Once there was a Yellow Man who lived in Yellow Country near the border with the country of Orange. He owned a Yellow Dog and ate oatmeal and toast for breakfast before driving to work in his Yellow Car. During the day he told the Yellow Workers in the Yellow Factory to work faster and harder to make more Yellow Pencils, the sharper the better.

Yellow Dog and ate oatmeal and toast for breakfast before driving to work in his Yellow Car. During the day he told the Yellow Workers in the Yellow Factory to work faster and harder to make more Yellow Pencils, the sharper the better.

The Yellow Man was restless. He thought about the country of Orange next door and wished he could travel there. "I wonder what I would find there," he mused to Yellow Dog. The dog chewed on a bone, and the Yellow Man sighed as he ate his Yellow Dinner.

One day the Yellow Man saw a headline in the Yellow Newspaper that the country of Orange was at war. He had not expected this. He thought perhaps he had not been paying attention. He walked to the corner store before breakfast the next morning and bought the Yellow Newspaper. In it he read an account of the war in the country of Orange and ate his oatmeal. "I wonder who they're fighting," he said to the Yellow Dog. "I'm sure I'd side with the country of Orange," but he could not say why. The Yellow Dog chased after a sniff it thought was new and the Yellow Man had to shout for it to come back.

All that week he read the Yellow Newspaper to find out more about the war. Orange Men were starting to die but the Yellow Newspaper did not give exact figures. The Yellow Man tried to do his job but no matter how many times he thought about telling the Yellow Workers to speed things up, to hurry back to their machines even before the bell rang, he could not do it and sat slumped in his chair. The Yellow Man did not care that the Yellow Pencils were not as sharp as they could have been.

On Sunday afternoon as Yellow Man was doing his Yellow Laundry he suddenly stopped. "I will go to the country of Orange," he said. "I will find out for myself what is going on there." He fed his Yellow Dog an extra plate of food, packed his Yellow Sweater and a Yellow Flask of tea, and drove toward the border in his shiny Yellow Car.

"You cannot enter here," said the guard at the gate. "This is the country of Orange and we do not accept foreigners."

"But I have my Yellow Passport," said the sad Yellow Man. "And I have driven all the way here and left my Yellow Dog behind even though it is a Sunday when we go for our walk."

The guard was persuaded and waved the Yellow Man through. "Don't say I didn't warn you, Mr. Yellow Man!"

Yellow Man fell in love with the country of Orange. It was bigger than he'd expected, and the mountains and valleys made him want to be outside climbing rocks and wading through streams. The trees were so tall he almost could not see the birds on their branches, and when he came across a park filled with flowers and wild herbs, he couldn't decide which of the smells he preferred. Each night Yellow Man slept on the back seat of his Yellow Car in a different town, and each morning he woke up more pleased than the day before to be in the country of Orange. If it had not been for Yellow Dog he might have stayed but he could not bear to think of Yellow Dog all alone. The Yellow Man drove back the way he came and at the border he smiled at the guard who had waved him in.

"I'm back," he said, "and nothing has harmed me. The country of Orange is the most beautiful country I have ever seen."

"Yellow Man," said the guard, "you are not in the country of Orange. You are in Yellow Country."

"But how can that be?" asked the Yellow Man. "You needed my passport; I was a foreigner."

"Don't you read the papers, Mr. Yellow Man?" asked the guard. "The Yellow Country has been triumphant over the country of Orange. This is no border anymore, this is a rest stop. Everywhere is now the Yellow World."

The Yellow Man drove home and parked his Yellow Car inside his Yellow Garage. He called to his Yellow Dog but it did not come. He looked everywhere but Yellow Dog had vanished. The Yellow Man sat on the steps outside his back door. White clouds moved slowly across the blue sky. He thought of the old country of Orange but could not remember what it looked like now that everything had become as yellow as everything else.

(Prev. published in bovine free wyoming!, issue 7, fall 2001. (www.bovinefreewyoming.com)