Color Free World

As soon as I woke up that day I knew something was out of place. It was the day of the big school outing that we had all been looking forward to for so long. I blinked a couple of times and as I gazed around me I saw what used to be my brightly colored room as a monochrome in different shades of gray. 1

I walked through the unusually cold hallway into the bathroom. Everything looked so strange and different. I could not even recognize my formerly blue toothbrush; it just stood there, identical to the others in the holder. Still puzzled I walked back to my room to get dressed. Layers upon layers of gray material filled up my closet. I picked up the nearest dress which looked no different from the others. I met up with my friends who were all clad in dull clothing similar to mine. We got on the bus and soon we were off on our long-awaited trip. 2

Our first stop was the park. How different it was from the last time I had been there! It looked like a scene out of a pencil drawing. There was no sign of life anywhere. Different hues of leaden foliage overlapped each other and fell over the murky barks of the trees. The ground below was like an old graveyard with the soil resembling ashes and the bone-like pebbles scattered over it. The flickering shadows made the surroundings more dismal and gloomy than they already were. 3

We soon moved off to the beach which was no more pleasant than the park. As we sat on the dust-like sand we gazed at the stretch of water before us and saw what looked like a vast rippled mercury tank. The boats bopping up and down upon it were more like chunks of ebony. I lay back and as I looked up I could hardly make out the slightly lighter outline of the clouds against the metallic sky. 4

Soon it was time for lunch. Everyone had brought quite a spread and we were looking forward to sharing our treats with each other. But when we lay everything in front of us the sight we saw made our excitement fade away together with our appetites. The sandwiches and cakes looked like slabs of dried up mud and the fruits were like dirty tennis balls. We picked at our lunches half-heartedly and left most of it untouched. We ended up feeding it to the birds that had come to flap their steel wings around us. 5

Seeing that this outing was not much of a success we decided to return home early. We could not even make out our belonging properly; everything was the same drab shade of gray. I could not help wishing for our usual bright and cheerful world to come back into our lives. 6

Suddenly I stood up with a start. I rubbed my eyes and looked around me. The glistening yellow rays of the sun entered through my window and as I looked out I could see the green trees and colorful flowers in the park. It had been a dream!! Everything was back to normal again. However for the first time I truly appreciated these common surroundings. The dream made me realize what a difference color brings into our lives and what a dull and monotonous place the world would be without it.7