Greyscale

The World was grey. Though it was better to call it monochrome as the grey varied from place to place but was empty and flat all the same. Even the sky never shifts from dark grey even as the clouds scroll by though I’m told it once used to be bright and blue. I could not picture it for I did not know what blue is.

My World was small for the children are all kept in the same place. A large dome that’s clear at the top but ends in high steel walls you can’t see over when it reaches the ground. We can see the peaks of large steel buildings beyond it with different lights peeking out of grey windows at different times of the day. People came and went through the large gates frequently, sometimes bringing supplies or simply to watch us but the kids didn’t leave. Not until they spent 18 winters within the dome and started to look like the older people who could leave, then and only then did they get to see beyond the gates. It was a grand thing or so it seemed with a ceremony and an escort through the gates to whatever lie in wait for them on the other side but I always felt a sense of foreboding.

Within the dome, we were divided by age and only mingled during free time but even then we stuck to the group we knew and the ones older and younger felt foreign and strange. Our outfits all matched with the only difference being between the girls and the boys and the only distinguishing feature being the large dark grey number emboldened on our backs. All hair was cut the same; chin length for the girls with short neat bangs and half an inch high with shaved sides for the boys. Those who took care of us and taught us were the same as well with only their voices being different, they always smiled but those smiles were lifeless. Everything was simple and grey and we never knew anything different so we never expected anything more, I never expected anything more.

When we woke in the morning we’d be educated, reading and writing, math and geography but also etiquette and the strict expectations of society. We were taught that emotions were wrong, the individuality of any sort was wrong, and that we must conform and represent society the same as everyone else. Bonds meant nothing and only got in your way and we were encouraged to see each other only as fellow members of society and nothing more. Each year it grew harder and failure was not an option, you either succeeded and learned what they demanded of you or you disappeared. I had a person once in 6th year who I looked forward to seeing, though I know not what you might call such a thing, and he struggled in math a great deal. I was not allowed to help him and he was kept aside for a week with special lessons that took away his free time; he never returned after that.

In my later years when I was tall enough to see out the windows of our building without standing on my toes, they began the mantras. They told us of thoughts that would intrude in our minds and encourage us to rebel, break rules and act out in manners that made us stand out instead of fit in. These thoughts were condemned, written off as unsightly things we had to rip apart and stuff down deep. Each mantra we were taught reminded us of these things isolating each one and repeatedly driving in the nail of their wrongness, it was hard to think otherwise.

And then came the most important day, when 18 winters had passed and we were just like those who watched us; our time had come. Our success was announced to all of those who remained within the dome and two by two in neat rows we were led through the gates that finally opened for us. The world beyond was so much more than any of us had ever imagined with skyscrapers that rose so high you’d crane your neck just to see their tops. Countless people roamed the streets going about whatever tasks they had to do, passing a glance here and there to us as we passed their days not meant for us. Though it was far bigger than the place we had left it was much of the same endless grey and matched people, it seemed that little would change beyond the gates; except the upper part of their chests were now on display.

We were taken to a ceremony circle where statues stood tall old and even crumbling their hands cupped above their heads as if to catch something important. It was here as we were lined up on the edges of the center circle that we were finally told of the purpose of the hole in the upper part of our chests just below our throats. Everyone was born with one and they were all the same, a shallow dip where it felt like something was supposed to belong there, some of us even spoke of a tingle they had felt there once or twice. But today it would be filled, with a perfectly circular locket graciously gifted to each one of us by those above said to contain our purpose from this day forward. And for once I felt something, a welling sensation inside that rose from my stomach and filled my chest in ways I was not familiar with; I wanted my locket and my path forward.

If only I had known.

One by one we stepped to the center where a single metal locket would be presented to them and pressed into their chest where it belonged. They all gasped in surprise or pain I could not tell, some cried and others clutched their chest where the locket now rested brushing their fingertips over it again and again. Anticipation for my turn grew unbearable and when it was finally my turn I had to force my legs to walk, not run, forward to the small pedestal where they waited for me. Gingerly I opened the top of my shirt to expose the hole softly brushing the dip as I did so and waited patiently as they brought forth my locket, my purpose and goal in life all within a tiny metal container. I felt it touch my flesh, mold itself to the gap and it hurt but felt euphoric all the same and a cried out both joyously and relieved even though the reasons escaped me. But something was wrong, while I did not know I could see it in the horrified expressions of those around me and the way some of them cried out and pointed covering their faces.

My mind was whirling then, while trying to comprehend what had gone wrong I began to see things, shades of colors I had never before experienced. The soft pink hue of the cheeks, the darker brown of others among the varied hues of white; it was like the grey I had always known was being chased away by color. But then came him, a cloaked figure who had been among the crowd and now leaped over the railing to reach me grasping my arm firmly and pulling me after him even as my gaze fell upon his locket, square and the most vibrant dark green I had ever seen. I barely remember what happened then. I only recall how much my feet hurt from running so much and the blaring alarms that beat against my ears relentlessly telling me everything was wrong and yet I felt more right than I ever had in my life.

Eventually, the city was left behind, he brought me to the edge and shoved open a metal panel, and led me to the outside, the real outside that I had never known was even there and for the first time I felt alive. The sky was so bright and blue and a brilliant light shined down on me from above warm and comforting, the ground was soft and mushy and yet had blades of something green tickling my feet. Even with all my confusion of what had happened and what went wrong, I knew one thing for sure and that was that I would never return to that city, no matter what, I simply could not.

We walked. Long and far but side by side and as our steps matched he told me the truth of the lockets, that we were supposed to manifest our own as we grew not something we were given. But those within trained everyone to be suppressed and lifeless so nothing would ever come and they’d replace it with one they crafted that was just as dull and grey as they were. But sometimes when someone’s true self was much too strong it would rise and mold the false locket to be what it was meant to be for the locket that rested in our chests was our soul; the truest expression of who we are. He had been just like me until his had changed at the ceremony and he had to escape that hold because just like with me they refused to let such things exist and I began to understand what had happened. For mine had changed: its shape had become a heart and its color shifted to the purest of reds that put rubies to shame. But what changed the most was that it had begun to beat.