Shades of Grey

     Sky was a beautiful Kougra, with eyes of shimmering gold. She had a sweet disposition and an angel's sweet smile. But she was crippled in one way. Those beautiful eyes... were color blind. To her, the world was only different shades of grey. In the harsh world of reality, those who are different do not survive for long. They are an outcast, a stranger, someone that isn't wanted around. She was shunned because the world did not know how to receive her, because she was different, and therefore inferior, because she was too much trouble to bother with. Who would, with a cripple? She became part of the background, ignored, a fly in a room, hardly registering into other's minds, and when she did, was considered a nuisance. She was a trampled blade of grass, torn and broken, in the wide meadow, insignificant. Tossed by the wind... lost forever. When she told us this... If only it could've been different. But it can't. It will never be. So, instead, forever, I will remember. Forever, will I regret. For her.

     "Sky, see, this is red, and orange, yellow, and green, blue, and purple!" The Kougra's mother smiled and pointed to each of the colors in turn. "Here, I'll repeat them for you, and then I'll mix them up and you can try and say the colors, okay?" The little Kougra nodded and stared down at the colored cards. They looked like... grey. Nothing but different shades of it. How was she supposed to remember which was which?

     No matter how many times her mother went through the cards, she could not get them right. Still she remembered... other things... doors slammed... frustration... scorn. Those disgusted glares from both younger and older siblings. Her mother crying, the shouts of her father. People, complete strangers, talking... "Don't teach that dummy anymore! She's too stupid to understand!" "It's a waste of time, Sky will never learn." And... pity... That feeling a person gets when they see someone in less of a good situation... when they see someone... inferior to them... They look at you with what they think are kind smiles, but you know better. It is only pity. Only pity. Maybe, that is why we do not like to receive it.

     She spent sleepless nights, worrying. Terrified. It seemed like everyone was out of sorts because of her... because of something that wasn't her fault... So young, surrounded by family, yet more alone than if she was lost in the wide, pathless world.

     Sky was sent to an orphanage, all those bleak, sad pets. She remembered it clearly; her mother had refused to come, bitterly pleading with her father. Sky had found a picture and a note on her table... She still had them. Just a slip of paper, yet they were worth more than the world. Her father dragging her, still too shocked to do anything, to the caged place called an orphanage. The cage's door slammed. Locked out from the world. Screaming, hysterical. A Lupe next to her stared bleakly at the door, all hope gone from her eyes. Experience now... the feel of abandonment. On her right a Shoyru glared at her. "Cut it out!" he hissed. "You are ruining my sleep." A week... a month... a year spent in this dismal place. Still she was locked in that, cruel building. The pets there hid their frustration and terror, masking them in bullying, taunting. Those cruel smirks, those feelingless remarks. Others wore a still mask, dead, oblivious to the world, their eyes... dull, their movements sluggish... as if their paws, their ears, their heads, were too heavy for them to pick up. There was no kindness lost between the pets. Destroyer of life...

     If you entered as a good person, caring, with a sweet smile, innocent, you left, if ever you did leave, amoral, caring about no one but yourself, struggling to live, desperate to survive another day. And when you did... you found out... there was nothing to live for. Already broken... Some found the desire through revenge... but that is not the best way... for it breaks you yet again. Shattered... glass.

     Finally, she escaped, torn and broken. As easy as thin glass breaks when it falls. It was dreamlike... no... a living nightmare. A nightmare where you could not escape, could not wake up. Surreal like. Sky could not remember how. Her golden eyes had lost their luster; she was reduced to a feral beast, trying, so hard, to stay alive. She had begun to wonder, which was better, imprisonment or freedom? At least she had been fed in the orphanage... When alone, there is no enemy except yourself. With others, it seems like the whole world is against you. After, you just are not the same. You just cannot live as you once had. Forever, you are changed, for better... or, usually, for worse. We found her, cast out, muddy and more than half starving, barely a strand of sense left in her head. Fear emanated from those golden eyes, growling out their denial.

     It took a year for her to get used to us. Those eyes... radiating distrust. It took another for her to talk. It took four in total, four whole years, before she would tell us her story. Why she was so afraid, so... broken. And after, you just forget. You forget you were ever there, ever lost and alone in the world, and you want to forget... And you turn into someone else... Someone who pities, who does not care. We tend to go into extremes, unable to live a moderate, neutral life. We turn into a "normal" person, same as everyone else in their selfishness, or we turn into someone "different", a kind hearted soul in the world, placing your mark in the earth, saying, "I know, I feel with you. And I will help you." People themselves are an abstract concept. You are horrified of what has happened in history, but all you do is repeat it again. You argue, "But it's not the same thing!" But it is... and you well know it.

     Now that the secret is out, I think... it might just have been better if I didn't know at all, couldn't experience with her the pain, the hurt of abandonment. But if I didn't know... what would the world be, then? What would people know about... those less fortunate than themselves? As if the world was ruled by luck... Why do they find sport in watching a fight... a fight to the death? What has the world become? How cruel the world was to her, a little innocent Kougra... just because, for her, the wide sky... is not blue.

     Tell me,

     What do you see when you gaze at the sky?

     Why is it that you smile at the sunset?

     What are the rainbow's crystal clear colors?

     What is the grass that waves in the wind?

     What makes you stare at the flickering fire,

     Is there a mystery that I cannot see?

     What is it that makes you long for the ocean?

     After all... they are only black and white...

     Tell me... for I can not see them. I cannot fathom,

     What colors mean to you.

The End

Author's Note: Okay, so color blindness isn't seeing shades of grey. But we all have an imagination, don't we? XP And maybe the world doesn't do this to color blind people, but there are certainly other things. We all like to pretend that the world is kind, that good prevails simply because it IS good. Well, that's not true. That is certainly, not, true...