It was dark in the kitchen. All of the lights were off, as was customary in the village. It was 12:37, and the lights would be turned on again at 3:00. Bean was playing out in the yard. It wasn’t sunny outside, but not cloudy either. There were clouds, but you could also see the sun in the village’s unique way.

Jesse was making their first batch of soap for the day. He was using a lemon scent, the same one he always used, with a small tint of grapefruit which was spilled in the mixture some years ago. He slurped down the last bit of soup from his reused slushy container. He heard the start of an engine. One of his neighbors, Mr. Stine, or Tim, was revving his lawnmower. It was janky and old, but the best he had. It made Jesse think about the smell of freshly cut grass, which he knew was the signal that plants put out to communicate they had been maimed. He was wondering if he could put in a soap. He pulled out his phone and googled for a way to capture it. There was an amazon link, and a seller selling it in an orange bottle. He knew it was orange, because of the fact that it was a bright purple, and if his phone showed orange, he would have to put it on the roof for 23 hours by law. He googled again, trying to find a version in a non-orange color when there was a crashing outside. 

Tim fell off his ladder. He had found an orange flower in the corner of his front yard.

“You ok!?!” shouted Jesse. 

“Ughhh, yeah,” he mubbledumbled. 

Tim scrambled up his ladder to put the flower on the roof, falling once more while coming down. Later that day, around 7:00, after Jesse had eaten dinner, he decided to go down to his stash of favorite books. He had to hide them underground since their covers all had orange somewhere on them. He was going to start reading them when there was a loud engine outside. 

The mayor was outside; the mayor, or just dictator, was a demon frog. Or, a demog, as some of the townspeople say. He was mad. He had seen a lot of orange today.  

Bean jumped up to the window and growled at the mayor. The mayor’s anger could visibly be seen to tick up one notch, as he saw the dog in the window. The Demog called for everyone to come out for one of his speeches. 

As Jesse opened the front door, Bean ran out and barfed whatever stuff he found in the backyard that he had thought would be tasty. It was sort of an orange goo, oozing down the mayor’s shiny car. He grabbed the dog’s tail as it tried to run away, and he hung it upside down. 

It whimpered in his strong grip. The mayor shoved it in his mouth. With one fatal chomp, Bean was dead.