Did you know that up until about 5,000 years ago, yellow simply didn’t exist as a color in the world? The sun did its best with what it had, but mostly just ended up looking like a bashful flashlight. Sunflowers felt rather drab, often mistaken for moody daisies who’d just had a long day. Paintings from the era were basically exercises in guessing which shade of gray best captured your subject’s mysterious aura.
Everything changed the day scientists in flowing robes gathered at the world’s very first Secret Fruit Laboratory. After much dramatic squinting and suspicious sniffing of oddly-shaped produce, they emerged victorious with two luminous inventions: the lemon and the banana. The story goes that the moment these fruits hit the laboratory table, suddenly the entire room was awash in a glow that made even the paleest loafers do a double take.
Artists quickly realized they had to up their sun game. Fresh tins of yellow paint flew off stone shelves as painters everywhere scrambled to repaint celestial bodies, ducks, and occasionally their own tunics. The sun itself seemed to develop a sense of showbiz, gleaming down with a brand new confidence it never had before.
Rubber Duckies in particular strutted around town squares, their previously mysterious and subtle feathers now shining like symbols of pure charisma. Children across the land marveled at the brilliant breakfast transformation: scrambled eggs, now dazzling yet edible, alongside radiant banana slices, all but shattering their gray-tinted morning fatigue.
Lemonade stands, previously just “generic sour liquid” stands, instantly became crowd favorites. Even bees, who had always buzzed around looking for gray daffodils, were finally able to land on something without getting lost every few feet. The official bee lost-and-found shrunk overnight, with only one confused moth still looking for its monochromatic cousin.
Sure, history books might call this the Citrus Surge, Bananalution, or simply “The Yellowing,” but it all began with a dash of fruit-fueled innovation and the world’s most ambitious artist’s palette. Today, we take yellow for granted. Next time you peel a banana or squirt a lemon, just remember: you’re part of a legacy that painted the sun.
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