Let’s have a think about red. Red. The paintwork of Lightning McQueen. The inside and outside of a cherry tomato. Ketchup: a blob of it on a wooden teddy bear plate. What else is red? The torso of a nephew draped in a Manchester United football kit. Father Christmas’s floppy hat. Pizza sauce spread across raw dough with a ladle in the hand of a grandad next to his pizza oven. What is red? It’s a nose on a frosty morning, blood on a tongue from biting your own lip because you were too hungry biting your cheese sandwich. Red is a fire engine waking a toddler from a nap. It is a surprise set of socks in a work meeting. It is the hungry caterpillar’s head, a slice of watermelon, a slice of salami. Red is a rose written by someone struggling to think about what is red. It’s a post box buckling under the weight of bad news. It is a spot my wife isn’t afraid to pop.

Carl Burkitt 2023