Monday, December 17, 2007

Out of Grey

I picked up the black crayon and started drawing as my teacher asked me to, i drew a pavement, a sky and a road where cars were passing with their lights on.... i used up all my black crayon, there was a sense of simplicity back then as to how i see my world, i didn't need any white crayon, as the white paper on which i drew compensated for such...
with time, i grew up, and with it my realization and conviction that nothing was as black as my crayon, and nothing was as white as paper, i understood that pavements were never as black as they seemed to be, after realizing that the color was fading due to imperfection, i later came to know, that it was because of the workers being underpaid, and the paint salesman a thief, i later realized as well that the sky wasn't as black as i thought it was, because of all the pollution and smog surrounding my polluted city caused by manufacturers who couldn't care beyond the money pouring into their pockets, ....i also realized that the decision to use a black crayon was becoming harder and harder with time, and that even the paper on which i drew wasn't as white as should be, after being made of recycled material which has been processed repeatedly to save our dying forests....
in several moments in my life the decision to use black and white crayons was becoming harder and harder as my perspective matured.... with time i needed the grey crayon over and over again...to draw the fading figures in the night, the grey pavement overrun by old unmaintained vehicles and repeatedly laid out by dishonest contractors, i needed the grey to draw the buildings with no facade due the tenants' tight budgets and demanding lives, i needed grey to draw the fading colors of our national flag, and to paint the faces of millions of us losing face as we battle through life just to make ends meet while losing every last shred of self respect along the way, i needed grey to draw our nile once pure but now polluted with gas, industrial waste and dead rotting corpses of once healthy animals grazing across the green pasture, i needed more grey crayons, but there was no more left in the market, they were all bought by big corporations and government officials who couldn't decide which side they were on, incase any of them lost along the way, they were bought by the schools to draw on their blackboards ancient knowledge by underpaid self loathing teachers who don't care less about the information they're delivering, they were bought by the newspapers to decrease ink consumption and increase the toxicity of the papers they print and the morbid news they deliver..................

i was out of ideas.... so all i did and all i could do was just buy some black paper.... some white crayons ....and drew a white candle with a white light extending in the darkness