home? Which of his housemates were sick enough, twisted enough to commit such an atrocious act? Their faces took on a maniacal sneer in his mind as the realization hit him: they were ALL guilty! They had conspired against him, trying to overthrow him as their leader! Calvin felt hurt, betrayed, outraged.

When his housemates came to visit, laden with Carolina-blue flowers and balloons, and the latest shipment of M&M’s, he confronted them about their wicked plot. Each one denied a part in the coup, quickly pointing their fingers at each other in blame. Ignoring their distress, Calvin sent them away to pack their things and leave his Carolina sanctuary. Moaning with the agony of rejection, they slowly filed out of his hospital room.

The next day, his grandmother came to visit him. She brought a homemade chicken pie, and lovingly fed it to him, since he was incapable of feeding himself. On her way out the door, she told him that his birthday present was already in the mail, or else she would have brought it herself.

After an excruciating week of recovery, he was released from the hospital. He walked in to the now-empty house, and found it quiet, and stripped of the majority of its furnishings. He scoured the house from top to bottom, in an attempt to eliminate all traces of the Duke-tainted former residents. When he got to the basement, he found a piece of paper next to the incinerator. He freaked out, since he knew it had fallen from the box in his rush to destroy it, but as he cautiously approached the paper, he saw that it had writing on it.

“Happy birthday, Calvin! I wasn't sure of the name of the team you liked, but I after I went to the college team store, I remembered that it was the blue one. I bought their entire stock! I just know how much you love that blue team. Can’t wait to see you at Christmas! Love, Grandma.”

Calvin was horrified. His own grandmother! He resolved to never speak to her again. He tried to call all of his friends to welcome them back, but oddly, they had all changed their cell phone numbers. Calvin spent the next few years living alone, never able to find someone who quite loved Carolina as much as he did. Eventually, he was arrested for stalking the point guard of Carolina’s basketball team, and after being declared criminally insane, he was confined to a padded cell for the rest of his life. The guard was an avid Duke fan, and frequently watched the Duke games in the break room. For some reason, Calvin never showed any signs of recovery.