Everyone says that nothing is just black and white; there's always a shaded grey area. As of late, everything seems to have peeled back until it's revealed a sickly tinge. Not the dreamy shade from the silent films, this color is much less of a dazzler. It's more akin to the color of vomit after a long day of irritable nausea. I so desperately want to believe the nothing has changed or really will. Then I look outside. Outside I see nothing but rows of trees, grass, and then followed by all kinds of trash. Crinkled chip bags, decaying fruit, and even plastic cups; all of these strewn about. Looking up, I squint at the sun rays shining on my face and it does nothing for me this day. The usual warmth is lacking, like it's mocking me. As if I have lost the right to look upon it.
"Avert your eyes! Put them to the ground! Maybe then you will be shown forgiveness."
"But I have done nothing..."
Too late! It has turned away behind the protection of a few small clouds.
In a humiliatingly small moment of weakness, my knees fall followed by my hands grasping onto the prickly leaves that take them. Surely I have done no wrong. It is they who have wronged me! Them with their falsely soothing words, their pretty photographs, and their unnatural smiles; the whispers of a wolf to a deer, attempting to caress it's mind and fill its nostrils with poison gas. Taking it in, the deer feels the writhing curls attempting to invade it's mind.
"It's alright. It'll all be fine. Let me get closer so I can help..."
"No!"
Just before it can clamp down on its leg, the deer gives a forceful kick to the wolfs jaw and runs ahead through all the bramble.
Before the wolf is out of sight, the deer turns to it and proclaims, "I'm free! I'm free! Never again will you have a hold on me."
The sun opens itself to the deer and reveals a new fire in her eyes.
