Shades of Grey

By Charlotte Zheng, The Bishop's School, '29

Artwork by Charlotte Zheng, The Bishop's School, '29

I. The Black Sheep

Barely born, yet she is already a blighted mark tainting the resplendent world. Her mother maunders through daily life, eyes constantly glazed over, shoulders hunched. Breaking. Nine months of forceful remembrance. Yet she can barely recall it. The pieces, too broken to decipher, too many to put back together. The sheep learns to tread softly, blending into the shadows, beady eyes gleaming with silent intensity. Just beginning to burn.

II. The Black Cat

A scrawny, skittish feline emerges. No wool in sight. It’s cloudy now. It’s your fault. She’s tired of it. Of everything. Of never being enough, but being too much all at the same time. Like any living, she has a mother and a father. If you could even call it that. She’s like a perennial. Dying but always returning. Hiding but wanting to be seen. No one ever notices. She grows tired of constantly living in the shadows, in the dark that everyone’s so afraid of. But that’s just who she is, isn’t it? But like a fool, the cat emerges from the night, detangling from its fur, feathers rustling. Finding its way to the water.

III. The Ugly Duckling

The pond isn’t a nice place when it’s raining. A murk of greyish green and brown hues. Emptiness. In more ways that can be seen. Around the duck is water. So much water. And the weird tall grass. I can’t see over it. Good. She won’t be able to see the others laughing. Mocking. Her reflection in the murky water. No murkier than her feathers. In the distance, a wolf howls. Urgently, or hungrily, perhaps. For reasons she wishes she couldn’t understand, it was the latter. When he licked and bit and growled when she tried to escape. At first, she let him. She was always at fault, never desired. She hardly puts up a fight. She didn’t say no, so it was fine, right? She was practically asking for it. The duckling yearns for her youth, the days she could lie low and disappear, so much so that her feathers turn ashen. Trying to fly away.

IV. The Black Swan

Her feathers are stained. It’s thundering now. My fault my fault my fault. Unwanted. Blamed. Outcast. Yet wanted for all the wrong reasons. She used to hate the dark, just like everyone else despised her. She’s grown up now. Kind of. She can fly away. To all the places she’s ever dreamed of. But she stopped dreaming long ago. They never wanted her to be born. Around. In sight. Alive. So she began to embrace the solitariness, the quiet. At least there were no more voices. Making fun. Or making whistles. They wanted her gone. To disappear. To shut up and take it. And so become one with the shadows she did.

V. The White Dove

After what feels like centuries, the sun is out again. Shining so bright the shadows seemed to have evaporated. Birds chirp, leaves rustle, the pond glistens. Alas, the world returns to its former glory, smelling of petrichor. There’s hardly any darkness, shadows and all. Not even a semblance of the Black Sheep remains. Devastating, truly. Which part? Hard to tell. They’re silent now, and so is she. She burned and searched and flew and hid. And now,