Grey | Colour

It’s solemn and bleak and austere. It’s quiet and moody and sad. It’s formal and conservative and neutral.

     It’s pillars of smoke, streaming their way up into the atmosphere, and a layer of smog descending over the city. It’s a field of gravestones, in irregular rows, somber and sad, crumbling with age. It’s a dusky veil, obscuring the world from sight. It’s a pebbled path, made of identical, smooth stones scattered over the earth. It’s a row of buildings, their cold exteriors lined up in an identical row. It’s a narrow, stone staircase of uneven steps, winding its way up a tiny gap. It’s huge, hulking rock formations along cliff sides, or emerging from the choppy sea below. 

     It’s the soft, fluffy fur of a newborn kitten rolling over the carpet. It’s the feathered plumage of a gaggle of geese, waddling down to the river. It’s the smooth, blubbery skin of seals reclining on a cold beach. It’s the warm pelt of a wolf, as he races through the forest in the night. It’s a school of fish, scales glimmering in the light or hidden in the dark. It’s the thick woollen coat of a sheep, bundled up against the cold weather. It’s the delicate wings of a butterfly, a pale shade fluttering past.

     It’s the fuzzy screen of a broken television, as someone pushes buttons in frustration. It’s the cool, metallic sheen of engines and machinery as they toil away. It’s statues of all shapes and sizes, carved by people long gone, and preserved by history. It’s fossils dug from the earth, telling the stories of millions of years ago. It’s a slate roof, perfectly even tiles lined up in careful rows. It’s a marble floor and staircase, cool to touch. It’s a simple, elegant dress, designed to blend in to a crowd.

     It’s a head of hair, faded with age and wisdom and experience. It’s the rain pouring down, stripping the world of light and colour. It’s a stormy sky of swirling clouds, raging with loud rumbles of thunder. It’s that same sky mirrored in a dark ocean, waves crashing angrily on the shore. It’s dirty snow, slushy and squelchy as it melts underfoot. It’s an empty room, bare walls lacking any paint or decor. It’s the absence of colour, of energy, and of emotion.

     It’s gloom, melancholy, and sadness. It’s neutrality, blankness, and stillness.

For more of my Colour series, click here.