sometimes when i turn around, i can see it all, all that i left behind. All that i ever knew, all the faces that loved me behind a mask. the cold winds from the land of the white. the swirling waters from the black lands.
The roads were bad, the winds harsh. I shut my eyes, leaned against him arm and threw my head back on his shoulder. he didn't say anything, of course, he never did. I might have wanted to thank him for his silence, but I am pretty certain that I didn't.
I could smile, I certainly should, I was no more in nameless binds, probably laugh, i left behind all the masks that suffocated me. I could breathe, and that was all I did. His huge hands closed around mine in reassurance, or did he need reassurance?
The cold metal scraped against my thighs. maybe i should be kissed, we were finally away from the sterile walls and polite laughter. maybe i left behind all that was me.
" ra-" I almost called him by his name. It felt wrong, absolutely wrong, indescribably wrong on my tongue. Or was it my gut? We had left it all behind. All that we knew, everything we ever knew. We had left behind all of what we were. It dawned upon me, I had left behind a name. So had he. So had all the people, huddled around us.
No one hoped. Why would we? We tore our limbs to get what we needed. Hope was a fool's prayer. hope, a misleading light. We didn't hope to remain alive, we would fight, teeth and nail, to keep breathing.
The large vehicle, that could as well be called a moving scrap of metal junk, screeched to a halt. The wind was harsh yet warm. The landscape, was a far call from what I had ever seen. the late dusk, dipping toes into night, lent the the deep green forests in the horizon a tint of blue grey. The ruins of a nameless civilization, stone, metal and rubble, abandoned skyscrapers. They called out to me with a eerie sense of familiarity, like how a sky would to a bird.
I watched it calmly. oddly enough, it felt like a mirror. I sensed my lips stretching into a smile, an unfamiliar one, of course. I leapt out of the open vehicle.
Blue grey. The landscape so blue and grey. Blue grey.
The blue, a touch too serene, a color where everything would be perfectly in place, you would never find yourself because you'd never be lost. you would know where exactly you are. No, not me. not for me. Not at all for me.
But grey. Grey. and all puzzles landed in place, it was all so fuzzy, so grey, no one would ever believe how clear in was. Grey, a mystery. Grey, a discovery. secrets shrouded in grey. Everything in between black and white. Grey was not a shade, it was everything in between black and white. Grey like the storms. Grey like the ashes. Grey, where everything could be lost. Grey, where nothing needs to be defined. Grey where i belong. The Grey that I am. Grey like the lands. The lawless lands.
Grey.
Then, i became Grey.
His warmth enveloped me, his breath tickled my nape, then softly he whispered "My Grey".
I was truly smiling. It spelled 'A STORM'.