“That can’t be real,” Doris said, pointing to the deep purple of the sky in Connie’s vacation photo.
“I thought you never used a filter,” Ellen put in. “All natural. Isn’t that what you always say?”
“I swear, the sky looked exactly like that.” Connie watched the expressions of disbelief, disappointed in her friends’ reactions. “You know what?” she said, “It’s like overdye.”
“What the heck is overdye?” Ellen asked.
“Oh, I know,” Doris answered, comprehension dawning on her face. “Overdye is when you take a piece of clothing and dye over the color that’s already there. You end up with something different from both the original and the color of the dye.”
“Isn’t that just like using a filter?”
“No,” Connie said. “It doesn’t hide the original color; it creates a new one. Something happened the night I took that picture. Something overdyed the sky.”
“It freshened it up,” Ellen said, getting it now. “Nature overdyed the same vacation sky from Connie’s other pictures and made it new and fun.”
“But what could do that?” Doris asked.
“Does it matter?” Connie laughed. “It’s a great picture. But it’s got me thinking about a few things in my closet that could use a new look. I think I’m going to pick up some dye.”
My friend Connie mentioned overdye in our online Gratisangha a while back. Some of us had never heard of it before. Connie suggested it to me as a prompt. It took me a while to come up with a story for it. This one is for you, Connie. Hope you like it!
Leave a comment. Better yet, leave a prompt. I’ll write a story for you and publish it here on Fiction in 50.
I really like the concept. I'd not heard the words before but I'm sure nature does that all the time. And nature can be creative. When I see a single small cloud in a clear blue sky, I think to myself that seeing a drawing like that would not seem realistic. But leave it to nature to challenge our preconceptions of beauty!
That's nice, great imagination! Getting more dye 🤣